Excellent Planning, Memorable Experiences, and Thoughtful Opportunities for Improvement

Italy | Dec 20 - Dec 31, 2025

We had a truly wonderful experience using KimKim for our trip to Italy and enjoyed the trip immensely overall. The organization was excellent from start to finish, and the hotels exceeded our expectations in terms of comfort, location, and overall experience.

We especially loved our time in Rome. Everything there was very well planned, and our Rome tour guide—unfortunately we don’t recall her name—was extremely knowledgeable and demonstrated a very high level of expertise. We spent multiple days with her at the Vatican, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum, and her depth of historical knowledge really stood out. That said, her accent was fairly strong, and a couple of members of our group occasionally had difficulty understanding her. Even so, the quality and substance of her tours were excellent and greatly enhanced our time in Rome.

In Florence, our guide—whose name we also unfortunately don’t remember—was also knowledgeable and professional. While her expertise didn’t feel quite as in-depth as our Rome guide’s, she was easier to understand, which made the tours very comfortable and accessible for everyone in our group.

The train ride from Rome to Florence was smooth, pleasant, and very well organized. While based in Florence, we enjoyed the day trips to Lucca, Pisa, San Gimignano, and Siena, as well as the cooking experience and wine tasting in the Chianti countryside, which was a definite highlight of the trip.

In hindsight, we think some of the day trips outside of Florence might have been even more enjoyable with more time and with local guides in each destination. Andreas and Enne were helpful, friendly, and cordial, but they did not have the level of historical or local expertise that a dedicated guide would provide. For example, having a guided walking tour of Siena would have been very interesting and valuable in retrospect. Similarly, in Lucca and San Gimignano, spending more time with a local guide rather than just walking through on our own could have added a deeper understanding of the towns.

We also found that trying to visit multiple destinations in a single day sometimes limited the experience. For instance, we arrived in Pisa later in the afternoon and only had time to walk around. We didn’t realize in advance that climbing the Leaning Tower requires advance tickets, and by the time we learned this it was too late in the day to make it work without returning to Florence very late. In retrospect, choosing just one destination for the day—or pairing it with a guided experience—might have made those visits more rewarding.

We would also like to specifically thank Fabio, who did an excellent job planning the trip and was always available to answer questions. We especially appreciated his help toward the end of the trip when my mother’s passport and bag were stolen—his support during a stressful situation made a big difference.

Overall, this was a very pleasant and memorable trip. We made great memories, felt well taken care of, and truly appreciate all the effort that went into planning and organizing this experience. We would absolutely recommend KimKim and would gladly use them again for future travel.