Kimkim Trip Reviews

It was a delight working with James on my family's recent trip to Andalucia. He was very helpful in guiding us through our options for traveling in the area. His knowledge and expertise of our travel options, as well as his flexibility and helpfulness in adjusting our itinerary to meet my family's specific needs, were essential in ensuring that we had the best experience possible. Our trip also included some slightly more challenging travel that involved the very busy (while delightfully fascinating) Santa Semana week in Seville, with young kids in tow, which James helped us navigate through.

On our arrival, the Tailormade Andalucia team made us feel thoroughly welcomed and made themselves available to our needs. Communication was prompt and effective, and all the right expectations were set for each step of the journey. James did a great job setting up our travel logistics, and everything has gone smoothly.

I would strongly recommend James and the Tailormade Andalucia team for your future trip to Andalucia.

We found the trip really well organised and the KimKim team very helpful and adaptable if we needed something changing. The scenery was stunning and the accommodation was always comfortable. We received full board throughout and this was always of a great standard. Our guide was knowledgeable and ensured our safety throughout the trip, however we did encounter language barriers when we needed to know certain things, and found that he wasn’t always giving us local knowledge when other guides were doing this. He seemed quite shy however he did ensure that we had a very successful trip. Our porter was also excellent and made the trip much more manageable. Thanks for an unforgettable experience!

Had an amazing trip to Sri Lanka with a group of friends in March/April 2019. The Blue Whale watching in Marrissa was a highlight (for me) as was the safari tour where we came very close to elephants and all sorts of wildlife. Travelling on the roads in Sri Lanka is not for the faint hearted - our driver Anoj was excellent and we felt safe and comfortable at all times. Distances can be deceiving - one day travelling a few hundred kilometres took us over 6 hours - which was exhausting - some roads are narrow and congested with traffic of all sorts (including domestic cows wandering about). Our accommodations (suggested by Kimkim) were all excellent choices - we especially loved the riverside tent camp. A useful tip for people using this service is to check beforehand or specify if you wish your accommodations to be near multiple options for your evening meal, quite often we found ourselves with only the option of eating at the hotel where we were staying - which were all excellent, we had amazing food and was all very reasonably priced. Also due to the time travelling to each destination meant that we often went without lunch, which wasn't really an issue as the breakfasts included in each hotel were plentiful and always included a hot meal option. Meeting local villagers and experiencing a traditional meal cooked over an open fire and eating it with our hand was another highlight - we drank bottled water the whole time but had no problem with bad tummies - the high quality of the hygiene practices of all the food places was a relief. The booking experience with Shalindra for me was excellent - he was quick to respond to all of my changes and requests for information - he called during the trip to ensure all was going well - which was appreciated. I requested an early change to add the whale watching to the itinerary, which I expected the accommodation would also change to suit, however it did not, we ended up travelling 2 hours one way to our hotel to only then have to get up really early the following morning to backtrack 1 1/2 hours to get back to where we had travelled from he night before. I guess I should have checked this at the time I made the change (however I expected this sort of detail to be considered and sorted before the final bookings were locked in). Overall it was still an exceptional service and company to have done this trip with. A really special shout out to Anoj our driver who was amazing throughout the whole trip, from the very start when my luggage did not appear at the airport (stressful) he spoke to the locals and sorted everything out, to the very flexible and friendly manner with which he conducted our tour and supported us through everything right down to accompanying us into small local shops to ensure we had no trouble communicating what we needed. Thank you team! I would highly recommend KimKim, Shalindra and Anoj to everyone and anyone!

My husband and I have just returned from 10 magical nights in Bhutan which was organised by Trophel Tours and Treks. Vishal and Sonam the owners of Trophel Tours dealt with the many questions we had in organising our tour. They always responded promptly and professionally which made us feel very confident that we were in good hands. The itinerary they organised gave us a good overview of western Bhutan. The accommodation was a mix of top hotels to farmstay, all of which we enjoyed immensely. Our guide Gembo was a gem. He was warm, friendly, caring and always extremely professional. He listened well and was flexible in changing our itinerary to suit the weather and our needs. His knowledge of Bhutan was amazing. Our driver Mingmar navigated the sometimes tricky roads of Bhutan with great skill and we always felt that we were in safe hands. All in all we loved Bhutan and hope to return again. All of this thanks to the team at Trophel Tours and Travel.

Accommodations in Port Douglas wasn’t as good as expected. Staff was not as attentive and room location was not as good as others. Also hotel told us we would be charged for new towels to take to beach unless we laundered dirty ones. Also we asked for later 11am checkout and was told no. However when we left at 11:15 the room was still not occupied or staff cleaning it. Would have preferred a better hotel in the area.

Ngima and his team are great. They were really responsive and helped out with whatever we had questions/issues with. I already recommended them to friends to book their hike in the Himalaya at Nigma’s agency. Thank you for all your help. We will see you again.

We only had a few days available in Greece at the end of a four and a half month trip around the world and we wanted them to be special but fairly restful and Dimitris made the perfect plan for us. We were picked up at the airport by Stavros, who had bottled water, candies and a tour map ready for us. He was part taxi driver and part tour guide, telling us about the city as he drove us to our airbnb. We then had a few days to explore the city on our own. Dimitris would have arranged tours for us but we had already booked some on the With Locals site. There is a great deal to see in Athens, both historical and current. And there are lovely street cafes everywhere. We could have easily spent many more days there. However, guard your valuables, especially on the crowded subways. My husband’s wallet was pickpocketed and we had to spend some time cancelling cards one morning. Other than that, we really loved our time in Athens.

For the finale, we were transferred, again by Stavros, to the marina to board a 56’ sailboat for a fabulous 3 day cruise around a few of the Greek islands. On the way, he took us to an interesting archeological site in the basement of a hotel where a Roman wall was discovered during construction and they preserved it and displayed it for public viewing. On the boat, George was our skipper and Michael was crew and cook. They were very sweet and insisted on spoiling us as much as possible. The wind was erratic so we motored more than sailed and we enjoyed some glorious sunshine as well as some dramatic thunderstorms — it was all fun. The first island we visited was Aegina which had a fairly large village on it, many cute shops and restaurants, and a lively marina. Next, we spent a very quiet night at Methana, a small fishing harbor where we were the only outsiders at that time of year (April). It rained that evening and we shared some mezedes (similar to Spanish tapas) with George and Micheal by a blazing fireplace in the little port cafe with a group of locals playing dominoes nearby. Our third night was at Agistri where we enjoyed a magnificent sunset over the harbor. Then back to Athens where we were picked up by Stavros to go to the airport. On the way, he took a short detour to show us a fascinating lake created by the collapse of a cave in ancient times where the locals swim in the warm waters year round. All in all, our time in Greece was just what we wanted and we were sad to say goodbye to our new friends. Thank you Dimitris, Stavros, George and Micheal for a lovely time.

I would like to thank you all for the help in organizing this amazing trip.
Everything was perfect. The local agency you have used EcoAndes has been wonderful and took great care of us. The driver and guide they have assigned were great and we indeed had the best time. Definitively we will recommend your service to friends and family.

Again many thanks and to next year for a new adventure.
Mariagrazia

We booked 2 trips with Victor. The first was a 3 day trip to Cat Tien and then transport on to Dalat. The driver was great, the car very comfortable. We did choose to upgrade our accommodations at Cat Tien due to the extreme heat and humidity and felt we needed to have air conditioning. He arranged for several events in the park, which went well. Overall, we were pleased with his planning!!

Our other trip was a 10 day tour of North Vietnam beginning in Hanoi, and traveling up along the Chinese border. Both our guide, Doan, and our driver were excellent. Doan’s knowledge was broad, including history, topography and his ability to identify flora, including medicinal uses. Given his experience guiding in the north, he knew lots of people and introduced us to multiple cultures. He also has a great sense of humor and we got to know him and really like him, which made the 10 days very special. We stayed in homestays much of the time, and met very interesting families that opened their homes to us. This trip left us with awe and amazement, at times, given the beauty and vastness of the mountain regions we visited. We can highly recommend this trip, the guide and driver and Victor’s attentiveness to our needs.

Rachel was an excellent guide! Very informative and attentive to our needs. We had a great 2 days during out tour of the salt flats and Uyuni.

Overall really solid job with the trip planning and execution from the KimKim team and happy with their service - I would recommend it to others. (I worked with Andre and Ingrid.) I booked on short notice and they were able to turnaround a fun, cost-effective, well-organized trip built around the input I provided (interests, timeframe, preferences, etc.) Pre-trip communication was timely and thorough, they were quick to adapt activities based on seasonanilty and want made sense with thoughtful recommednations. Covered a ton of ground and saw a wonderful mix of natural and urban sites and activities in a Wednesday to Sunday window.

Though not significant enough to dock the ratings relative to all the wonderful things provided with the trip, the criticism I'll highlight is to provide more detail around some of the transportation for future trips with the below examples in mind for mine that were pain points:

1) "At 17:00 the transport to Aurland will pick you up from the Flam station (same place you arrived by train)": Didn't have any detail around which company and/or individual this was, any contacts for them, or what I should be looking for which would have been helpful. Eventually asked around and was able to find the cab driver that had been booked by asking various people in the train station lot if they were there for a , but we were both waiting for each other for awhile and eventually asked if he was there for a pick-up.

2) "You'll catch the five-hour ferry to Bergen through the stunning Sognefjord, arriving to the city in the evening." Ticket had a company name [Norled] and route cities listed, but no clear instructions on where to pick up the ferry in a city with extensive feasible port locations. (Booking company [Norled] was closed on the weekends for the departure day and no contacts were available here.) This was a stressful scramble when asking a dozen locals (including the hotel) were unable to help direct me to where I'd need to be to board the ferry based on the information provided. Ended up walking along a dangerous one-way road with my luggage before eventually hitch-hiking with a local that was more familiar with the ferry system and just making the ferry in time because of it. Situation was panicked and making my flight home would have been difficult with few alternatives if I hadn't gotten lucky finding a friendly local here to help me out in a significant way. Reached out to KimKim here, they weren't available immediately when the need was urgent, but they did eventually get back to me in a pretty quick turnaround that would have been otherwise fully acceptable had it not been an immediate need.

Otherwise, found the activities to be great, accomodations reasonable (and close to transportation), and trip thoughtfully planned/enjoyable at a solid rate. Enjoyed my time in Norway with a lot of special experiences that would be difficult to find without KimKim's service. The reps were knowledgable, kind, and thoughtful and would be a returning user after my first experience with them.

The kimkim team handled a rather last minute booking for a private tour efficiently, and met my requests effectively.
The tour was splendid! Accompanied throughout by excellent driver Karim, I visited the four Imperial cities, plus Essaouira, Volubilis, Casablanca, Chefchaouen, and Amizmiz. Each place offered a new delight, and experience, and, for me, that made them all memorable. The mixture of history, different cultures, arts, and crafts, and scenery, made a kaleidoscopic impression, as I enjoyed and appreciated man-made, and natural surroundings.
The three guides with whom I had brief contact in different cities, were knowledgeable, and helpful.
It was very good to meet Abdellah in person. He kept in touch during the tour which is reassuring when one is traveling alone.
I am happy to recommend kimkim to others.

Communication with kimkim was easy. I receiver replays to my messages quickly and together we cooked up the best plan. The adventure to Colombia's Zona Cafetera turned out very nice, everything happened as planned.

The whole experience was great and everything worked like clockwork. Susan was helpful and very efficient in planning and organising the trip. She responded very quickly to all my requests and came up with some very useful suggestions. Daniel, our driver and guide was a carful driver and knowledgeable guide who was also friendly. I particularly rated him meeting me before our trip to introduce himself and go through arrangements. The lodge, the Lion's bluff , was superb, great location, good food and friendly, helpful staff. Thank you Kimkim.

Without doubt one of our favorite trip so far! Portugal is an awesome country to visit.

Upon arrival we were warmly welcomed by our driver , our names were mentioned on the board and we felt welcomed and with such a friendly atmosphere we had a fantastic start! The guides and tour were extremely good, very flexible (appreciate this!) and for that the organizer, Karin, deserves a special thanks. We had three great days in Porto and Porto area, which obviously also added up to the experience, and four days in Lisbon. Both our drivers/guides, Nelson and Rui deserve our special shout out. We had a fantastic time in both of the places. Nelson is a very intuitive guide, knew exactly what we like and we appreciate it. He has chosen a boutique wineries with such a idyllic scenery! The scenery was beautiful and it was a relieve to walk in such a quiet and peaceful environment. He also is quite a singer. So, if you would like a singing tour through the beautiful lands of Douro Valley,he is your guide!

Rui is such a great personality and highly motivated guide (recommendable!), full of life and a great sense of humor. We truly enjoyed getting to know Lisbon and the surrounding areas in his company.

The atmosphere is so special that it really felt like home to us. All respect for Nelson and Rui who do a great job there; a true sample of excellent tour guides! And last but not least, thank you Karin for taking such a great care of us. The accommodations were great, and you made us feel like royals.
Iwona and Tad

Everything was great!!

Bipin was an absolute gem. We loved him so much!

However, we were charged extra for a boat ride at Tiger Tops, which the people there initially said was included. They made it seem like it was KimKim's fault for not including the additional boat ride. Regardless of whose fault it was, we ended up paying $60, after initially being told it was included and taking the ride. This was the most outstanding instance of a few in which it felt like KimKim representatives could have better communicated with the places where we stayed. For another example, even though our itinerary said we'd be hiking in Nagarkot, we had to specifically ask for a hike from Bipin because he said it wasn't originally included.

The itinerary also was very vague. Maybe a more detailed itinerary cold help with these problems, and it would definitely help on our end in terms of knowing exactly what we'd paid for and what the days will look like.

Successfully attached this trip to Norway after a work trip in other areas of Europe. Couldn't have asked for more responsiveness from my local contact Ingrid. I'm very detail oriented and she always gave me all the information I requested as we planned the specifics of each day.

The Lofoten area at the end of March had perhaps the most finicky weather I've ever seen so be ready with appropriate clothing and gear. Expect to have some activities cancelled or moved and try to go with the flow. I found the drive down the islands on my own with no schedule to be one of the best parts. Though do your best to avoid a one-way car rental as they are very expensive.

I also really enjoyed hanging out on the Hurtigruten ship for most of a day after running around for so long beforehand.

A word for anyone looking for the Northern lights. I found it to be much more about luck with the weather than it was about going on the northern lights chase tours. If you're up for driving to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night to try for clear skies go for it, but the longer your trip the less necessary it probably is.

I compiled a video of my experiences that anyone is welcome to see here:
https://youtu.be/f-tFAZfqaeE

We've just returned from a 9 day trip of Sri Lanka.

We had an amazing time. It was very straightforward to organise our trip online. We were connected with Sadun from Experiential Journeys and he provided great service. Updating and amending our itinerary so we could fine tune it was also easy.

When we arrived we were met by Dammika at the airport. He handled our trip seamlessly. He was a great driver, in the crazy Sri Lankan traffic. He was also very knowledgeable about all things Sri Lankan. He also arranged a surprise birthday cake and present!

Our highlights would be the train trip from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya, the amazing scenery and a visit to a tea plantation. Udawalawe would have to be a standout. We saw so much wildlife - peacocks, water buffalo, crocodiles, lizardss, birds and 6 elephants! The coast was stunning and relaxing. Then there was the people, day to day wildlife spotting and a turtle sanctuary too.

The hotels were all great, only one was a little out of the way. As it was towards the end of the tourist season we often had the run of hotels. Our favourites were Seasons Villa, glamping in Udawalawe, Joes Resort and the Galle Face Hotel.

Great trip that KimKim and the local team in Colombia managed to fit into my tight schedule. I had been worried that my short amount of time available would hinder my experience, but with the help of Laura and the whole Colombia team, I felt that I got a great view of the country in even just a few days. Everyone made my trip easy, smooth, and full of activities, even when a last-minute change had to be made. Great job! I plan to use KimKim for another trip in the future!