Kimkim Trip Reviews

We had a wonderful trip to Jordan Israel and Palestine. The guide and drivers were very informative and always punctual and took very good care of us. They checked us in at each hotel and tourist site and organized e.g. donkey ride through Petra for our youngest. The children especially developed a good relationship with Mahmood who entertained them as well.
The hotels were all excellent except the last hotel in Tel Aviv (Grand Beach). My request was 5 star only and this hotel was not 5 star and the service and rooms were not great. Also location wise it was far from Carmel Market and Jaffa.
The guides all adjusted the schedules as appropriate and rebooked experiences for us when needed so we would not miss out on anything and get the best and fullest trip. E.g snorkeling, Jerusalem tour. All in all the trip went exactly as planned and by using kimkim all the stress and organisation hassle on site was taken out and we could just enjoy the trip which was fantastic. Jerusalem, Palestine and jordan were amazing historically and with respect to nature.

We had an amazing time in Bali. We planned the trip with Ayu from KimKim and later communicated with Thomas who seamlessly continued where Ayu left off. Our driver Agun was most helpful throughout the trip, friendly and always showing us the best. And if we had any questions during the trip Thomas was available on Whatsapp, which made the experience easier as it was our first time in Indonesia. We can't wait to go back to Bali again!

Kunchok was great, he helped us get everything we need and ensure we were safe :)
Would recommend anyone that want a safe and fun trip to find him

Bergen is a beautiful place to be and walk
We had a guide John great person
Who took us through the little streets
We were very lucky we had great weather
Than we took the ferry to balestrand
Just so beautiful and looks like a postcard!
Time to relax ,walk and bike
After two days We took the ferry to Flåm stayed few hours(rainy) but still beautiful
And from Flåm we took the train to Myrdal (must do) and back to rainy Bergen
But still beautiful
Must do climb the 722stairs and walk till the funicular we enjoyed the view ,the place
Was fun
Thank you Ingrid

From the beginning to the end, the experience was a thumbs-up! I contacted Carmen for organising a trip in Jordan for my wife and I and was initially hesitant because this was a new platform and everything seemed almost too easy. But, I went with it since Carmen was very professional and reactive throughout the planning phase. The mobile app with all the trip information and contact details useful for us was a nice touch. Margherita, who works with Carmen also managed to help us during the trip to change a few reservations on the fly and this also worked out flawlessly. It was a really pleasant surprise to have absolutely no unpleasant surprises for 2 whole weeks in a completely new country!

Haitham was our driver who accompanied us through the entire trip and he was much more than a driver! He was a local who seemed to know the country inside out along with all the interesting hidden gems that only a local would know. It was a pleasure having him with us throughout the trip and we hope to keep in touch.

The sign of a good holiday for us has always been leaving with a smile and having made a few new friends along the way and our trip to Jordan was exactly that.

So, all things considered, the money was well spent and I would definitely consider using Kimkim in future for our next vacation. I especially recommend this to first time visits to any country where one lacks any context of local knowledge. It helps being put in touch with trustworthy locals who seem to genuinely care about your experience.

So, thank you Carmen, Margherita and Haitham! :-)

It was a phenomenal trip—thank you, Dmitris for all of your planning, and Andreas absolutely made our trip! We got so insanely lucky with you guys. ❤️

We very much enjoyed our trip. The planning process as well as getting around from place to place were all very easy, thanks to the arrangements that were made for us. I love that we were taken to all the places we wanted to go, including high quality restaurants, without having to do the planning ourselves. However, I don't think we were quite prepared for the amount of driving that the trip entailed, which definitely wore us out. It would have been nice if the team were a little more upfront about how many hours of driving the trip would involve. Also, we were given the luxury tent in the desert, which was separated from all the other travelers. I wish we would have been given the option of the standard tent instead of the luxury tent. The running water in the tent didn't actually work and we didn't use the outlets since we were there for such a short time. I would have preferred to sleep in the standard tent and save the money, had I been given the option. A tour guide at the kasbah also would have been nice, since we didn't really know much about what we were looking at. I do feel we could have done this trip for less money, although all the arrangements were very nice. It would have been overwhelming without the support of kimkim. Overall, we had a great time on our trip and enjoyed the country very much.

We planned a trip to Colombia and got advice from Laura. We have seen wonderful places in Colombia and had excellent hotels. Also the city guides we booked seemed the best in town with a lot of knowledge and fun in doing their job. We had a short trip of 2 weeks, and it was worth in experience 4 weeks plus!

My trip last week included retracing family history on the maternal side of both my mother’s and father’s side of the family, celebrating 500 years of the founding of the oldest city in the Pacific, being singularly called out to belly dance in a Lebanese restaurant (and convincingly holding my own) in the middle of Panamá City, thence to receiving the warmest, kindest, globalist, most beautifulest birthday greetings from around the world on my seminal 25th-again-for-the-62nd-time-birthday for which I’m so grateful to be celebrating... what a week, I honestly don’t know where to begin...

So I’ll begin at the beginning. Panamá.

Everything about Panamá is fascinating. It’s so easy to overlook how fascinating it is, but the fates would have it that I would be in Panamá both for my birthday and for the 500th años celebration of the founding of Old Panamá City – there is nothing to overlook about these fascinations! Exploring Latin America is like going into your neighbour’s house for the first time. Your neighbour has always been there but for some reason or another you’ve never entered into their home… and then, for some reason or another you get an opportunity to enter, and for the first time you find yourself crossing over the threshold into an alternate universe and it hits you how remarkable it is to live next door to someone, greeting or commiserating on their news regularly but having no clue about what the inside of their home looks like! I think we have all been there. Latin America is that unseen habitat that you see every day … but until you’ve crossed the threshold, you’ve never seen quite in this way!

My Panamá trip took the form of a well-planned experience with kimkim, crafted to understand the stories of the 80,000+ AfroAntillians (West Indians) who travelled to Panamá before WW1 to seek better since sugar plantations gave them no hope of overcoming impoverishment and the Americans promised work to West Indians with the building the Panamá Canal - the largest engineering undertaking at that time. I visited the museums where their stories are carefully curated, walked along the coasts where their bones are buried, prayed at the churches that gathered their sorrows, celebrated their offspring who stand on their proud shoulders and tell their stories, retraced their steps from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Coast, connected with descendants who have not silenced their songs, learnt to cook their food on their stoves and in their kitchens and soaked up as much as I could about a brave and resilient people who sacrificed life and limb to move mountains and join oceans under the most trying of circumstances at the isthmus of a newly created country called Panamá.

The population of Panamá is only 4 million, much smaller than neighbouring Colombia or Costa Rica. Two million of these inhabitants live in the busy metropolis, Panamá City. A 360 turn brings you views of the Pacific Ocean, the National metropolitan park, colonial buildings in the Casco Viejo district or any one of the 78 international banks jostling for space on the skyline. There is a high standard of living here, despite a very rainy climate, Panamanians enjoy a relaxed lifestyle with a 80% Catholic religion but a freedom to practice various faiths evidenced by the presence of churches, mosques, temples and synagogues. The mixed population smiles easily maybe due to the benefits of their location … at the crossing of the world. With well established ports, plane and sea routes, Panamá is easy to get to and well worth a visit.

On the maternal side, my mothers’ mother’s father, (my great grandfather), shopkeeper, Ren Arthur Brathwaite never returned to Barbados after leaving to seek work in Panamá. Fearing the worst, Adele, on not hearing any news of her husband’s promised return, migrated south with her five children to seek work as a Panamá widow in Trinidad. My grandmother, Angene, at eight years old, was the youngest child of this union. On my father’s side, my grandmothers’ father, George Merritt went to Panamá on a five year work contract, from 1916 to 1920, but was never heard from again. This was my father’s maternal grandfather. It is suspected that George remained in Panamá and started a new branch of the family tree there. The memoirs of both of my great-grandparents are buried with them in Panamá. No one would know if they perished under the harsh, unsafe and unfair labour practices of the time, or if they survived and started new lives and families in Panamá. I do know however that in every geography lesson in secondary school whenever we spoke of the Panamá Canal, I felt that the stories that were being told, were stories that directly linked to me.

Our week in Panamá started with a half day city tour of Panamá La Vieja and Casco Antiguo by Yesenia of Tucaya, one of the warmest and most engaging tour guides that I have ever met on my travels. So knowledgeable, she could not hide her ancestry, love or passion for her Panamá. She brought life to the history of these original spaces.

Even before the Canal, Panamá was a meeting point in the world. The first stop on our second day provided historical context to Panamá’s connections. Portobelo, on the Pacific Coast, was the centre of export from South America to Europe in the 1700s. The mostly leaf canopied two-hour drive with sweetheart Julio (dubbed el Presidente on this trip) brought us to this historic town that is centered around a trifector of ironies. The customs house, for the counting of the precious metals that were stolen from the El Dorados of Peru and Colombia to be shipped to Spain, the two forts that manned the Pacific coast and the ubiquitous Catholic church with a life-sized replica of a Black Jesus which is ornately paraded through the streets of Portobelo every October 21 to the deeply spiritual beats of African drums. At Casa Congo, the miscegenated children of African descendants from the Fundacion Bahia de Portobelo, showed us remnants of a rich culture in song and dance. We did not stay long on the Pacific side and returned to Casco Antiguo the following day to celebrate its 500-year founding, visiting churches and viewing new Panamanians in their ornate Montuno and Pollera attire, clear Spanish derivatives. Before the week ended, we were off to Parque Santa Ana to review food traditions with a cooking demonstration in El Chorrillo, a slum in Panamá, still reeling from an American invasion of 1989. Here, we also visited a popular milliner Mario, who carries on the tradition of the making Panamá hats, erroneously named, since the hats are actually Ecuadorian! We ended the day with a visit to the AfroAntillean Museum of Panamá.

Finally, on the weekend, we made it to the Panamá Canal. We had a tour and partial transit through the Panamá Canal with the boat guide making no mention of the workers who made the marvel possible, but that oversight was corrected at a gala dinner later that day recognizing the contributions of persons who came from all over the world to construct the Panamá Canal. Full circle. Special recognition was made to several persons who contributed to the building of Panamanian culture including Irving Saladino, the only Olympic gold medalist of Panamá. Thanks to mom for accompanying me on this weeklong expedition.

I must make mention of the eeriest part of the week for me and it was not crossing through the Panamá Canal where I envisioned the many West Indian workers at the Culebra Cut as they plowed through mountains by hand to join oceans, but it was walking around the intimate AfroAntillian museum and seeing artefacts of my youth. Symbols that make me West Indian, like the posey, the pressing comb and the coal pot and realizing that the symbols of my grandmother’s house bind me as much to my history as the stories of those who went before me, who took these implements with them on their journey and how they have become our artefacts, compassionately curated in a museum. If I’m being honest, this was my first experience of seeing myself in a museum. I saw people who looked like me with a history that I recognized with experiences that I could relate to. I needed to see this. I didn’t know it before, but I needed these groundings. It was my first realization that as a member of a diaspora, there are things that hold true to who I am, recognizable truths that when you leave home, you never leave your things behind. In some small way, you travel with them and they travel with you.

Panamá turn out to be the morale boost that I did not know that I needed but one that my spirit was greedily craving. I felt this because I cried when I left Panamá, tears of relief and joy. Somewhere along the way, along my way, I had lost my way and this, my first trip to Panamá, was a reminder of what resilience looks like… that no matter what the dream is or where it takes us, or how far away we are, we have things to fall back upon to remind us of who we are, why we do what we do and why we must never ever miss an opportunity to celebrate who we are. We never know what mountains we have to move today to make the world a better place for our future selves tomorrow.

I wanted to thank Preeti for being such a patient and helpful travel specialist. She always answered my questions in a timely matter and was very flexible. She really tried her best to accommodate us and I appreciate that. It was a pleasure working with her, she was fantastic.

We had and AWESOME trip. Everything was planned so well and we were able to see and do all the things we wanted to do. All the guides were super friendly and helpful. I would recommend this trip to anyone thinking of going to Iceland. They will help you plan a fantastic trip.

Great experience with excellent organisation. Ang Gelu was a perfect guide. Mny thanks for everything, all discussions and hospitality. Hope to see you next year

We had a very great experience in Norway thanks to Ingrid's advices! We planned our trip taking inspiration from "Nordic Road Trip for Nature Lovers - 14 Days", we've been put in contact with Ingrid, who did a great job by adapting the tour to our requests. We've had 16 fantastic days hiking and exploring the most scenic views in southern Norway!
We highly recommend this service, as we're totally satisfied with it.

Thank you to everyone at Kimkim, especially Cami who was so helpful in putting together my trip to Colombia.
I visited bogota, Santa Marta, Cartegena and did the Lost City Trek.
Cami helped put this altogether as well as arranging trips, tours and transfers meaning all I pretty much had to was get on the plane and the rest was taken care off.
Special mentions to the tour guides of Jhon and Alvaro for showing me around Bogota and Cartegena.
For the Lost City Trek I'd like to thank Denis, Gostavo, Luis and Samir who were amazing guides and helped make the whole adventure truly memorable.
Thank you to Kimkim for being a major part of giving me a fantastic Colombia experience!

Our travel guide Fridur helped me plan a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Norway for me and my family. She quickly assessed what types of activities we were interested in and proposed an itinerary that perfectly met our needs. We're adventurous outdoor enthusiasts, so she tailored the Nordic Adventure for Outdoor Lovers to allow us to spend extra time in the beautiful Hardangerfjord area and to change the Trolltunga hike to the Via Ferrata + Sunset/Sunrise Combo. We had an amazing experience and look forward to going back to Norway to explore more someday. Having the kimkim team provide local expertise takes a lot of pressure off in planning travel to a new country. Definitely recommend working with them!

My wife and I visited Norway in August 2019 and Ingrid has been a key part of planning and executing our itinerary. We visited Bergen, Balestrand, Tromso, Lofoten Island and Oslo. Ingrid arranged our local travel visiting fords, Balestrand and then the most beautiful train ride via Myrdal. Ingrid also came to meet us personally at Bergen and walked to the city centre. She is a great asset to her company and I found her extremely helpful. Highly recommend Ingrid and Kimkim,

Overall - great trip. I was a very passive planner for this trip - my first using a company like KimKim - and I accept some responsibility for the itinerary disappointments - the greatest of which was that we saw way too many cathedrals and monasteries. At one point I told Maro that we were Jewish and would like to visit some Jewish areas or synagogues, which we did on one of our free days after the trip, but there was nothing included in the itinerary.

Our driver Achiko was great: he was helpful and friendly and did "extras" that we appreciated, such as bringing us some of his father's wine and cha cha and his mother's sauce and providing a copy of the Georgian music we heard while in the van. He was always on-time and good-natured. The van was comfortable and clean. His driving was smooth. His English language skills need to be improved.

Due to problems with airlines, we flew out July 19 instead of July 18 which meant that we missed one day in Tbilisi. I took out travel insurance so would like feedback on whether we get a refund for one night at the hotel. I notified Maro of the delay and Achiko was there July 20th at the airport for us.

Our first day with Achiko we went to the history museum and National Gallery - which we LOVED - and some other places like Matsminda park.

Jvari was okay as was Mtsketa... that was early in the trip and we were tired from having a catch a 5:35 am flight the day before.

The Prince Alexander Chavchavadze's museum house was a big disappointment. We were told we would get 5 glasses of wine, and we only received 1. The man serving wine at the museum was unfriendly. The museum was unimpressive, and we received no information about the museum. I told Maro I wanted to visit the wine-growing region. We did - but didn't get to drink any wine or learn about the wine-making process. The visit was a huge disappointment because we drove and drove to arrive in the region... for what? On my own I wandered around and found a fancy hotel that had a wine bar... and I could have sampled wines but it was time to go... big big disappointment.

Uplistsikhe - great! Ushguli - great! Except... we drive around for 1.5 hours trying to find the place we were going to stay. I think Achiko thought Mazeri was the name of a hotel.... who knew it was a village about 30-40 minutes from Mestia? Began to lose our patience... Maro said he had communicated this to me... that we would not be staying in Mestia... I think he should have sent an updated itinerary. He may have sent the "final" itinerary... but I don't think he did.

But Mazeri the next morning was lovely... and the site for several walks 10-12 km that could have been fun to do. But... not on itinerary. Instead we got to "wander" around Ushguli... not quite like hiking/walking I had hoped to do.

Gori was interesting - especially the Stalin museum.

Martivili - no big deal. Lots of rain the day before meant that we didn't get to go on the boat ride (which apparently was not very long anyway). Why did we even go here? WE drove and drove and then walked a tiny big along the paved trail. Don't think this was much of a destination.

Borjormi was interesting... but we never went to the National Park of Borjomi...?? Walked around a park within Borjormi... a city park.... ??

Green Monastery was lovely.

Vardzia and Rabath Fortress were a lot of fun.

Accomodations;

Old Mestia hotel in Tbilisi was great.
The hotel we stayed in 2 different nights in Kutaisi - nice location; lousy mattress.
Bed and breakfast in Marzia was great - lovely hostess.
Rabath Fortress was wonderful in every way.

Food - wonderful!!! Portions were very generous, and we felt guilty for not being able to eat it all. Only not good meal was in Borjomi... we were only ones in restaurant... and we had to order the meal ourselves (which is NOT a problem at all... it is just that the food was provided at all the other restaurants we went to for lunch). To clarify - we did not PAY for the meal - Achiko did... but the whole thing seemed "off". Why was noone else at this restaurant? Why was the food not ready for us... (I know I sound spoiled: I'm not. I just want to give you the feedback that this day was different from the others, in case you didn't know).

Billing: After taking the trip, I realize I would have liked to have received more information on food provided in advance, and also an itemized bill for expenses: hotels; lunches; drivers' fee; etc. We did not know anything about the food we would be receiving (enough for a family of giants) and I don't know how much I paid for what.

Reimbursement: do we receive refunds for anything that we couldn't go - such as our missed night in Tbilisi on July 19 or the lack of a canyon ride in Martvili.

Overall, I appreciate that KimKim did all the research and arrangements so that my husband and i could visit many places in Georgia in a country that we knew very little about. I have never been this passive in planning, and it was a learning experience to travel this way. It was my choice to be passive. I think to improve your services: either an initial phone conversation or more questioning of the travelers would be helpful to flesh out for the trip planner what travel elements are important to the travelers to make sure that they experience those elements in the trip. I really wanted to do a bit of hiking and visit a wine region to learn more about wines in Georgia. Neither really happened. I did see lots of monasteries and cathedrals... but that was never really a priority for me.

Also, I originally wanted to go to Armenia and then changed my mind to go to Georgia. Small detail but Maro is located in Yerevan...????Why was he assigned to plan my trip?

We confirmed our 4 region trip a couple weeks before leaving for Columbia. Our initial consult with Lisa proved quite helpful in narrowing down the regions and activities we wanted to experience. We then were contacted by Chio who handled booking the schedule and was in contact with us throughout the trip to check that everything was going well. All of our drivers and guides were amazing - on time, super friendly and helpful for our family of 4 (mom/dad/2 older teens). Lina in Bogota provided in-depth historical context, local and urban insights to our visits to Monserrat, city walking tour (Botero, etc.), and Salt Cathedral. Jasmine was delightful when we visited the woman-owned coffee farm and guiding us hiking thru the Corcora Valley wax palms pointing out local plants. Jose guided us through the dense jungle on our hike through La Tayrona pointing out animals and local plants along the way to the secluded beach (super refreshing swimming in the clear, blue water). Braulio greeted us at our last stop in Cartagena - he is a wealth of historical, urban, and cultural knowledge -- we toured the city with him 2 afternoons. And we have to mention Carolina - probably one of the most eye-opening / moving experiences of the trip where she took us early morning to Bazurto Market and then to her restaurant (Ohlala) for cooking/eating. The boutique hotels were comfy. Meals were delicious - ginormous portions were the norm! The warm hospitality we encountered from the people we met throughout the 4 regions we visited was amazing! We will definitely visit the country again.

The agency did a great job of making ensuring my comfort during my time there. My guide mr.hicham was extremely hospitable and courteous. I throughly enjoyed my trip .my only mistake for fly Air Maroc
They delayed my flight and lost baggage and no customer service to help passengers.

The trip was very well organised by Andre. I found him to be responsive, friendly and helpful all the way through the process. We needed a change of bike (to an e-bike) at the last minute and he organised it for us. The places we stayed varied in quality. The hotel in Oslo was not bad - the rooms and feel of the place was that it was a little pokey but clean. Reception was frequently overloaded when more than a couple of guests arrived. The hotel in Gielo was pretty good. It was crowded with a bus load of tourists and the hotel had a bit of difficulty handling the numbers. The absolutely loved Balestrand and the Midtnes Hotel. The owner of the hotel really took pride in the place and could not do enough for us. We are glad we had two nights there. Bergen is a beautiful little city and we also enjoyed that. The hotel had a lot of difficulty dealing with crowds from bus loads. The staff were very friendly and worked hard but they were unable to deal with the peak periods and the place was bedlam. Our guide David was hilarious. I liked David and his tour because he didn’t really seem to know any detailed history about Bergen but gave us a good idea of the society and life of the Bergen people. It felt like a stroll around the city with a nice guy who knew a bit about the city from living there for many years. His recommendations for a good coffee shop and restaurants were spot on. The restaurant he recommended was Naboen. We loved it. Reasonable prices and very nice food and service. So his tour suited me but would not be for someone really interested in the history of Bergen. My kids thought it hilarious that outside the oldest church he read out a few points straight from the sign next to the church. Thanks again Andre for organising our tour so we’ll.

Great trip throughout. Our guides Aye, Nay and Thin was absolutely fantastic, and we had a lots of fun visiting the beautiful Myanmar. The guides gave us tips to the best vantage points to take our photos.