Hoa Tran

We visited Chiang Mai, Krabi and Bangkok. Overall, Kim Kim did an outstanding job booking our itinerary. Hoa Tran was our trip designer. Hoa and the rest of the team did an outstanding job.

We researched different agencies comparing different cities, hotels and excursions to fit into our budget and our goals for the trip. Kim Kim / Exotic Voyages was not the lowest cost option, but they presented the best hotel options and offerings. Hoa was very patient with us throughout the process. We went through at least 8 iterations of our itinerary before settling on the final plan and decision. Hoa was helpful and responsive throughout the process.

We started our trip at Chiang Mai. We were greeted at the airport by our local guide, Ms. Kanyavee (Mona), and the driver. The team promptly took us to our hotel and made sure that we were settled in. Mona was clear in guiding us through our the plan for the Doi Ithanon excursion. At Doi Ithanon, we saw a few waterfalls, saw how local villagers lived, and had a chance to enjoy a very nice lunch during the trip. At the end of our trip to Chiang Mai, Ms. Mona made sure that we got through our check-in for our next flight. She was super helpful with making sure that our luggage passed the inspection process.

After Chiang Mai, we spent three days in Krabi. On one of the days, we went to Hong Island on a speedboat. The speedboat ride was amazing. In terms of snorkling, the water was nice and warm. However, we only saw small fish, sea urchins and sea anemones. Our hotel had amazing food. On our last day, we asked to see if the driver can come a little later so that we could grab breakfast before we left for Bangkok. Hoa was accommodating and helped us make the change.

Our last visit was to Bangkok. We arrived around 1 PM. Despite that, our local guide, Ms Ae, got us checked in early. While our excursion into Chinatown wasn't supposed to start until 5 PM, Ms Ae took us to visit the local mall. We got in a quick bite, haircut, and shopping before our excursion. Make sure that you add Terminal 21 to your list of places to visit. The food court had a broad offering of food for ridiculously low prices. We ate for a party of 4 for about 500 bahts. Ms. Ae then took us to visit Chinatown. Our visit included two stops at Michelin starred restaurants. The noodle at the restaurant was one of our favorite dishes.

We visited the floating market and train market the next day, along with a visit to the Wat Pro temple in the afternoon. The markets were a treat. Wat Pro was also great. On our third day in Bangkok, we visit the temples at Ayutthaya. It was a nice excursion, but it was a 90 minutes ride from Bangkok. If we had known that you can visit an elephant sanctuary and ride elements, we would have added that to the itinerary. Note that the elephant sanctuary at Chiang Mai is about a 5 hours excursion. You can do a much less intensive event at Ayutthaya for less time.

On our final day, we were on our own. We wanted to keep one day for shopping in Bangkok before our departure. We also squeezed in dim sum at Sui San restaurant. Our tour guide then picked us up at the hotel to take us to the airport. Ms Ae made sure that we got through the check-in process, helped us with our VAT registration and directed us to the right gates before she left. Note that Ms Ae called the hotel manager on our behalf to allow us an extra 2 hours before check-out to give us time to shop in the morning.

Our local tour guides were phenomenal. If we could give them a 6 rating, we would. They not only provided us with incredible insights into the culture and history, but went out of their way to make sure that our stay was comfortable. They intervened with local businesses when we needed help communicating with them. Our trip would not have been as fun without them.

Finally, Hoa checked in with us constantly throughout our trip. She made herself available to us to help with anything we needed.

The Kim Kim team was incredible. We would highly recommend them. We will use them for future trips.

Both our tour guides for Thailand were wonderful. We really appreciated AE who took us around Bangkok. She really went the extra mile to show us how to get around and gave us helpful info when we were on our own.

Hotel Reviews

De Chai The Colonial Hotel & Spa

Chiang Mai

This hotel was centrally located where we could walk to many restaurants. The room was clean but did have some quirks like the TV was to the right of the bed and in front of the bed. It was also difficult to keep the room temperature to where we were comfortable.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Walking distance to many restaurants

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Varana Krabi Hotel

Although it rained during our time in Krabi, the Gym and Olympic size pool were excellent.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Not as many restaurants near this hotel.

Staff

The staff was very accommodating.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Rooms were very clean and well maintained. There were a lot of mosquitoes since we were on the 1st floor.

Solitaire Bangkok Sukhumvit 11

Bangkok

The ventilation was not good at this hotel. Rooms smelled musty and felt damp.

Authenticity & Character

Location

We were able to get around easily from this hotel but traffic was horrendous at all times of the day.

Staff

Staff did not seem very friendly.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Rooms felt old and the TV did not offer connection to Netflix.

Activity Reviews

Doi Inthanon National Park - A Nature Walk and Culture

Chiang Mai

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Hong island by joining speedboat (S)

Krabi

We visited multiple islands but it felt rushed. There was not much to see when snorkeling.

Quality of Experience

It would have been better if we didn’t go during rainy season.

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Night Street Food Tour After Dark by Tuk Tuk

Bangkok

We loved all the food that was recommended to us. The pork satay and crispy roast pork in a noodle soup were so delicious!

Quality of Experience

Food

All the food was delicious

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

First time riding in a tuk tuk. It was a bit scary at times as we weaved in and out of traffic at high speeds.

Railway Market & Floating Market

Bangkok

We enjoyed seeing the train pass by but the people there were incredibly friendly which made the experience even better.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Bangkok Symbolic Temples

Bangkok

The reclining Buddha is a must see. It is difficult to imagine how big it is until you see it in person.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Back to The Glorious Days of Ayutthaya Kingdom

Bangkok

Quality of Experience

The head of a Buddha that was inserted into the tree.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Guides were excellent. Very knowledgeable of the history and traditions. The food choices were great

Hotel Reviews

Victoria Xieng Thong

Luang Prabang

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

La Siesta Classic Hang Thung

Authenticity & Character

Location

Jo

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Orchid Trendy Cruise

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Villa De Pranakorn

Bangkok

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Cape Panwa Hotel

Phuket

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Back to The Glorious Days of Ayutthaya Kingdom

Bangkok

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Visit Pak Ou Caves, The Religious Symbol of Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Halong Bay - Disembarking Cruise (Orchid Cruise)

Ha Long Bay

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Water puppet show

Hanoi

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

An Insight into The UNESCO Heritage Site of Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Phi Phi Islands (Maya Bay & Monkey Beach) & Bamboo Island Discovery by Join-in Catamaran

Phuket

Quality of Experience

Hi

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Phuket Elephant Sanctuary Morning Visit (Joining Activity)

Phuket

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Unfold The Secret of Hanoi Street Food

Hanoi

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Railway Market & Floating Market

Bangkok

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Bangkok Symbolic Temples

Bangkok

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Continuing Lan Ha Bay (Orchid Cruise 3D2N)

Ha Long Bay

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Full Day Live Like A Local

Luang Prabang

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Morning Hike to Kuang Sy Waterfalls

Luang Prabang

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Buffalo Dairy Farm

Luang Prabang

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Local Morning Discovery

Luang Prabang

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Day trip to Ninh Binh (Hoa Lu, Tam Coc & Mua Cave)

Hanoi

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Hanoi History & Old Quarter

Hanoi

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Onboarding - Ha Long Bay - Lan Ha Bay (Orchid Cruise)

Ha Long Bay

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Our trip was fantastic. Hoa and Ashley (Phuong) from KimKim provided amazing service and support with planning the trip and making adjustments as needed. They were professional, helpful, friendly, and endlessly patient. We were very happy with everyone who helped us at each of our destinations, particularly our guide Sun Bunthoeum in Siem Reap, Cambodia; our guide Bach in Hanoi; and Diep, our driver in Hanoi. Bach and Diep make a great team and filled our time in Vietnam with laughter.

Hotel Reviews

Solitaire Bangkok Sukhumvit 11

Bangkok

The hotel was clean and comfortable in a great location. The gym and pool were quite nice.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Anjali by Syphon

Very nice hotel with lush gardens that create an oasis in the middle of Siem Reap.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Tirant Hotel

Hoan Kiem, Hanoi

Fantastic location in the Old Quarter and within easy walking distance of the water puppet theatre and Hoan Kiem Lake. Rooms were clean but rather plain and ordinary.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

The hotel was very clean, but the rooms were too plain and basic.

Mon Cheri Cruises

The ship was pleasant with clean, comfortable rooms. The cruise itself was disappointing. We would have liked to spend much more time underway to see the stunning scenery go by. Instead we spent too much time at anchor, for kayaking and a land excursion to a cave. Those two stops were interesting but not worth the time that could have otherwise been spent underway. Most of the sailing time happened during the night, when it was too dark to see the scenery. The staff was great, especially Ducky, our waiter, and Jasmine, the cruise director.

Authenticity & Character

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Emeralda Tam Coc Resort

Fantastic location right on the river and within easy walking distance of town, vendors, street food, etc. We upgraded to premium deluxe rooms, which were great.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Bangkok Symbolic Temples

Bangkok

Amazing places: very interesting and well worth doing.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our guide was friendly, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable. However, his English was not the best, and he was often difficult to understand.

Transport

Hang Mua Viewpoint - Visit Tam Coc & Bich Dong Pagoda

Ninh Binh

Bich Dong Pagoda, which is built into the mountainside was well worth the hike up to see it. The Hang Mua Viewpoint has good views but was too crowded with tourists. The boat ride along the river was incredible, with rice fields on either side and mountains rising straight up out of the fields. That experience was definitely one of the best parts of our trip and featured some of the most unique and beautiful scenery we've ever seen.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Night Street Food Tour After Dark by Tuk Tuk

Bangkok

Super fun with lots of great food.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Back to The Glorious Days of Ayutthaya Kingdom

Bangkok

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our guide's less-than-great English was a limiting factor.

Transport

Nature Walk in Cuc Phuong National Park

Ninh Binh

We enjoyed our visit to the primate rescue center, and it was great to see the important work being done there. The turtle rescue center was less interesting. The hike through the jungle was a good way to get an up-close experience of the jungle but otherwise was unexceptional. This was a good outing, but I wouldn't do it again and don't necessarily recommend it.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Apsara Dinner Show

Siem Reap

Good cultural experience, but some dances were more interesting than others. It would have been helpful to have a detailed program to explain the origin and meaning of the various dances. The food was unexceptional.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Boarding Cruise - Halong Bay - Lan Ha Bay - Tra Bau (Mon Chéri Cruises)

Ha Long Bay

The ship was clean and comfortable, and the staff was great. The best part of the cruise was when we were underway, so we could see the beautiful scenery going by. Unfortunately, we did not spend that much time underway, which was disappointing. Much of the daytime was spent at anchor, for kayaking or a land excursion to visit a cave. Sailing seemed to mostly happen overnight, when people were sleeping and it was too dark to see the scenery anyway. I would definitely recommend a different cruise that skips land excursions, spends more time underway, and takes in more of the amazing scenery of Ha Long Bay.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Angkor Complex Discovery

Siem Reap

Absolutely worth seeing. Despite knowing that we were visiting ruins of great temples, it was still a bit shocking and disappointing to see the state of disrepair that the ruins have fallen into. We hope that over time Cambodia will be able to invest more into preservation and restoration. Ta Prohm, with trees growing directly out of the ruins, was amazing.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Kulen Mountain Adventure by Jeep

Siem Reap

Somewhat interesting and fun to go by Jeep, but probably not worth an extra day in Siem Reap.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our guide and drivers (August, Sovann, and another driver whose name I don't know) were friendly and knowledgeable and spoke great English.

Transport

The Jeeps were fun, but be prepared to be very dirty after a long drive on dirt roads.

Siem Reap - Visit the floating villages of Tonlé Sap - Kompong Phluk

Siem Reap

Interesting experience. We were amazed by the vastness of Tonle Sap. This excursion has limited impact in the dry season, which is when we visited, but may be better in the rainy season. The houses do not actually float; they are built on stilts. In the dry season, you see the stilts rise dozens of feet above the water, because the lake level is so low. In the rainy season, the houses probably appear to float.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Hanoi Half Day Exploration

Hanoi

Great visit to the Temple of Literature and the Ho Chi Minh complex: well worth doing. It was great to see these two sites, but I wish we had seen more of Hanoi. A full-day tour probably would have been better for us.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Our guide Bach and our driver Diep were terrific. They are a great team and made every outing lots of fun.

Transport

Water puppet show

Hanoi

Amazing show. We were a bit skeptical about it ahead of time but were so glad we did it. Don't miss this fantastic show!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Unfold The Secret of Hanoi Street Food

Hanoi

One of the highlights of the trip. Our guide Bach took us to some amazing spots and vendors and was willing to keep going for as long as we were able to keep eating!

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

This was our first time using kimkim to plan travel, and the entire process, from defining the details of our trip to Thailand, to the actual visit, exceeded expectations. The intake process that kimkim uses was fun, aimed at quickly deciphering what a traveler is looking for. Better yet, it immediately connected us to a local travel planner, in this case a terrific woman in Vietnam named Hoa Tran, who really knew what the heck we wanted. Hoa easily offered up countless options for our consideration and quickly iterated until we landed on the kind of trip we aspired to take. Each iteration was clear and thorough and included lots of details and pricing as well...made it easy to get to an itinerary we liked.

Thailand was amazing! And we literally felt cared for by somebody that kimkim arranged to greet, tour and escort us around the country every step of the way (we are good independent travelers so don't need hand holding but kimkim got the balance right). Hoa picked amazing hotels in the three cities we visited (Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket); they were over the top lovely and not the usual picks a web search might spit out. And while hotel restaurants can be a risk, the food in all three of these hotels was excellent and the service was extraordinary (BTW, Thai people in general are the most caring and gracious we have ever met...we learned a thing or two about being more gentle human beings from them). Our hotel in Phuket, the Amanpuri, was over the top; it was one of the nicest places we have ever visited. Despite the care of our local guides, Hoa checked in with us at every stop of the journey...a nice and thoughtful touch.

Our days were full (maybe too much so, but that was our fault for insisting that we do something exciting every day). Our guide in Bangkok (Kirana) was the best...and so knowledgeable and funny. The elephant sanctuary visit and jungle hike in Chaing Mai were also great, but our four days in Phuket just relaxing in a stunning setting next to the Andaman Sea was the absolute highlight. Finally, our all-in package that included hotel, tours / guides and domestic air travel felt like a good value. We paid a pretty penny for the visit, but for an experience that was easy, seamless and fun, we felt we got more than our money's worth.

We will definitely uses kimkim again; we think their secret sauce might be connecting a traveler to a local planner who really knows the place you plan to visit. From the outset, we were dealing with a local (Hoa Tran), who knows Southeast Asia like the back of her hand, not some random clerk in a Chicago HQ. Based on our experience, our friends are using kimkim to plan a trip to Iceland. And if we head back to Thailand or Southeast Asia (we are definitely going back to the Amanpuri in Phuket), Hoa will again be our requested planner...she was just great.

Hoa was caring and very helpful support all the time. Her planning was perfect.
Of all the guides we met Rodjana was outstanding. I believe she was hired by Exotic Voyages.

Hoa arranged a wonderful taste of Rhailand trip for us. From the VIP service at the Airport and through customs to all our activities and back to the airport we were in good hands. The guides were very knowledgeable and accommodated us for stops for Thai coffee or sticky mango coconut rice. The highlight of our stay was the overnight at the elephant nature park and meeting and walking with the parks founder Lek as she is called. The elephants are very special gentle giants. Overnight is a must! Our 2nd favorite was the cooking with a local Lanna family and touring their herb garden. Our meal was delicious and fun to chop and mash the herbs in preparation. Our whole Thailand trip exceeded our expectations! Thank you to Hoa, Annie and Ying our guides for their insights and knowledge of the history of thailand