Kimkim Trip Reviews

Had a great holidays in Hanoi and Sapa. Fortunate to be blessed with good weather in both locations, although the cloud was a bit too low when we were in Sapa. Hence, missed the beutiful view of the valley from the Heavens Gate. On the whole, it was a good programme planned by Alex. The local guides were good and helpful.

This was an absolute pleasure from planning right through to the experience, which raged from navigating the crowded terraces of Angkor Wat to an impromptu game of "hacky-sack" Cambodian style at night on the riverbank in Phnom Penh. Our principle guide, Sarun, was a wealth of historical information and our night food Vespa Adventures tour was a highlight. The local specialists were Travel Asia a la carte and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone who wants a tailor-made tour. Just make sure you include the Phare Circus - a highlight of our two weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Overall; it was an epic trip! Definitely exceeded my expectations. I loved Semuc Champey, but the caves were my favorite part by far (it was raining so they were extra exciting). And the hike along Atitlan was absolutely breathtaking. Can’t wait to come back for Tikal! And for some bird watching. Oseas is passionate about his country & it’s beauty, so I’m glad I was able to tour it with his perspective/insight. I'm especially thankful for Chris being able to calm my Mother down when the volcano erupted, as she was on edge when I wasn't able to respond to messages during the trip to Pacaya. My local guides were always on time if not early. They were friendly and never made me feel uncomfortable. I wouldn't hesitate to travel through Old Town Outfitters again in the future.

Pros: Smooth booking process, quick turnaround to our requests, professional dialogue and we got compensation (other services) or refund for all travel inconveniences. The services we did benefit from (tours, accommodation) were of good quality.
Cons: one day tour was not what we asked to book, and one day tour was cancelled due to transportation issues at one of kimkim’s partner.
Martin was very cooperative, communixative, reaponsive and went above and beyond to solve the issues in such a manner that he managed to minimise our travel discomfort.

We absolutely loved our private Super Jeep tour through eyjafjallajökull and thorsmork valley! Addi was super knowledgeable of the geography and fun to hang out with. He took us through some hidden canypns that only localers would know about!
Highly recommended!!

Deborah was a fantastic tour guide and helped us to find 2 amazing once in a lifetime tours.
Kruger national park was amazing and hosted by an awesome local guide who showed us the big 5 and more. Everything went really smoothly with meeting the guide and Deborah and Tara were super helpful ensuring we were collected and happy throughout the trip.
The second part of our holiday was doing the garden route which again was a fantastic experience and showed us many of the best sights!
I'd really recommend Deborah and Tara to anyone going to S Africa as they helped us find 2 great tours that were perfect for us and ensured we had an amazing holiday!
Thanks again!
Zoe and Rob

All in all It was a fantastic trip, and I’m very satisfied with your help during planning and the flexibility you were giving by changing one night from Kathmandu to Balthali. That change gave the highlight of the tour, Namobuddha and Balthali plus hike to Balthali. Great day.

Nagarkot itself was beautiful, but the hike from Sankhu was very disappointing.

Nice warm up thru the rice fields. Splendid ending with Mountain View’s in Nagarkot. But nothing to see and experience on the was. Just a dusty road that could have been anywhere. No nature, no views and nothing to experience.

To compare, our walk last 2 km to Balthali was amazing all the way. Nature, bridge, village and views. I recommend this route, just make it longer.

Namobuddha and Balthali was the highlight of my tour, so I recommend this combination. Namobuddha was so great. In fact this was my own idea, and we had to discuss a lot to include it. I think it’s a bit strange that you don’t recommend it to everybody.

Dhulikhel was nothing to see, as far as we experienced.

Bhaktapur was very nice. Wonderful atmosphere. Patan also perfect as 1 hour stop.

Bungamati and Khokana- a bit disappointing. As suspected, these were small cities, not country side villages as I would say Balthali is.

Kathmandu tour was as good as it can be. Combined with Bhaktapur and Everest flight, a perfect first day.

I will also recommend others to stay more than one night other places than Kathmandu.

Everest flight was great in itself, but I got the worst possible seat.

I asked my contact months ago, and also just after payment, to reserve a good seat for me, as was recommended by many on TripAdvisor. He told me there are no fixed seats, just make sure to enter the plane early and sit on the left side. So I did, but then I realized that we all had specific seats. And I got the worst in the entire plane, beside the rotor on the right side. Probably because everybody else had reserved better seats.

I wasn’t very happy with that during the flight, since the rotor were blocking my sight and pictures. Fortunately the hostess took some nice pictures of Everest for me, so the memories after are OK.

An absolutely awesome trip. The W Trek was simply remarkable. Mayra and Quechua did an amazing job of arranging everything. All our transfers came off without a hitch. Hotels and guides were wonderful. Will definitely work with them again on my next trip to South America.

Olman was amazing to work with, he was very responsive and everything he planned for my trip to Costa Rica was exactly what I wanted, from hotels to activities! My trip was filled with activities and fun memories yet relaxing. And the hotel I stayed at had amazing views and service. I wouldn’t be able to plan this trip myself in such short time. I highly recommend Olman!!

We traveled to Norway this past summer. Ingrid was great helping us plan our trip. She spent the day with us in Bergen and we loved her walking tour of her city. We loved the cabin in Loen that we never would have found without Ingrid’s advice. Our boys loved the hike we took in Geilo.

I would say that the service received by Jesús Martel was beyond great. He coordinated a fantastic itinerary for our 6-day trip to Peru. Whenever I had a question, he replied immediately. If I needed a change in the plan and no matter how many questions I had, he replied promptly. In addition, he has a pleasant, positive and upbeat outlook and I would definitely recommend him to anyone and everyone. ¡Un millón de gracias, Jesús!
One of the guides who took us to historic downtown Lima and to the horseback riding tour is named Rodrigo. He was very knowledgeable about everything and pointed out many sites and anecdotes.
Diego Zimmerman was with us all the way when we requested a change in hotel. He is also polite and easy-going when confronted with our request!
I love, love, Peruvian Soul and would recommend it to anyone and everyone. I wouldn't have known about them if it wasn't for kimkim.
Thank you all!

Excellent service from Deborah. She managed to find a group tour of the Garden route which suited our needs. She was always quick to respond to my messages.
Would highly recommend Kimkim!

Midgard Adventure gave us the best vacation of our lives. All the members of the company are wonderful and went out of their way to make us feel at home, and indeed part of the Midgard family. They were extremely responsive to questions in the lead up to the trip and really cared about which activities were ok with a broken, and suggesting we spend time at the The Blue Lagoon rather than in the airport prior to pick up. The scenery is breathtaking, but Stefnir’s local knowledge and personal stories made it come alive in an amazing way. He was incredible and went out of his way to enhance our experience and his love and respect for the landscape will stay with me forever. The basecamp is warm, cozy and very functional with great bedrooms, food from their Swedish chef. We really enjoyed getting to know our fellow tour companions and have made some great new friends we will definitely stay in touch with. Best trip ever!!! Thank you Stefnir, Bjorg sndthe rest of the family of Midgard Adventure. I look forward to next time!

Olman was very responsive and incredibly helpful in organising our trip at short notice. Would have appreciated a little more information about the tours that were being booked but they turned out excellently. We had a terrific holiday and really loved all the hotels and tours that were booked for us.

Our guide Gino and the driver were fabulous. Our tour was for two full days and one night with transfers to and from our cruise ship. We combined every tour the cruise ship offered, added a few stops, had a very clean comfortable private coach and paid a reasonable price. Every aspect of the tour exceeded our expectation. Great job by Kimkim arranging the tour when other companies could not. The selection of driver and guide were nothing short of outstanding. Too many attractions for me to comment on but one that stands out was the Peruvian horse show. The site for this show was beyond words. A suggestion for Clara is to always send guests to this horse farm. Gracias to all!

We were very lucky to have Laufey as our travel specialist, she was extremely helpful and patient with my specific requests and ended up creating a travel itinerary that was perfect to our needs! They even covered some costs for us due to some small misunderstandings. We're very thankful for that plus the great trip that we had!

From landing to departure everything was taken care of. We were picked up at the airport by a private driver, taken straight to our hotel and Laufey even prepared a very detailed guide for our self-directed day tour around Reykjavik.

On the second day, we were picked up by Jón, our Icelandic Mountain Tours guide. The bus only had a total of 6 people (including Jón) but yet they still proceeded with the tour. The weather was insane that day, with crazy winds. Lots of day tours were cancelled. Lucky for us, Jón flipped our tour backwards and did tons of research to make sure our transportation to the Golden Circle was safe. The winds were very very strong, and Jón focused on the drive to make our safety the utmost priority. Our entire group was crazy jetlagged so we had a difficult time staying awake while he was explaining history/geology/etc., and we feel so remorseful for that!

The next two days we drove even further, went to the Glacier Bay, Diamond Beach, and also did a glacier walk and ice caving. I highly recommend the glacier walk on Skaftafellstofa! We also admired the Black Sand Beach, waterfalls, and gorgeous views, before ending our private tour with Jón and heading back to the capital.

We were also scheduled for snorkeling at the Silfra as well as the Blue Lagoon.
I have so many great things to say about this trip and the way Laufey planned it out for us! From start to finish everything was done perfectly and left us with little to worry about.

Thank you so much!

Lena was excellent! She was patient and put together an amazing trip and experience for us. She was prompt in her replies and provided expert opinion. There wasn't anything that we would have done different except extend our trip! The accommodations that were arranged were fabulous. The activities and suggestions for itinerary definitely enhanced our experience. Would recommend Lena to anyone looking to travel through Jordan and Israel. For anyone traveling to both who cross the boarder into Israel, ensure you have cash left for the exit tax!

We just finished our amazing honeymoon in Costa Rica! And have to say that Randall was an absolute pleasure to work with - he made the process so easy to book and really worked with us to plan a great honeymoon!

We landed in San Jose and a drive met us at the airport right away to take us to our hotel. Everything was laid out and organized for us which was fantastic! In the morning we were picked up for the drive to La Fortuna. The one thing I would recommend is for future visits to let visitors know the length of time for the drives we had no idea and found ourselves on 3-4 hours drives (which we didn’t mind, but would have packed some snacks!). Our accommodations were stunning in
La Fortuna we stayed at the beautiful Tabacon. Our white water rafting trip was amazing and the local farm they took us to for lunch was an amazing highlight. Wave Expeditions are amazing and we highly recommend you book with them if wanting to do a white water tour. Very thorough in safety recommendations, good equipment, great guides and an amazing experience. We also went on the Volcano hike - although really interesting we found that our guide wasn’t that engaged in the hike and didn’t realize we were the last hike of the day so all of the animals were tucked away (I would recommend making sure you get an early tour if you do this hike). We would have loved to do the hanging bridges and ziplining here but unfortunately we didn’t.

We then went to Monteverde which was amazing! Wow is all we can say when thinking about Monteverde Lodge and Gardens. The lodge itself was amazing, the gardens spectacular and we had a great corner balcony room. It is also amazing that they have a butterfly garden in the hotel! The staff was amazing and surprised us with a dinner in the butterfly garden for our honeymoon. We also did the Cloud forest hike with Monteverde Experts - amazing tour guide. He was so passionate and really took his time to show us everything - if you do this excursion make sure to use this company. We also did horse back riding which we weren’t too crazy about - it was again the last tour of the day we found our horses to be tired and barely moving and again not much to see. Our guides also didnt explain much to us - in hindsight we would have omitted this although we did request for it to be booked and would have rathered book the hanging bridges etc.

We then made the trip to Manuel Antonio - which was an incredibly long drive 7 hours when it was supposed to be nor more than 4. Although this was a slight setback we fell in love with Manuel Antonio right away. We stayed at Makanda which is an amazing resort with amazing staff- we were treated like royalty and would highly recommend staying here. We visited a local beach recommended by one of the staff members at Makanda and loved it and also visited Ronny’s Place (amazing dinner venue with incredible sunset view), Emilo’s Cafe (amazing seafood) and The Wagon (amazing pizza). We had a tour organized for Sea kayaking and snorkelling - although we enjoyed this (physically challenging) our tour guide wasn’t the greatest he indicated he was feeling under the weather and stayed in his kayak while pointing at a rock we should swim towards to see fish, we would have liked to have someone in the water to tell us what we were looking at. He also told us we need to be back in the kayaks in 20 minutes and then proceeded to paddle back. We had thought this would be an entire morning event as indicated on our itinerary but ended up having our kayak, snorkel and lunch all by 11:30 am...in hindsight we would have either booked through a different company, done a different excursion or discovered more of Manuel Antonio on our own. Despite this we still loved the snorkelling but would recommend that they get new life jackets and clean their snorkels.

Randall was amazing to work with and we thoroughly enjoyed booking through KimKim they made the process so easy for us and would absolutely use them again if booking another trip to Costa Rica. Thanks Randall for all of your hard work and being so helpful with organizing our honeymoon!

We had issues, but Martin was good in getting the situation back on track.

Yenyi was patient as we went through multiple iterations of the itinerary to settle on one that included something for everyone in the family.

Costa rica as a country is a must visit.

Pros: very friendly people , the food is a gastronomic delight , attractions are breathtaking, the place is squeaky clean and yes you can drink tap water !

Cons: Knowing spanish is a huge plus, It's about 30-40% more expensive than neighbours(Mexico, Cuba etc) but well worth it.