Nick Jansen

Aur Island was a very unique accommodation and experience. They were so warm and welcoming and the snorkeling was fantastic.
We loved Kuching. What a charming city and Amen was a fabulous guide

We group has used Kim Kim for many trips. As a group we get frustrated with the preplanning communications of each traveler with Kim Kim. Any communications get dinged to all other travelers. Paying deposits and balances individually and not as a group is cumbersome.

I was not the trip lead for this trip so was not the person doing all the communications with Nick but I feel he did a great job from what o know

Hotel Reviews

Casa Del Rio Hotel Melaka

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Grandis Kota Kinabalu

Kota Kinabalu

Authenticity & Character

Location

K

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Waterfront Hotel

Kuching

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

The Rock Resort

Aur Island

Many in our group had spectacular rooms with extra bathrooms. We were 4 senior women who were put into a bunk room for 8 without a bathroom and told we needed to use the bathroom down the path. Really???? We were then moved to another room that smelled of waste and were told we were going to be charged more. After discussion we’re not charged more but would rate that experience as poor.

Authenticity & Character

Location

It is great as a dive resort. We were not divers

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Already discussed

Verdant Hill Hotel

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Review

Kuala Lumpur Walking City Tour

Kuala Lumpur

Would have liked more tasting as part of the tour

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Jason, Joe and Vincent were great!

Hotel Reviews

Casa Del Rio Hotel Melaka

Absolutely a beautiful luxurious hotel. Everything about it was beauty with all the amenities. The breakfasts were fabulous and everything was within walking distance! It was definitely a 5 star hotel. Oh, the infinity pool was great too.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Grandis Kota Kinabalu

Kota Kinabalu

This was basically a very fine hotel in a very busy city. There were very nice restaurants nearby and shopping but the traffic was unbelievable. The breakfasts were very good. The hotel was great but the city was huge.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Waterfront Hotel

Kuching

The view was fabulous. Also the location was great. Close to many restaurants and the shopping was the best of all the locations. The breakfasts were also great. All in all this was a truly 5 star hotel. Loved it!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

The Rock Resort

Aur Island

Beds were unique…3 levels, but the most comfortable of all the hotels we visited. Meals were just ok at best but final outdoor barbecue was excellent. Snorkeling trip was great. I guess the best way to describe the facility would be primitive or rustic.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Verdant Hill Hotel

Great location, close to restaurants. Beds very comfortable and staff were all great. Pool was very nice too.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Kinabalu Park & Poring Hot Springs

Malaysia

This was interesting and we saw new and different parts of the countryside. But the transport was terrible! The shocks on the van were gone and the ride was very uncomfortable. All our backs were truly bounced around and shaken.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Coral Island & Snorkeling Excursion

Kota Kinabalu

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Semenggoh Orangutan, Lunch & Sarawak Cultural Village

Kuching

Again, a great tour. Our tour guide explained many of the sights on the ride to the exhibits.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Aman was the best of our guides!

Transport

Wet Market & Anah Rais Longhouse with Cooking Class

Kuching

This was a very interesting tour. The wet market we saw the local fruits and vegetables. I saw foods I have never seen before. The longhouse was very interesting communal living arrangement. The cooking class was fun and the food was very good. Aman, our tour guide was fabulous.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Aman explained so much

Transport

Kuching City Tour

Kuching

Great overview of city. I learned quite about the ethnic groups of Malaysia and its geography.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Kuala Selangor Fireflies Cruise & Dinner

Kuala Lumpur

Both were good and interesting. Loved the brief stop at the lighthouse and all the monkeys.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Kuala Lumpur Walking City Tour

Kuala Lumpur

Tour was very informative . My only complaint was that we were promised a bit of shopping time in Chinatown and there was none. The bit of food tasting was blah and could have been eliminated in my opinion. But the tour itself was really good.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Comfortable modern van and great drivers in challenging traffic!

My impression of the kimkim website and the way they handle private information such as passport numbers, and other identifying pieces of information is poor. Secondly, I did not find Nick to be reachable through much of the planning process, and he did not follow through with promised links for payment, corrections to information for reservations etc. in the timeframe he indicated he would do so, leaving us wondering if he were going to take care of it at all. This lack of communication led us to hold off on making flight reservations until we could be certain we were actually properly registered for the trip. At one point, we heard nothing from Nick for nearly three weeks. So the initial impression of kimkim 's and Nick's services were not highly favorable. However, the trip itself, the guides and drivers we encountered along the way, and the planned experiences were amazing. We agreed it was one of the best travel experiences we've had. The Malaysian people, the varied locations and planned experiences through islands, mountains, rainforests and cities had a lot to do with it! We are grateful for our travel pal, Aur, who visited Malaysia twice before to scope out the areas in order to plan a perfect experience for us. We will definitely be back, but we would not use kimkim's services again due to poor communication and inadequate measures for ensuring the privacy of personal identifying information.

Hotel Reviews

Casa Del Rio Hotel Melaka

Lovely location and accommodations.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Grandis Kota Kinabalu

Kota Kinabalu

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Waterfront Hotel

Kuching

AMAZING! Good location, beautiful accommodations, helpful staff and a robust breakfast bar that is beyond description!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

The Rock Resort

Aur Island

Offered all the best of island living. A wonderful retreat!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Verdant Hill Hotel

Clean, comfortable, good location.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Kinabalu Park & Poring Hot Springs

Malaysia

A climbing event had been planned for the same day, so we diverted to the hot springs first. The botanical gardens were nice, but the hot springs were more like sitting in a hot tub at a cheap hotel. By the time we were able to go back to the mountain, we could barely see it, as significant fog settled in, and we had very little time to enjoy the experience. This was one of the primary activities I had really been looking forward to, so it was a bit of a let down. Zee, our guide, was fabulous however.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Coral Island & Snorkeling Excursion

Kota Kinabalu

Very dirty water. Couldn't snorkel in coral areas due to this being planned at low tide.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Semenggoh Orangutan, Lunch & Sarawak Cultural Village

Kuching

It was a very short experiences, and felt more like a visit to the zoo.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Kuching City Tour

Kuching

Amen was a terrific guide, very knowledgable and humorous. We enjoyed spending the day with him.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Kuala Selangor Fireflies Cruise & Dinner

Kuala Lumpur

Food was not very good. Cruise itself was not spectacular, the water was very dirty, and the area was very sketchy.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Kuala Lumpur Walking City Tour

Kuala Lumpur

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Vincent was knowledgeable, interesting, and fun!

Transport

Van's are older, in disrepair. Air conditioning not great.

Logistics worked very well. The vans were a bit small for the number of people so that could have been improved. The tour people in Kuala Lumpur and Kuching were superior

Nick did a fabulous job to curating the perfect itinerary for my teen son and me. I shared our likes and dislikes and he built a plan that met our ideas and our budget. He and his team were attentive and communicative throughout our holiday. I highly recommend them and seeing Borneo!

Nick was very responsive and did a great job providing us with an itinerary and multiple options as we changed our dates. He landed us in solid places and we had a wonderful trip! The only bit of feedback is that it took a few days after we paid/confirmed for the final bookings to get made which made me a little nervous.

Hotel Review

MY Nature Resort

Sandakan

Wonderful place, the flying squirrel demo and tours were fantastic!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Review

Kinabalu Park Hiking

Kundasang

Our guide was wonderful and flexible - she adjusted the plans based on our preferences. She was knowledgable and warm. We had a great time!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

We have now used KimKim for multiple trips and Malaysia was no different — absolutely seamless from start to finish. Every detail was taken care of before we even had to think about it. Accommodation, transfers, tours — all perfectly arranged, all exactly as promised.
What KimKim does better than anyone is remove the stress from travel entirely. There is no scrambling, no uncertainty, no moment where you wonder if something will go wrong. Everything just works. You arrive, you enjoy, you trust the process — because they have never once given us a reason not to.
Our Malaysia trip was everything we hoped for, and a big part of that is because the foundation was so well laid. When your logistics are this reliable, you are free to be fully present and actually experience the place you are in.
We will not use anyone else. KimKim has our complete loyalty — and our highest recommendation to anyone looking for a travel partner they can truly count on.

Trying to capture the trip Nick so thoughtfully stitched together for us is no easy task—I’ve honestly been putting this off because I wasn’t sure I could do it justice.

My aunt and I began our journey with a challenging jungle trek that pushed us far beyond our comfort zones. We navigated slippery boulders, heavy rain, deep mud, and dense greenery where the trail often seemed to disappear entirely. It tested us physically, but also left us with a deep sense of accomplishment and confidence. We climbed over landslides by swinging from trees, crossed broken bridges, endured relentless leech encounters, and—however slowly—proved to ourselves that we could do it. Along the way, we formed meaningful connections with our guides and hosts, who cooked for us, shared stories, and made the experience so so special.

To everyone’s surprise (especially our own), we completed the through-hike and continued on to stay with a local family in Sabah. Easter and her family welcomed us with extraordinary warmth, as did every host we met throughout the trip. We were invited into their lives in such a genuine way—through shared meals, conversations, music, and traditions. They taught us local dances and songs played on gongs passed down through generations, and showed us what true community looks like. We learned to bake rolls, fry fish, experiment with new ingredients, and even how to properly enjoy eggs—with white pepper and soy sauce. These moments of cultural exchange are something we’ll carry with us forever.

From there, we explored local markets before heading to the Kinabatangan River. The lodge Nick chose for us was perfect—well-organized, welcoming, and run by an incredibly knowledgeable team. Every river cruise ran seamlessly, and we only wished we had stayed longer. Seeing wildlife in that setting felt almost surreal—the night walks, day treks, and boat rides were so magical. I've never seen stars so clearly. And watching wild elephants and orangutans moving freely in their natural habitat was one of those rare moments that hardly feels real, even as it’s happening.
(I took over 7,000 photos with my Nikon Z8 - which you can see @j_denmark)

Throughout the trip, every driver Nick arranged was punctual, kind, and went above and beyond to help us. Whether it was tracking down dry rice on the side of the road to help protect my damp camera or finding a local market where we could try tuak, their thoughtfulness never went unnoticed.

From a planning perspective, Nick was exceptional. He answered every question with patience, welcomed every idea, and helped refine our plans again and again—we must have reworked the itinerary half a dozen times or more. His insight and enthusiasm made the entire process feel collaborative and exciting, and in the end, he brought my vision to life in a way that exceeded every expectation. I look forward to using KimKim again one day, especially when trying to accomplish a lot into a brief trip.

I am incredibly grateful to Nick for creating such a meaningful, adventurous, and unforgettable experience for my aunt and I.

Long time but now is my review. Since I work also in tourism , for the trip I knew what I wanted to see and expérience for the time I had.
Loved the expérience. NICK was really fast responding while preparing the trip. Even if we are living on another continent. It was not as easy while I was on place. But the compagnies you work with are 👌.
NICK listened to my wish and needs and everything seemed possible!
Explinations of how the procedures of communication would be during the trip, would have help at first. But after Singapore, communication with Jason was easy!!
Driver/guides were pro!! We loved Joseph!!! And Vincent! Expérience shows 😊
Our drive from Singapore to Malaisia was long...the driver didnt realy speak english.
Very good driver but since the trip is 4h if we could have a conversation with him would have made it perfect.
A few things promise were not done. Exemple: meal at our last tour in Langkawe..
For us it's ok. But usuly not for the clients. That woul'int pass. Promise less and give more is a winner.
Thank you for everything and we will highly recommand your business!