Trip My France

This was our first time using a planning service like this, and it will not be our last. The process was so smooth, the hotels were wonderfully picked, and the guides were amazing. Everything about this was perfect and simple. Lise directed us to unique locations that we would not have chosen otherwise. I honestly cannot imagine a better trip!

Hotel Reviews

Hôtel Le Tourville Paris

Paris

Great location! The family room gave everyone some space and the view of the Eiffel Tower from the bathroom was a surprising bonus!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hotel Le Pélican

Annecy

A perfect location in Annecy. The pool and the restaurant were a great addition.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Chalet Hotel le Prieuré

CHAMONIX MONT BLANC

Great location and beautiful views

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Louvre Museum Private Tour

Paris

We all agree that this was our most favorite tour that we took. Emmanella was absolutely fantastic and kept our kids engaged for the whole tour. She gave us all the details we needed without spending too much time in each room. We all learned so much and still talk about her often. Could not recommend her more!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Farm visit

Annecy

This was another favorite of ours. The location was absolutely gorgeous and learning about the cheese process was so fun. Getting to taste the cheese and drink the local wine at the end of the tour was an added bonus.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

lol

Enchanting Lake Annecy Private Boat Tour

Annecy

We loved this day and loved being out on the water. It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon. We brought a bottle of wine as we cruised around the gorgeous lake and even jumped in.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Exclusive Day in Chamonix - Mer de Glace

France

This was another great day. The train was fun and offered amazing views in the mountains without having to climb them. Our guide was wonderful and went above and beyond to make sure we were happy. The glacier was closed for the month of May, but still so happy that we went up and got into the mountains. Our lunch in town was one of our favorites of the whole trip.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Joel did an excellent job of arranging our trip. He helped us identify what we wanted to see and then provided the experiences in an organized and meaningful way. These included visiting the prehistoric caves, troglodytic dwellings, castle and gardens around Sarlat, the markets in Sarlat and Mirepoix, cathedrals and museums, taking back roads to see medieval villages, and spending the final day exploring the walled city of Carcassonne. Our enjoyment was greatly enhanced by our excellent guides, Sandra Ho from “France’s Impressions”, (Sarlat), Valerie (Cahors) and Olivia Gotti from “travelrealFrance” (Cahors and Carcassone) who were not only pleasant and well informed but had the knowledge and ability to customize our itinerary at our request. This included adding a visit to a goose farm (seeing/hearing hundreds of geese marching through the woods was something we’ll never forget), stopping at the Robert Doisneau museum (as a photographer, this was very meaningful to me) and visiting the Toulouse Lautrec museum. We also appreciated all the excellent accommodations. The staff at each hotel were very pleasant and accommodating. We loved being in the middle of the market in Sarlat, on the river by the Roman bridge in Cahors and at the base of the medieval city in Carcassonne. Finally, all the suggestions made by the guides for lunch stops were excellent. Even the weather cooperated (as Joel said it would). We are recommending Kimkim’s excellent service to everyone as we share (hopefully, without being too boring) our adventures with family and friends. Thank you!

Sandra in and around Sarlat and Olivia from Cahors to Carcassone were both absolutely superb: very knowledgeable, flexible in accommodating our interests on just a moment’s notice, and delightful people generally.

It was amazing to get to do our 11 day trip to France and not worry about booking anything but dinner! And even then, the KimKim team helped us by calling restaurants we couldn’t book online and speaking to them in French to make our reservation.

Our bike tour in Versailles with Aurora was amazing, she was an amazing guide! Our other favorite part was the fondue dinner and lake cruise in Annecy with Paul. He had fantastic service, was very personable, and taught us a lot of interesting history about the area.

Hotel Reviews

Hotel La Bourdonnais - Tour Eiffel

Paris

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Le Domaine de Bayeux

Bayeux

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Splendid Hotel Lac d'Annecy - Handwritten Collection

Annecy

Authenticity & Character

Location

Right in the middle of everything! So easy to walk around town.

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hôtel A la Villa des Artistes

Paris

Room was very small and cramped, there was not even enough space to lay out our small carry-on bags. The bathroom shower had tile pieces that were rusted and the hardware had fallen off. We also couldn’t get the room to cool down, but luckily it was nice outside so we slept with our windows open. The highlight was the courtyard.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Versailles : Food & Palace Bike Tour - Full Day

France

Loved the bike ride! Such an amazing way to see Versailles. Our favorite part was shopping in the local market and then having our picnic at the lake. It will be a highlight of the trip, for sure! And our guide, Aurora, was Amazing!

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Aurora was amazing! Her English was great and she told us so many interesting things about the history.

Transport

Full Day Tour of Omaha and Utah Beaches & Normandy Landings Sites

Bayeux

It was a long day but a good one. Definitely wear good shoes and layers (it was windy and 49 degrees the day we went). Our guide gave us the perfect amount of time at each location and the flow of the tour itself was very intuitive. Overall, it was memorable and very moving.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Montmartre & Sacré-Coeur walking tour

Paris

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Discover Giverny along the way

France

Highlight of the trip! It’s a must to if you are in the area in April or May.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Le Louvre Private Tour

Paris

It was a great learning experience, but I probably would have done a shorter tour because it was so busy.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Private cruise & Cheese Fondue on Annecy Lake

Annecy

If you have the chance to do this, DO IT. The lake is gorgeous, but there is so much more than meets the eye from the shore of Annecy. This was a highlight of our trip! The fondue dinner was fresh and delicious, and our guide provided wine and blankets (we went in May and it got a little chilly).

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Paul was an amazing guide! So knowledgeable about all the houses and properties around the lake. He did an amazing job!

Transport

Haut Marais & Canal St Martin Food Tour

Paris

It was a very insightful tour, although it was a bit more like a history tour with food as an accent, verses the other way around. Our guide was very knowledgeable and kind.

Quality of Experience

I wish it had been two hours or in a more condensed area. It was a lot of walking and most of the food was dessert, which was a lot of sweets in a short amount of time. I wish there had been more savory food included as well.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

We never would have been able to organize and enjoy as many sites on our Paris trip had it not been for Nathalie's expert organization and knowledge of where we needed to stay and how long certain site visits would take. Nathalie set up 4 tour guides for us and also pre arranged tickets for other events we did on our own. The tours that required we go outside the city were arranged so that the guide met us at our hotel and stayed with us through the metro, through the tour and got us back to the metro. All of the guides, Stephanie for Versailles, Athina for the Louvre, Diane for La Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame and Diane (a different Diane) for Pere Lachaise Cemetery were excellent. We were able to walk straight into all these sites without waiting (well, we had a snafu with Notre Dame but that is because we chose to visit during Easter break - not Diane's fault at all) and had what had to be some of the most knowledgeable guides possible. No question went unanswered.

Hotel Review

Le Derby Alma

Paris

Excellent location. Quiet, easy to walk to shops and especially restaurants. Metro station is only a block or so away and every Uber/Taxi we took knew exactly where to go. The rooms themselves were very comfortable and the staff was kind and accommodating. We had limited French language abilities and they were well versed in English. Room was replenished and cleaned each day allowing us to come back from busy days and "crash" in luxury!

Authenticity & Character

It was very comfortable for an American. Not much on the "French" style, but that wasn't what we were looking for in our hotel room. We had plenty of that when we went out.

Location

Easy walk to restaurants, shops, the Eiffel Tower and the metro

Staff

Greeted us each time we came and went. Housekeeping was on top of everything.

Cleanliness & Comfort

The rooms were quiet and dark and kept very clean. My only complaint was the open concept shower. I shivered the entire time I showered - I began to dread taking a shower. The amenities are lovely, staff is wonderful, bed was comfortable and the treats in the room were most welcomed. I just don't understand not having a closed shower - they do this often in the US as well thinking it's an impressive design. It's not. We don't have to reinvent the wheel for a shower.

Activity Reviews

Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame walking tour

Paris

We booked a tour of these two locations, Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame, so that we could get some history and architecture lessons on the buildings. The tour wound up being an hour long walk around the island, a brief stop in Sainte Chapelle and no tour of Notre Dame. This was our only disappointing experience. The photos of Sainte Chapelle are so breathtaking that visiting this chapel became almost more important to us that Notre Dame. I envisioned a quiet little jewel that we could sit and contemplate the marvels of architecture and artistic talent that contributed to these stunning windows. There is no doubt the windows were stunning, but we did not know that the chapel is not a current functioning religious church. It had no chairs or pews, and was packed with tourists talking loud and doing selfies. It's is also a small chapel so you basically walk in, do a circle and are right back out. When we finished here was when the guide told us that they would not be taking us to Notre Dame because the wait in line was 2 hours. This was somewhat our fault because we assumed we had timed reservations, but we booked for the week after Easter AND the Pope passed away while we were there so timed reservations were cancelled. We would have much rather waited in line to see Notre Dame than spent an hour walking the island. We did get up early the next morning and walked right into Notre Dame on our own.

Quality of Experience

Perhaps a better explanation of expectations. We did not expect to walk for an hour touring the island before attempting to enter either church.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Diane was a sweetheart and extremely professional and informative, we just did not understand the plan and did not get to see the main thing we came to Paris to see - inside Notre Dame.

Dinner show at the Moulin Rouge

Paris

This was a blast. Campy, crowded, fun. The food was better than we expected. We should have arrived about 45 minutes before our seating, but we still got a lovely table even arriving 15 minutes before our seating (in fact, we had easy access to the restrooms by being seated further back).

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Your private visit of Père Lachaise cemetery

Paris

Pere Lachaise is just an unbelievable spot on this earth. It is arranged like it's own city. There are sunny spots and lots of dark, damp and cozy spots. There is every kind of architecture you can imagine in the family crypts and so many stories that you could spend years here and not know them all. Every little path has something fascinating and historical. It is huge so we recommend a map and a plan. We were fortunate enough to have Diane for a guide. She is passionate about this cemetery and knew where to go, the stories to tell and the nuances to point out.

Quality of Experience

It was a cool, dark day and utterly peaceful. We could have stayed hours and hours.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Diane is an expert on Pere Lachaise. She made this efficient and interesting.

Transport

Diane met us at our hotel and walked us through the whole metro process. We would have stayed later in the cemetery on our own but we were nervous about getting the right Metro train back so we left with Diane so she could make sure we were getting the correct train.

Versailles Palace & Gardens Private Tour

Paris

Stephanie was our tour guide and she was simply amazing. She met us at our hotel and taught us how to use the train out to Versailles (different than the metro). She was full of information and tricks to get us straight into the palace. Every room she had a story and would take us right to the front so we could get a great view of the room. She set it up so we could stay later, after she left, and still we were comfortable on the train back to the city. We could not have asked for a better guide.

Quality of Experience

We wish we had done the Palace first, then rented the cart for the gardens

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Stephanie, our private tour guide, made this more fun and interesting than we could have imagined.

Transport

Stephanie, our tour guide, handled it all. The train was perfect!

Orsay Museum with audioguide (tickets only)

Paris

The museum is not intuitively organized and we wasted a lot of time following the crowd to the "popular" pieces of art that they were all determined to take photos of. That crowd was miserable. Once we figured out the layout we were able to enjoy the museum more. Just be warned, everyone is jammed into the Impressionist area and there are lots of other areas on the first and second floors that hold breathtaking pieces of art that are not jammed packed. We did not get to see all we wanted (we had a lunch reservation) because we wasted time trying to figure out where everything was.

Quality of Experience

Le Louvre Private Tour

Paris

So many reviews complain about the crowds at the Louvre, but because we were not interested in the Mona Lisa, our guide, Athina, was able to take us to works of art and artifacts of history that had, maybe, 3 other people in the room. Athina is an expert on the Louvre and could tell us everything about anything. She was enthusiastic and just as excited to see things the 200th time as we were to see them the first time. She knew the "secret" rooms and paths through the museum and made our experience a lifetime memory.

Quality of Experience

Athina (our guide) made this an amazing, crowd free experience.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Athina (our guide) could not have made this any better. The experience was WAY over our expectation. Perfect.

Lise and Joel went above and beyond while working with us.

Firstly the itinerary was amazing. It was clever to have our time in Paris so active when we first landed, as we enjoyed relaxing more as the trip went out and our destinations become a but quieter. The tours we connected with were all well chosen. This trip for our mother and my recently widowed sister was just what we needed.
Joel's team went above and beyond regarding our family emergency. They handled my miscommunication with grace and helped us out.
This is the second trip I have booked through kimkim, and I believe you have a life long customer for all my future vacation plans.
Thanks again for the amazing memories.

Day 1
Bellevue Hotel was very nice; comfortable room with scenic view, central location, excellent breakfasts. Street noise fairly minor.
Day 2
Tour guide Celio Marquez (not sure of spelling) was charismatic and he was very interesting to talk with. Highlight of the day was Blausee, a small lake in a forest near Thun. Very clear water with many trout swimming.
Day 3
We found a good hike near the hotel, and Liam and Alan climbed about 350 m above the town for fantastic views. Wendy took a flatter walk along the river to Brienzersee. In both cases the trails and paths were very nice. It was great to have a full day unstructured. By the way there is a lovely gelateria and sandwich shop near the hotel called Bella Ciao where we had lunch – we highly recommend it!
Day 4
Ivo was a really nice tour guide. The tour itself was also good but entailed a lot of driving. We loved visiting a small family-run goat cheese factory , the village of Gruyere, and wine-tasting at a very scenic vineyard looking down on Lake Geneva. There are two things we would change however. First, the Cailler factory chocolate tour was rather disappointing. During most of it we were held captive (literally!) in a series of rooms that each described an episode from in the 1000-year (?) history of chocolate. Only at the end did we get close to any actual chocolate that we could taste, and by then we were just looking to escape (although we did appreciate being able to view a small example of a production line just before the tasting).
The second thing we would change is the large amount of driving. We first drove north at least an hour from Interlaken to Dallenwil for the cheese factory (Odermatt Käserei). We then headed first northwest and then southwest, passing Otten, Bern, and Fribourg on our way to Gruyere – a drive of about 2.5 hours. We then had another 45 minutes drive to the winery (Domaine du Daley, near Lausanne), and at the end of the day 1.75 hours back north to Bern again and southeast to Interlaken in darkness). The total driving was around 6 hours. For the future it might work better to package this differently. We would have enjoyed having more time at the hilltop village of Gruyere and the cheese factory tour might have been paired better with the Day 7 activities closer to Zurich. I think that just the southern stops could be done from Interlaken with about 4 hours driving?
Day 5
We loved the Jungfraujoch! It would have been helpful to have a bit more description in the details about what to expect at the Grindelwald Terminal. We ended up following the crowd and taking the cable car up to Eiger Glacier station to meet the cogwheel train. It worked out fine in the end.
Day 6
It was hard to leave Interlaken – we really enjoyed our stay there. Travel to Zurich went smoothly. Helmhaus Hotel was quite nice, the staff was fantastic, and they did come through with a sofa bed for Liam. The hotel is at the corner of a busy plaza which made it a bit noisy during the weekend, but the tradeoff was a great central location.
Day 7
The tour with Richard was interesting, but we would have appreciated a bit more discussion of the history around the stops we made. We did have a great conversation about comparisons between Switzerland and US governmental structure on the drive.
Day 8
The tour with Robert was fantastic, the best of our trip! He is extremely knowledgeable about the area also very charismatic and an interesting conversationalist. It was worth the tour just to meet him. The organization of the tour was also perfect, culminating in a ferry ride to Kilchberg, Lindt chocolate factory visit, and cable-car up to Felsenegg restaurant for fondue and a spectacular view. Wow!
The Lindt factory is much, much better than Cailler. Self-paced, beautiful building, ample sampling, and a view of an impressive pilot factory.
Day 9
Burgenstock spa was excellent, with spectacular views of Lucerne area. It is a little complicated getting there with all the different modes of transportation, but we were able to work it out with the instructions you gave us. Thank you for reorganizing this for a different day from what was originally planned.
Day 10
Alan’s departure went smoothly; airport transfer driver showed up as planned.
Wendy enjoyed an afternoon at the Zurich Zoo and it is very easy to get to form central Zurich.