Hector did a great job with the planning and ...

Spain | Jul 23 - Aug 1, 2025

Hector did a great job with the planning and back and forth as I planned my trip to be a little of the beaten path. I would not have known, where to get to the parking lot in the expansive national park in northern Spain for example to ensure the best route to hike to the lighthouse or the best private guide of Barcelona.

Arrival was wonderful having a polite personal driver and clean car started the trip off perfectly, The gallery hotel was perfect they got us into the room as soon as they could after an overnight flight from the US, the location was excellent and the breakfast vast with so much choice. Our private guide Diana was amazing, once she saw our pace we were able to effectively cover two tours in one as she was keen to show us everything she was so vested in our experience, The tour with her was the highlight of the trip for the whole family. I liked being sent her mobile number prior, live updating in the app and it was easy to meet her at the set meeting area. She also took us in a local market which we loved and were able to buy fresh juices, I can’t say enough about how thoughtful and thorough she was.

The hotel was ideally located for meals and walking on Las Ramblas and was in a very high end neighborhood that felt safe and vibey.

Getting the car rental at Sixt was easy with Hectors simple walking instructions. It was noted to be aware they would try to upsell you and we were somewhat forced into spending more as they said we had no “scratch protection” and any small scratch would cost up to 500.00 euros so we felt force to spend an extra 250.00 euros I think, we got an upgrade on the car and it served us perfectly for the week ahead. Just dealing with sixt and getting out of Barcelona was tricky.

The drive was great with the given instructions we would never have known to stop in beautiful Pals.
hotel El Convento was beautiful and they welcomed us, I would not say the staff were particularly friendly or warm, the room with the extra bed suited our needs, we particularly enjoyed walking to the nearby beach down a steep path of which parking would have been really hard, we also enjoyed the free shuttle to another beach in an very clean electric Mercedes with our personal driver. Again parking would have been impossible. The breakfast was vast and very good. My only complaint was that there were ALOT of very small babies, when I would have preferred adults only or 12 plus only ( which I actually thought it was ) as the hallways given the historic nature of the hotel were very noisy making it hard to sleep. This was a shame,

We had a private kayaking trip, Julia the guide was great, I felt it was worth it to have the private guide as we were fast to paddle to the cove and therefore got more time snorkeling than the group that arrived much later. I would recommend the private kayaking,

We enjoyed the planned drive to Cadaqués, Hector has us going through the stunning national park with breathtaking views and stops along the way, Cadaques was the highlight of the trip, so beautiful, Hotel Boutique Gala was stunning again the breakfast was very good and the room with cot was perfect, the parking was a HUGE bonus and its location for walking the town was perfect. the staff were very friendly making us dinner reservations and accommodating any needs

.We had a private tour meeting in Besalu and this is the only part of the trip I wouldn’t recommend, we had to drive 1.5 hours back on ourselves, Ramon the guide was out of touch with speaking to our twelve year old, lrgwly talking about himself, we had to cut the tour short as we had to get back to Cadaques for dinner reservations we had not known it was three hours driving plus being driven to simply “ look” at villages in Ramon’s own car and being dropped at a restaurant for lunch while he waited so in effect lying to be taking for lunch. Besalu was lovely but it would have been fine by ourselves and EN ROUTE to Cadaques not drive back, even he was surprised we had done that.

Again we had a wonderful time in Cadaques it was fun to be just 14 km from the French border and give us a totally different feel of Spain and Barcelona,

Return to Barcelona was great after spending the day hiking the national park and swimming in secluded coves per Hecots recommendations, with Hector’s guidance we saw so much and really feel we got a flavor for Spain off the beaten track rather than the initial plan he put forth of Barcelona and Madrid, he really got a feel for what I wanted, which was essentially, city and coastal.

Taking the car back to Barcelona ( which I worked with him on as initially he was having us drop it back in the city) but I wanted it back at the airport was ease of departure the next day, the airport hotel was just ok, the staff were not friendly and the rooms were very dark, I would have liked another night in Barcelona but we had to get up at six am anyway to leave so getting out of the city with traffic would have been hard, so it was the right decision.

Overall Hector was absolutely wonderful, listening, taking on board my feedback, coming back with new suggestions really getting a feel for our family, he even added in a trip to the lighthouse, our 12 year old loves lighthouses! And we didn’t even know there was one!!!

I felt like my trip and what I desired was a little different. Half way through the planning I decided to upgrade to the luxury accommodation level ( I liked that Kim Kim offered the different levels ) and private guides I am really glad I did this, I thought if we were spending the money we wanted to go luxury. My overall experience with Kim Kim was fantastic that being said I don’t know if I would use them again as the planning was $300 which was fine but the service fee of over $300 for essentially nothing was too much, so $600 on the trip and no breakdown to see where the fees were coming from,

I hope this feedback helps
Kindest regards
Rebecca