Kimkim Trip Reviews

We are so thrilled with our trip. The recommendations were exactly what we were looking for - from excursions to hotel choices. Corresponding with Sofia was easy, quick and she was very knowledgeable. We will definitely book with KimKim again. Thank you!

It was a great experience visiting Costa Rica. Very Beautiful country and very nice and friendly people. We as a family enjoyed a lot. Kids had lot of fun.

Adriana did awesome job in arranging and planning the trip. it was perfect.
I would recommend kimkim to everyone.

A wonderful holiday, made better by our local guide and driver, Dammika.
Very saddened to hear about the bombings.

I liked the interface--communication was very easy and consistent.

Yenyi did a great job setting up the overall plan and activities in Costa Rica.

Monica coordinated the travel plans locally and solved a couple of minor problems along the way. Our rides were always on time for pickup, the drivers were cautious, and the drivers and guides were always friendly.

Our favorite activities were the float on Penas Blanca river, the hikes in Monteverde, and the tour of Manuel Antonio National Park (and beach), though we also loved Campesina Vida farm and the chocolate tours!

We would suggest that the timing of the events should be more explicit. For example, we were scheduled for a tour in the morning and a tour in the afternoon. The planned pickup times were indicated, but the duration or return time was not consistently indicated. As a result, we were sometimes stressed about the transitions between activities and had to change clothes and/or devour a meal in very little time. We also missed one activity because our transfer took longer than planned. They were kind enough to offer to reschedule, but it just didn't work out for us. (I know that we asked to push back our early morning schedules because of the children, but we relied on your advice about how much flexibility there was.)

The hotels, Arenal Springs and Parador in Manuel Antonio, were both terrific. However, Los Pinos in Monteverde was really not ideal for us. The staff there was incredibly kind and helpful, but the cabin was just too challenging for a group of 6 that included 2 grandparents and 2 children. It was up a steep hill, cramped quarters, small and somewhat uncomfortable beds, poor water pressure in the showers, and no food options on the premises.

Lastly, it would be helpful if the roadbook included all the information in the kimkim trip summary. The two components have complementary information and it would be more useful if all the info could be available in one place.

Overall, I would be glad to use kimkim again, but would more carefully review the timing and other details before the trip.

From start to finish, dealing with Kripa was easy. We wanted a holiday suitable for a family of four (kids age 7 & 11), to include sightseeing, trekking & safari. Kripa took all of our needs into account & tailor-made our holiday, happily adding or removing options as requested. It was completely stress free & when a couple of things went wrong with flight delays & cancellations she moved quickly to adapt our travelling needs.
The hotels booked for us were exactly suited to our needs.
The Poon Hill trek was the highlight, & although it wasn't always easy with the extra needs of kids, Pemba, our guide & our porters were there to organise & support us.
The 2 days sightseeing in Kathmandu were perfect, and again our guide was superb, engaging with the children & making sure they were enjoying themselves.
The homestay in Chitwan was fabulous too & well worth experiencing. The only complaint there was the heat after being in the cooler mountains!!
All in all it was an amazing experience, professionally organised & all our concerns were taken care of. It made such a difference knowing that everything was taken care of & that we could ask any question, however trivial at any time. We would definitely use KimKim in the future & who knows, maybe even return to do some more trekking in Nepal. Thank you, Kripa & all your associates.

Best vacation ever! Many thanks to Natalia for planning us a wonderful tour of Colombia. We went to Medellin, Bogota, and the Zona Cafetera over one week. Everything was so smooth and seamless. All of our guides and drivers were on time (or early) to pick us up and were absolutely fabulous. We loved all of the hotels that Natalia selected for us, especially Patio del Mundo in Medellin. I can't recommend this trip, and Natalia, highly enough. Thank you!!!

Amazing trip. The guide and porter were so friendly and helpful- and just great fun. The Annapurna trek was tiring but worth every step up and down -there were a lot of ups and downs. The tea houses were an amazing experience but you have to go with the flow. Local people all very friendly and helpful. The mountain views were spectacular.

Special thanks to Erin at Kimkim for all the help and assistance organising everything for us and being onhand when we needed them.

Steve & Deb

Four of us have just returned from a most memorable trip to Greece. We chose to work with Tasos and were not disappointed. He worked with us to develop and integrate all the sites, hotels and details that we wanted included. He did it all perfectly and then some. We started with four days in Athens from where we visited several locations in Southern Greece, including Corinth, Mycenae and Napflion. Three nights in Thessaloniki gave us great coverage of Northern Greece-Kavala, Philippi and Meteora were all spectacular. Next we chose to see the island of Rhodes for its history and amazing medieval castle. We asked Tasos for his pick for a second island. He suggested Siros and it could not have been better. In summary, we had 14 wonderful days in Greece and at quite a reasonable price. I highly recommend KimKim and Tasos.

All of our drivers and Guides were Fantastic! Everything we saw is so incredible, it's hard to mention just a few!
I especially appreciated the planned tours, leaving plenty of unscheduled time for us to do things on our own. We saw such a variety of Greece, from islands to olive groves, to tannery and winery. Not the average tourists destinations. Hotel selection was amazing. I would definitely use this company for future travel.

Overall this trip was fun. The planning processes was relatively straight-forward with Linda though there was a bunch of back and forth that I think may have been solved by being more forth coming with "this is the company we normally go with" or "these will be stops on XYZ."
For the actual trip, I don't think the airport transfer went smoothly. The person who was supposed to pick us up, sent someone else into the airport, spelled our name wrong, and were holding a sign not associated with KimKim or any service I'd heard from. It was only because I speak some Spanish I decided that sign was the only one remotely close to our name we ended up with the right person.
Our guide, Marco, while very nice and resourceful I would have put in the category of "driver," not a true "guide." I frequently found myself at the edge of other tour groups in order to learn more history/background/context of what we were seeing. Marco effectively got us from place to place, but he might spend 3-5 minutes telling us about a centuries old church and then leaving us to our own devices. This is fine, but had I known, I would have hired a private tour guide for Quito at least.
We LOVED our experience mountain biking with Biking Dutchman down Cotopaxi. Despite the fact is was raining and cold, it was so cool and our guide/transport were great. Heads up that transport isn't super comfy/questionable seatbelt safety, but probably fine.
Banos was fun, there were some small issues with the group who did our rock climbing/ Via Ferrata tour, but they were easy to work with and responsive in handling mistakes.
I honestly normally do all of our trip planning myself, but do to cost of renting an automatic vehicle and my middling at best Spanish, thought this might be a good opportunity to test out a tour guide company. As I said above, this was a fun trip and parts were really very cool, but the parts we most enjoyed was stuff I specifically researched and suggested, so I'm on the fence about whether I would do this again.
It's probably a great service if you don't have time/desire to do the research, but I think TripAdvisor and Google will continue to be my go-tos.

Thanks for helping have a fun time in Ecuador!

What a fantastic experience from beginning to end!

In the initial stages I was connected with Nathalie, and after discussing my specific interests in Colombia via correspondence, she got back to me with an itinerary including additional suggestions that were welcomed and encouraged! After a little tweaking we had created a fantastic adventure through Bogotá and Antioquia!

Nathalie was always swift to respond with answers to my questions and even a couple weeks before the trip, she notified me that she’d be out of the office for a few days and put me in touch with Laura in her stead and Laura was equally as helpful!

Nathalie arranged all my transportation including airport transfers which was incredibly helpful and one less thing to worry about!

In Bogotá, I spent the day with Balthazar (a very smart and funny Rolo) starting at the Paloquemao market sampling a myriad of wonderful and delicious local produce and experiencing the calm chaos of one of Colombia’s largest markets. Ducked out of the rain into Cafe de la Fonda for some coffee and mate de coca and learned a little about coffee production in Colombia before ascending Monserrate and taking in the incredible view of Bogotá and beyond!

The following day was spent with Michael, owner of Bogotá Bike Tours in La Candelaria. We mounted up and traversed the city viewing some of the most incredible street art I’ve ever seen and Michael’s vast knowledge of history, politics and pop-culture and how it could be interpreted through the murals we were seeing was eye-opening on multiple levels!

Onto Antioquia! My first day was spent with Germán exploring Santa Fe de Antioquia including the historic Puente de Occidente bridge over the Cauca River! The beautiful churches and plazas of Santa Fe with it’s cobbled streets was a fantastic getaway from the city and Germán was knowledgeable and eager to show me it’s history and charm.

The following days I explored El Peñol, Guatapé, a coffee finca in Fredonia, Comuna 13 and downtown Medellín with Andrea. She was equally as knowledgeable and excited to share the highlights and history of Colombia with me. Climbing the 700+ stairs of Piedra del Peñol was exhilarating and the view from the top was incredible! I loved wandering through the vibrantly lined streets of Guatapé and seeing all the wonderful zócalos (bas reliefs) decorating each of the colorful houses!

We then traveled out to Cafe Luna Llena, a coffee finca in Fredonia, southern Antioquia. Where Gustavo Palacio completely schooled me on the coffee process in Colombia! From seed to cup, we walked the hillside noting coffee plants in various stages of maturity, I even planted one and picked some coffee beans myself! He covered the various drying processes and exported coffee versus the “Tinto” that is consumed by the majority of Colombians and how drastic the difference in quality is. So informative and interesting, this was was one of my favorite days in Colombia!

The next day we ventured to Comuna 13 and Andrea explained how the neighborhood has blossomed into the welcoming and colorful area it is today from a very poor and violent past. Vivid murals tell the story of its history and triumph with sweeping walkways and little cafés, peddlers selling handmade goods, ice cream and fresh juice it was a very cool experience!

We hopped a metrocable to get a nice aerial view of the cascading neighborhoods and jumped on the metro into downtown Medellín to see the hustle and bustle of it’s core and view the 23 sculptures of Fernando Botero in Plaza Botero!

This was such a wonderful adventure! Nathalie kept in touch throughout the whole trip and would check-in often to see how I was doing. All the drivers and guides were on time if not early and incredibly friendly and warmly welcomed me to their wonderful country!

I have nothing but good things to say about this country and it’s people and it’s all due to Nathalie! Thank you so much!

¡Hasta pronto!
Trevor

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.