Kimkim Trip Reviews

Randall made a great itinerary we were both very pleased

Great great experience! Seamless and magical.

Our trip to Myanmar was our second month-long trip arranged through kimkim and once we are able to travel again, we will be booking a third!

All of our guides provided us with more information than expected and there were new discoveries every day.

Our countryside biking and nunnery lunch in Mandalay was very peaceful, but the bikes provided were far from comfortable for us. We loved the experience, but suffered later.

Bagan was breathtaking and the hotel was very special. I didn't feel comfortable handling an e-motorcycle, so I hopped on the back of our guides bike while my husband drove his own. We made so many wonderful discoveries in Bagan including a cooking class with May. We had a tour of the market and then were given a basket and money to buy any ingredients we wanted for our meal. I was worried about the language difference, but the market vendors were so kind. We stopped for a tea before going to May’s house to cook our meal. So much fun! Our boat trip on the Irrawaddy River at sunset completed the day.

My personal favourite point in the trip was our time spent in Kalaw with the elephants at the Green Valley Elephant Camp, a retirement home for former logging elephants. We interacted with the elephants by feeding them, touching them and then bathing them in the river. The time spent with them in the river will stay with me forever!

Our guide, Thwe Wai Soe and driver for this part of the trip were the best that we have ever experienced!

We traveled by so many different means of transportation, had so many different experiences and stayed at wonderful accommodations. Well done, Myanmar Pure!

We had a wonderful vacation in Costa Rica! Every site we visited was stunningly beautiful. The side trips to the coffee and living farms were interesting and fun to experience.

Alex and Alejandro (local specialist) made every effort to understand what we were looking for and did an amazing job planning out the itinerary in detail. I had a mix of phone/email interactions to finalize our plans.

I cannot say enough good things about Alejandro our guide. He was fantastic! He was incredibly flexible and creative to deal with the situations on the ground between the Covid restrictions and protests that were going on in various parts of the country. He took us to a range of interesting eateries where we experienced tasty local food.

Costa Rica is taking Covid seriously. Masks are very widely used and you have to wash your hands before entering any place. We are in the early 60ish age group and felt that we were not being put at risk.

We were one of the first international travelers that the country was seeing in seven months. They warmly welcomed us and were very appreciative that we were visiting.

For those of you thinking about going to Cost Rica, jump in! You will have a fantastic holiday with warm, positive memories in the year of Covid.

Ibrahim and his team organized a custom 4 day trip for our family of 5 (myself, husband and children ages 17, 10, 10)--pick-up from Hurghada, then Luxor 2 days, flight to Cairo where we stayed 2 days. Great care and excellent organization throughout the trip. What we liked the best:
• Very knowledgeable and friendly guides---both Ahmed and Nour were excellent, really enjoyed their stories & description of sites visited.
• Drivers & cars were also very good and felt safe driving with them throughout the 4 days.
• Luxor sites selection was excellent—we liked everything—the tombs, the temples and the museum.
• The Sofitel Winter palace hotel was a very memorable experience, I had a very special feeling after staying at that hotel.
• In Cairo---the pyramides and the Sphinx tours were great as well
• The addition of the park / botanical garden on Sunday was really nice---we enjoyed very much spending the Sunday afternoon there.
• I liked the visits to stone and perfume shops in Luxor and Papyrus shop in Cairo----in the future, would be great the guides to mention these upfront as well as coach against vendors over selling at the historic sites prior to us arriving there

What I did not like so much:
• The trip to Fayoum was not worth the time---when you present it as the offer it would be helpful in the future to say how long the drive would be, as I thought much shorter distance based on no. of km. While it was quite nice to see the waterfall in the desert, it was not worth the drive.
• The cruise on the river Nile in the last night----atmosphere was OK, but we were the only tourists with the rest of the boat local people. The biggest challenge was covid risk---if I knew the boat was indoors with many people we would have not done it.

What should be done differently next time:
• Might be good to include some of the dinners in the organized package, otherwise, we would be forced to only eat in the evening at the hotel, which is not so interesting. So offering the meal add-ons as a choice might be taken up by many people
• It would have been good to know ahead of time that you have this very strict bureaucracy of reporting the trip to the tourism police and thus no changes can be made---if we knew that, we maybe have spent more time before finalizing the schedule to confirm exactly what we want and what we did not want in the trip (eg visit of the citadel or mosques etc)
• It was a bit scary and unnerving to have the armed security in the car with the police car following us everywhere. Again, learning this before the trip would have been helpful---in the first night went travelling from Hurghada to Luxor I was quite scared whether a terrorist attack warning was issued as I did not expect all the security. Later we got used to it and felt quite good to have all this security attention on us.

Communication was great. Trip was well organized and everything went perfect. Thank you to Fez Travel and Mr Mehmet.

We travel all the time and much prefer local curated experiences. We would not have been able to have this once in a lifetime experience without Kimkim, Nabil, and Yassine. Nabil was our designated driver from Marrakech, Ourzzazate, the desert camping adventure and Fes but he was so much more. He looked after us with special care and attention the whole week in Morocco. When we had a special shopping request, he made it happen. When we had questions about local culture, he provided context. Really impressed with his professionalism and attention to detail - you’re in good hands with Nabil. The highlight of our trip were the off beaten paths - camp Chebi is a showstopper - it’s the ultimate glamming experience where you sit around a Bedouin camp fire and stargaze, after an epic camel ride, We met locals, wandered, shopped, hiked, and ate our way through Morocco. Look no further than this brilliant trip Yassine designed and Nabil implemented. Thank you!!! Alexandra and Peter

We took our dad on a birthday trip to Yellowstone and grand Tetons and Ben (and Kim Kim) did a great job identifying awesome accommodation options and taking into account that we did not want to spend the whole trip driving. As a bonus, our trip coincided with the start of guided ranger tours so the trip timing could not have been better.

Lodging at grand Tetons, suggestions in Jackson, and off the beaten path adventures such as trout lake made a big difference in our trip. Kim Kim (and Ben) did a great job Taking the edge off all the planning and research that would have normally been involved in this type of trip.

Great Trip to Chile - February

Nicholas helped us to organise a great itinerary in Chile at very short notice due to a change in holiday destination!

During our trip we visited Santiago, Vina del Mar, the Atacama desert and then down to Patagonia;. The tours and guides were all fantastic and we managed to fit a lot in in the 10 days we had available and felt like we had seen a lot of Chile by the end of our trip.

The stand out experiences were seeing the geysers in Atacama, visiting Magdalena Island with the penguins and viewing amazing glaciers in Patagonia.

Nicholas was always extremely helpful and available to answer any questions we had; the expert planning meant that everything went really smoothly - overall a big thumbs up!

Chile is such a vast country that next time we visit we would plan to focus on Patagonia and spend some time hiking in the national parks.

Thank you,
Alice and Andy

Sangita, Bipin were wonderful - they were generous with their time, friendly, and looked after my brother and I very well. Every aspect of our trip was planned well and we knew that they were always available to help if we needed anything. Cannot recommend anyone more. We spent 9 days trekking the Tamang heritage trail followed by the Langtang trek with our guide Palsang and our Porter Kazu, both organised by Sangita. Trekking with knowledgable and friendly experts ensured our safety and made the experience much more enjoyable. My brother and I plan to return to Nepal one day and plan to organise any trip we book with Sangita!

Well organized trip, thanks to Maria and Dmitri. Transports were smooth and punctual with excellent drivers. Our driver in Athens was extremely helpful. Host hotels were clean, comfortable, and accommodating. The farm tour in Megalochori was a surprise and delight and our host guides were excellent. A bit more information with regard to this farm for review purposes would be helpful. Thanks again!

It was very easy to plan our trip with the trip planner. We were able to choose the types of things that we wanted to do like hiking & eliminate those that we weren’t interested in doing such as no shopping. We could also choose the areas that we wanted to visit. Randall coordinated everything so we didn’t have to worry about transportation or guides. It was all included. It’s a great way to explore such a beautiful country. Our hotels were all very nice. I would recommend KimKim to arrange a trip to Costa Rica.

Fabulous support and planning.

I would like to thank kimkim team for planning our dream destination trip-Iceland, hassle free.
Really appreciate the assistance provided by Anuj,he was very helpful and did all necessary changes which we requested during our trip planning ...he used to always call and discuss and know our requirements .

The partners or vendors associated with the kimkim team during our trip too were good.

I would highly recommend kimkim travel as they are trustworthy.

Regards,
Neeha

Where to start! This trip was perfection. From the greeting at the airport by an incredibly knowledgeable driver who gave us such insight into the area that we already felt at home by the time we arrived at Tabacon. Every tour guide we had was on time, extremely informative (not only about the specific adventure but about the country) and each one had an amazingly warm personality. We saw every animal that we had hoped to see and some we didn't even know about! We started in Arenal; then to Monteverde and finished in Conchal. It gave us such an amazing appreciation of so many different aspects of Costa Rica.

When I started thinking about this trip, I had a fairly specific idea of what we wanted to do. This was a trip for me and my 24 year old daughter. Alex and Francisco came up with a custom itinerary that far surpassed anything I could have thought up. They listened to everything I said and turned my ideas into a trip that became a trip of a lifetime. During the planning process they were with me the whole time. Always available by email and phone, to go over any question I had. We were there when the Corona virus just started to impact the US. By the time we left we were one of eight guests at our hotel. During the last week of the trip, the Costa Rican government closed their borders to incoming non-residents. Not only did everything go as planned, but as they were trying to get people home and deal with all of the cancellations, we never felt like we weren't being taken care of.

I could write a book about this trip and how amazing it was and I have Alex and Francisco to thank for that. If I could - I would go back tomorrow morning and have them plan everything. I plan to do just that next year as soon as I possibly can.

My husband I are traveled to Argentina for our honeymoon and Emi helped us plan the perfect itinerary. Emi had great suggestions for our getaway, and accommodated all of our requests. Unfortunately the end of your trip was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we had to return home sooner than anticipated, but we were able to enjoy the time that we had. We thoroughly enjoyed our private tour of Buenos Aires with Federico, our private tour of the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls. Mendoza was the highlight of our trip. We loved all of the hotels that Emi booked/suggested for us. We were only able to spend one night in El Calafate, and unable to do any of our planned excursions in Calafate/Chalten, but we will be back! Emi stayed in constant contact with us after COVID-19 travel restrictions started being implemented, and even gave us her personal phone number. We highly recommend Emi if you are planning a trip to Argentina!

Oliver was great managing the whole COVID19 situation, ensured I had the most uptodate information so I could make an informed decision to leave as soon as i possibly could. And for that, I am incredibly grateful to his situational awareness. Even though I couldn't enjoy everything Colombia had to offer, I was well looked after with really great accommodation and itinerary options. Thank you Oliver!

I wrote to Kim Kim re cycling in NZ having some ideas of what we wanted (and what we did not want). Valentin responded immediately and through some correspondence we planned 2 weeks cycling in Sth Island of New Zealand. He understood our needs and catered to our preferences. The choice of trails, accommodation and attention to detail was fantastic (the trip itself was amazing, so varied in scenery and types of trails. We loved the small towns, the unique accommodations and people, having our luggage transported and the organizations of shuttles to and from airport, train and buses and the bicycle company to provide bicycles, support and guidance for the cycling and even suggestions for hikes to do at Mt Cook. Certainly a most memorable experience and a patch of blue while the storm clouds of Covid-19 gathered. We finished the trip on a real high with many lovely memories to carry us through our isolation/quarantine on returning home.

We cannot be more impressed with the exceptional service provided by Margoth @ Aracanto on our Colombia trip. We found her on kimkim.com to help us put together a 10-day itinerary. She promptly responded to our emails, eloquently answered every little query and request and gave excellent recommendations and options for every aspect of the trip. Our itinerary was unfortunately truncated by the COVID pandemic travel restrictions but we have nothing but praise for Margoth’s concern and support for us as we embarked on our tenuous four-flight journey home to Australia. We felt very well looked after from the first moment until arriving back on home soil. We highly recommend Margoth @ Aracanto if you are planning a trip to this beautiful, proud and wonderful country. We will be back! Thanks for everything Margoth!

This is the 14th day of my isolation. I left Santiago. a city then filled with smiling friendly people going about their chores and lives. to return to a place filled with fear and going deeper in civic shutdown, where some are even being encouraged to tell on one another for alleged breaches of the new normal. And I am so thankful for the ten wonderful days we spent in Chile with all of you looking out for us.

I can truly say that our visit owes much of its magic to the care and thoughtfulness of our handlers and hosts. So I want to thank Maria and Lilia and Across Argentina for planning and organizing our Desert and Wine Tour. Your itinerary and accomodation selections were spot on . The local Tour operators Chile Roads and CI Mundo were very professional and always prompt. The tour guides were very friendly and so very helpful. We learned so much from them all, But I want to especially recognize Nelson Silva, a warm and caring person. We came to appreciate his efforts greatly, In general the tour guides (four guides) were enthusiastic about their work and very knowledgeable Their employers should be very pleased with their work Without the guides and drivers such as these, a tour is empty. And ours were full of life and captivating.

Thank You all Please be sure that you share our gratitude with them all

Although Andy's name is listed as our local specialist - in reality all credit goes to Ha! We had never worked with a tour company before, but KimKim came highly recommended by my brother who had used them last year. Ha worked so closely with us in the planning - showing genuine flexibility and modifying the program to our exact specifications. We were in Vietnam and Cambodia with another couple - and had a wonderful trip. Even as the pandemic spread - Ha made sure we were safe and aware of changing dynamics. Fortunately, we stayed one step ahead of the virus and enjoyed all the sites and fabulous hotels booked by KimKim. We visited Hanoi, took the train to Sapa (I preferred the van back!) where we trekked amongst the tribes, enjoyed the stunning Halong Bay on a lovely small ship, spent a few days in Angor Wat (with a picnic and massages in a "secret sacred spot"), Saigon and then relaxing on the beach at our favorite hotel - La Veranda in Phu Quoc. Would highly recommended Kim Kim and Ha to anyone planning this trip of a lifetime (when we can all travel again!)