Felipe Rico

The planning process with Felipe was very good. He was prompt in answering questions and providing information to customize the trip the way I wanted. The travel experience was excellent and the guides were great, especially Herman in the Amazon, who was very knowledgeable, friendly and accomodating.

The one big negative about kimkim is a lack of transparency when it comes to pricing. I requested for a breakdown of the amount that I was paying, which I was denied. You are charged a lumpsum and there is no clarity on how much of it is going towards the actual trip costs (e.g. how much of it was spent on flights. how much on accommodation etc.). As a paying customer, I have a right to know how my money is being used and if I am getting my money's worth.

I am happy with the planning process and the travel experience, but the lack of pricing transparency makes me hesitate to use the service for future travels or to recommend it to friends.

Felipe and team were very communicative and in touch the entire time. They picked great places for dinner and set up wonderful guides. David in Bogata was very knowledgeable and had a great background in history. Diego in Medellín was a lot of fun and shared very interesting context to the places we visited. Carolina in Cartegena had great energy and provided some additional local places to grab a beer and good eats. Felipe put together a trip that was exactly what we wanted with tours and all of our dinner reservations. We just showed up to enjoy!

Hotel Reviews

Patio del Mundo

Medellín

Beautiful location and small hotel. You feel like a guest in a wonderful home.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Walking distance to great restaurants

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

The Artisan D.C. Hotel, Autograph Collection

Bogotá

The Artisan D.C. Hotel was great with a fabulous location. The service was top-notch and we felt very taken care of.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Highlights of Bogotá City Tour (with Gold Museum, Local Market and Monserrate Hill)

Bogotá

Our Bogota guide, David, was super knowledgeable. His depth of knowledge was impressive.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Half-Day Coffee Farm Tour

Medellín

The coffee tour was intriguing but I'm mixed about whether I would recommend it to someone else. It felt like it was something that could be skipped if you were pressed for time.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

The Best of Medellín City Tour (with Comuna 13)

Medellín

The walking tour is a must, the fruit tour was okay, but the rum tour is an absolute must-do. It was amazing! The one downside was the restaurant Marea, which was the worst meal we had in Colombia.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Welcome to Colombia!

Colombia

The welcome to Colombia was fabulous. Felipe and his team were absolutely amazing, setting up a WhatsApp and communicating with us all the time.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Guatavita Lake Tour and Usaquén

Bogotá

The Guatavita Lake Tour was interesting and the dinner at Artisanal Crepes & Waffles was great. The only issue was the altitude, which could be a problem for some people.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Rum Tasting with Chocolate Pairing

Cartagena

Very educational and fun. Trying 8 rums with chocolate.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Hello, Filipe … We are now back to our home in the US and sorting through dirty laundry and backed up mail. After our own stops and starts on the trip planning, we are very pleased with the overall trip experience that you and your guides assembled.

· Guides. Each of your three assigned guides were excellent, with English language communication skills and insights into Columbia’s past drug lord issues. Guide Diago realized that Robert was not as nimble-footed as he once was, and suggested wheel chairs when necessary. Using such a vehicle, Diago pushed Robert up the very steep walkway in Medellin for a very interesting neighborhood visit. Quite a task!

· Hotels. We were pleased with our hotels in Bogota and Cartegena However, Patio del Mundi there needs some help. We were first booked into a back room that could only be accessed by a crazy quilt of patio and unlit steps. The following day, due to our complaints, we were changed to another smaller room, but with door keys that did not work. In addition, breakfast each morning offered only the same scrambled eggs plate, a couple of the pastries that did not seem that fresh, and coffee where it took forever to get a second cup and that tasted like instant. Patio del Mundi is a small pleasant hotel that really needs some work.

· Restaurant Meals. We planned the trip by asking you to book us in top restaurants in each city. You really achieved our expectations throughout! The lady at the front desk in Cartagena, when we asked each day for a cab to our designated restaurant, said that we were really going to the best restaurants in Cartagena. Our only comment regarding asl of these restaurant reservations was Medellin’s El Ciello, which was perhaps too much over the top for us. They featured a 17 -course tasting menu. That was just too much for our tastes. We skipped that and ordered a lesser selection from their menu.

Overall, we are very pleased with our trip to Columbia and your schedule adjustments, despite our own personal back and forth changes. We would be pleased to provide a favorable reference to others as you may wish.

If I have a grumble about your trip organization, it is your failure to communicate via standard MICROSOFT email. For example, you spent far too much time claiming I should us an application called "Whats App". I wasted too much time and never got the application to work.

We had a great time with unique experiences in Medellin, and Cartegena. Our guide Diego in Medellin was excellent. He encouraged us to speak spanish and made sure we were comfortable at all times. Great time!

Our family trip to the Tayrona and The Sierra area near Santa Marta was memorable. Erik Ramirez our guide was terrific. His knowledge of flora, fauna, animals and archeology was superb and he maintained the children’s attention with his information. All three adventures were fantastic but Tayronaka and the inner tube floating experience down the Don Diego River left a special place in our heart. We are still waiting for the photos that Erik promised us.

In Cartagena Jose Miguel was fantastic. The temperature was quite high and he made sure to keep us cool and entertained. He was also very knowledgeable . Most memorable for both children and adults was the music and drum workshop at La Boquilla

Overall we were very happy with our guides and experience.s…Transportation to all locations was very comfortable with luxury air conditioned vans….Thank you Kim Kim, Felipe, Erik and Jose Miguel and all of the drivers and guides for a truly memorable experience.

Overall we were very pleased with our trip to Colombia. The trip was well organized and balanced. In fact before the start I was a little worried, but it worked perfectly for us that out of 12 nights we spent three nights in each of four very different locations: Bogota, Pereira, Medellin and Cartagena. We definitely recommend this approach for first visit to Colombia.

Filipe and his team took care about every detail and all four local guides (David, Omar, Patricia and Sandra) were very knowledgeable and passionate about their country.

Fact is that we were quite lucky with the weather, but regardless of this we dare to say that going to Colombia in rainy season was the right decision and a great experience.

Great experience working with and booking through KimKim! Excellent platform for connections to and interactions with local tour providers. Just returned from a week in Colombia organized by Aracanto Colombia through KimKim. Review of the experience below:
I am not prone to superlatives or hyperbole. However, I would be horribly remiss if I were to not use them to describe the service my we have received thus far from Felipe Rico, Margoth Rico, and team at Aracanto. Woefully insufficient number of stars available to grade their service!
We are in the second half of our tour of Colombia and it has been nothing short of exceptional! We travel a lot the world over, and Aracanto are hands-down among the best travel curators we have worked with! Right from the get-go, our connection with Felipe Rico was very comfortable - he was calm, understanding, very responsive and friendly, and curated a superb private tour itinerary for us, spanning sights in and around Medellin and Cartagena. As advertised, Felipe, Margoth, and team are passionate, care deeply about showing off their country and are equally, if not more, solicitous of their customers’ needs and desires. They hooked us up with superb lodging (the Patio del Mundo boutique hotel in Medellin was a magical tropical bungalow/paradise - great service, exceptional lodgings, the lovely welcome gift awaiting us at the hotel was a thoughtful surprise; Nacar Hotel Curio Collection by Hilton, is equally unique, in the walled old city in Cartagena - superb location) and equally superb guides in each city - Andres Jimenez in Medellin, a knowledgeable and passionate young man (a well-traveled, multilingual (Spanish/English/Portuguese) Chemical Engineer by education and experience, turned expert travel guide) who became a friend; and Isaac Francis in Cartagena, equally competent and friendly!
Felipe, Margoth, and team have been exceptionally organized, superbly responsive to our myriad queries, and keenly attuned to our tastes and preferences. In an instance where a certain planned event did not occur due to a miscommunication by the event owner, they promptly refunded that portion of the cost - no questions asked!
The restaurants they chose for us, the visits to picturesque/colorful Guatape and El Peñol near Medellin, to rum and chocolate tasting at the Arsenal of Rum, and cooking with Caro (owner-chef at Oh La La Bistro - see separate review), both in the Getesmani, neighborhood of Cartagena, to a resort/beach excursion at Isla Bomba tomorrow …each better than the other! Thank you, Felipe, Margoth and the rest of the Aracanto team for making our first visit to Colombia a memorable one!
Did I say I was not given to superlatives/hyperbole?? Oh, what the heck!!

Hotel Reviews

Patio del Mundo

Medellín

Lovely boutique hotel in the leafy/hilly/safe El Poblado neighborhood of Medellin. Spans two bungalows that are beautifully repurposed to serve as a boutique hotel. Incredible tropical foliage and local handicraft decor woven into the common areas - very welcoming, inviting, refreshing. The owner, Agnes(?) has fantastic taste - ably supported by dedicated staff who are eager to please. Service and breakfast were superb…rooms are elegantly appointed, shower areas have colorful local tiling with a great touch - plants/foliage inside the shower enclosure. Only regret - spent too little time at this location. Plan to return, however. Kudos to Andres/Isabel/Erica/Laura/Housekeeping, for taking good care of us!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Located in El Poblado - a leafy/hilly/safe area, of Medellin. Proximate to wonderful restaurants.

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Nacar Hotel Cartagena, Curio Collection by Hilton

Cartagena

Lovely Hilton hotel in their Curio Collection, located near the sea wall and within the old walled city of Cartegena. Large, well-appointed rooms with typical Hilton amenities - clean rooms, comfortable beds, good toiletries, great shower pressure and drainage! On-site Uma Restaurant provides excellent local and western breakfast and local delicacies for lunch and dinner. Great staff -eager to please. Only downsides: a) Hardly any of the staff speaks English, despite the town and hotel hosting significant numbers of tourists from English-speaking countries. Made communication very difficult - combo of our elementary Spanish and the staff’s equally elementary English. b) We were located on the 3rd floor - directly below the 4th floor bar/club, Gets extremely noisy with staff dragging furniture etc during off times and loud thumping reggaeton and other club music well into the night on weekends! Made sleeping rather difficult!

Authenticity & Character

Located in an in-character building, within the walled city.

Location

Inside walled city, proximate to shopping, sites, restaurants.

Staff

Excellent staff - eager to please; however, lack of English-speaking ability was a severe constraint for us. If you are planning to stay here, beef up on your Spanish!

Cleanliness & Comfort

Superb cleanliness and in-room amenities. Typical Hilton standards

Activity Reviews

Welcome to Colombia!

Colombia

All of transfers were flawless including the one from to and from the airport!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Dinner Reservation at El Correo (Y Amada) Provenza

Medellín

We enjoyed the dinner reservations made by the travel specialist, particularly our meal at El Correo in Medellin. It was a very nice and fancy restaurant, and the food was good. However, after trying a few Colombian dishes, we decided to explore different cuisines and found our own dining spots. We appreciated the flexibility provided by the travel specialist and the curated restaurant recommendations.

Quality of Experience

City Tour of Medellín (with Local Market and Comuna 13)

Medellín

Our guide was knowledgeable and friendly. You can tell the people here are very passionate about their country and have a lot of pride.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Guatape and El Peñol Tour & Airport Transfer: {{start_location}} to {{end_location}}

Colombia

Once again we had a flawless experience with transfers and transportation, the vehicles were nice, and the staff provided excellent service.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Walking Tour of Cartagena Old City

Colombia

The guide Andres was phenomenal, the first half of the tour was wonderful, but the second half of the walking tour was more shopping. We wish they separated the shopping from the tour or let us know to come back to the shopping later, as we felt a bit rushed.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Rum Tasting with Chocolate Pairing

Cartagena

We had a phenomenal experience at the rum tasting, which included a chocolate pairing, and the local staff was very knowledgeable and attentive.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Private Cooking Class and Lunch (with Bazurto Market)

Cartagena

We enjoyed the cooking class with Carlina, at her restaurant, which provided a unique and enjoyable experience. We got to walk around the market beforehand with her and then she even walked us to our next tour afterwards.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

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Traditional Colombian Coffee Tasting

Cartagena

The coffee-tasting experience was disappointing as the host was not prepared for our arrival, causing us to cancel the activity. We appreciated our specialist, Felipe, who took care of the cancellation.

Day Pass at Tierra Bomba Island at Makani Beach Club - Pool Lounge Chairs Reserved

Colombia

We found the beach club pool lounge experience to be decent but not something we would necessarily repeat, we were glad we did it but we prefer more active and cultural activities. We also felt like the poolside lounge chairs were a bit expensive. We would recommend waiting until you arrive to book the chairs.

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Guides, Drivers and Staff

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