Kimkim Trip Reviews

We are over the moon with getting such a taste of Albania in such a short time. We were visiting family in Europe and had limited time to visit Albania. Five days and four nights to fit in with flights into the capital Tirana. The four wheel-drive was able to get us to some places off the beaten track in just the short time. We had given just a brief outline to the team about our interests and basically left it up to them. We think we’ve got a pretty fair idea now of what Albania and its people are all about.

Being met at the airport was great when arriving in a strange place. We didn’t get dropped into the city hotel but took off straight away for the old castle city of Kruja where we liked the hotel right above the bazaar. Time to wander through it with help and lovely not to be hassled. A few purchases. Time to walk up to the old castle and also see some of the museum where we started to understand some of the history that goes way back for this land.

Of course the secret was to have such a good driver as Nesti, Albanian born and very knowledgeable of the country and its history. While it was strange to meet this tall fit young mean, it didn’t take long to relax in his care and he was fantastic in answering all out questions and explaining things as we went.

After dinner and the night there we were off next day to a great beach on the Adriatic: a colorful spot with the bright umbrellas, crystal clear water and a wonderful seafood lunch to finish. Then we went chasing a look at some of the gun placements.

Back to Tirana and the same hotel for two nights. We were able to walk around and experience how the city and its people work and live. Even did some shopping, though both items turned out to be Italian leather.

Driving around next day showed another side to the city with the civic buildings and public places. A guide met us to take us through the mosque and also the museum though it was very hot and too much to see everything so we were happy with viewing some. The history of Albania is very different from our own.

Albania is a land of mountains, or so it seemed, and we took a good road …. at least two or three, then to the off road bit to meet a special couple who provided a typical country meal. This was the time we met Ed, who joined for the drive and meal. The weather was extremely hot but sitting under the shade of the vine made for a pleasant time.

The Ottoman old city of Berat was another experience and Nesti sure knows the places to eat as well as the short way up to the castle. Joining the evening stroll down the main street made us feel part of the local scene. The last day took us back from Berat to Tirana but have to share a secret: Nesti and his mates know the best seafood restaurant ever, duly booked of course. Safely back at the airpot to catch the plane it was a sad goodbye to our guide Nesti whom we had come to regard as a good friend. So…hot weather, short trip, one off-colour day for one of us BUT it was left to Kim Kim and they organised around the weather and our interests, our photos, our interest in the history and culture even if we didn’t drive all of the roads that they know about but that’s for longer trips. We think we covered a fair bit in the short time, made possible by kimkim.
Jim and Genevieve

We had a great time on all of our tours and transportation. Everyone was flexible and Carina was very responsive and supportive so we always felt like we had someone to help or just answer questions.

Carina was very responsive and did a great job helping to plan a great trip and make sure it was executed correctly.

The quality of the tours was amazing. Everywhere we went, we had dedicated drivers. The only thing I would change is the hotel in Cartagena. It felt a little run down and dirty. Otherwise, everything else was perfect! My favorite stay was in La Jorara.

Juan & his team made themselves available 24 hours a day, even when we had a flight delay.

We loved Chris's attention to detail when planning our trip. He really sought our unique experiences for us, and crafted a wonderful itinerary. Each day was a good balance of sight seeing and experience the culture through food and museum suggestions. So many things we would have missed if it weren't for his suggestions and guidance - we are so glad we went with kimkim for planning our honeymoon!

Chris is GREAT! He was extremely attentive with all of our questions and concerns about anything regarding the schedule, booking day trips, even suggesting what to wear! We could not have gotten a better experience from our trip, and it's all thanks to his great itinerary.

Excellent all the way around, great people, informative and helpful. Great food at the local cafe after completing our hike.

Our guide Thor was great.

Our trip was absolutely perfect. I wouldn't have changed a single thing about our route, durations of stays, or destinations. Chris was so helpful throughout the entire process and kimkim made our honeymoon unforgettable. Would highly recommend and use again!

We wouldn't have had nearly as amazing of a honeymoon if it weren't for Chris's endless help! Thank you!

One small issue, airport pickup in Sicily did not show up on time and had to get a cab.

Giorgia was a pleasure to deal with!

Our return trip to Nepal (after 30 + years) in September 2017 was unforgettable. We are so pleased to have found Kim Kim and to have worked with Mads. He was consistently patient and able to adjust our trip plan to our ultimate satisfaction. In Kathmandu, we were well taken care of by the guides and associates of Himalayan Trails, namely, Surendra, Pushpa, Raj and Rajiv. Our all day tour of Kathmandu with Rajiv was incredibly educational and literally life changing. We came across so many incredible people and places that we hold that as the first memorable day, of many, of the trip!

Our next adventures involved getting to, and traveling in, Upper and Lower Mustang. Having travelled and lived in Asia we understand the need to be patient, adjust expectations and go with the flow. Because of this attitude and our confidence in, and respect for, our Sherpa guides, Mingma and his 21 year old son Dorje, we were able to relax and enjoy the adventures of traveling in a remote and dramatically beautiful region. Some of our favorite parts of returning to the Himalayas were simply waking up in Mustang everyday, enjoying the high altitude scenery, learning about the people and places, including Mingma and Dorje (with whom we readily felt akin), eating the delicious Tibetan food (most often in the kitchen!) and visiting the Gompas (Tibetan Buddhist monasteries) during the Full Moon Ceremonies! Tears of joy filled my eyes at the beauty and devotion intrinsic in the intricate and colorful sand mandalas, the heartfelt chanting of the monks young and old, and the conversations we had with them while standing in the ancient structures while surrounded by sacred statues of a living tradition.

We finished the trip off with a few days in the Terai, down at Chitwan, enjoying the elephants, rhinos, gharials, hog deer, and birds galore!
A wonderful trip. We recommend Mads, Himalayan Trails and Kim Kim whole-heartedly.

Great planning and coordination, however hotel accommodations were a bit out of control in terms of pricing and availability. $350 each night was expensive- were there alternatives such as renting a van that could sleep 3-4, just a thought. Thanks!

No orientation. Voucher incorrect for Arcanum ATV tour at Vik. GPS waypoint incorrect for dropping off the rental car. Hotel reservation incorrect Day 4.

Overall, we're really glad that we had the personal touch of someone helping us plan our trip. We did start the planning process rather late for when we wanted to go, but that's why we enlisted help in the first place. A few points of feedback:

• The kimkim website FAQs indicate that we’ll be paying a 5% service fee to book our trip. I did also see that is says “in some cases, a more substantial planning fee” will be charged. We were absolutely fine paying the $250 for your services – you guys were very helpful. But I’m still not sure what the criteria were for the two different methods of payment. I’m guessing you didn’t get a share of the profit from the vendors when we payed cash upon arrival, so it probably helped cover those types of research and bookings. Again, we were very satisfied with what we got for the booking fee and consider it money well spent, but some more clarity around that process would have been nice.

• There were a few times when it felt like our specialists took longer to complete bookings or answer our questions than we expected. There was a time difference between us and Mandy and Alex, so I didn’t expect instant communications. However, there were a few times that I had to ask a second time before tasks were complete. I think some of this would have been alleviated if we (the travelers) had started the planning process earlier. Since we waited until a month before we left, I was definitely anxious to plan as quickly as possible.

• I like the format of a chat window for the planning discussions, but maybe in the future you might want to consider some kind of checklist feature where you turn the conversation into action items that you can assign to either kimkim or the traveler. Everyone would have quick visibility into the tasks/decisions that were remaining. You might even be able to turn completed tasks into items you need to add to the itinerary on your kimkim side. (This is my programming background coming out!)

• I mentioned this in my brief feedback right when we got home, but I wanted to repeat it here: We had a really great experience on the wine tour with Krug Travel. I would highly recommend that you send anyone who's going to the Istrian peninsula in Croatia to them. They offer other experiences besides wine tours, which I’m sure would be equally great.

• I mentioned this in my feedback too, but thought I would include it in the formal survey: Having never used booking.com before, we didn’t realize that there were hotels on the website that accept cash only. This was just a note to mention to future travelers before booking.

• Both transport companies that we used – GoOpti and Connecto – were excellent. Every driver was professional and arrived on time. We would definitely recommend these companies to future travelers.

• Laundry – this is more of a traveler note than anything. We did send out some laundry in Pula at the hotel, but it felt like we were somehow inconveniencing the hotel with this request (even though it is listed on their website as a service). We turned in our laundry early (probably by 10am) on the first day at the hotel, and we didn’t get it back until late on the second day. What was really strange was we stopped by the front desk on day 2 to reserve a taxi for a very early departure on day 3 (6am), and they almost seemed worried that our laundry wouldn’t be back in time. I always thought laundry service would be a less than 24 hour thing, and that we would definitely have it back the day before we were scheduled to check out. It was also much more expensive than I anticipated for basic shorts, t-shirts, and underwear. Obviously, you at kimkim had no idea that they were going to handle the situation so poorly. Personally, after that experience, I wish we had just found somewhere to do our own laundry or skipped that step altogether and packed enough clothes to last the whole trip. I don’t know where that fits in as far as feedback goes, but it’s just something I wish we had done differently.

We appreciated having someone to do all the planning legwork for this trip! We desperately needed a vacation but had no time to plan it. It was so nice having Mandy (and Alex) to do all the research and planning that we normally do when we go on trips. We would definitely recommend your services to friends and family who are looking to take a trip and just say “yes” or “no” to the suggestions from your team.

I included some suggestions about how our planning could have been better in the previous answer. I don’t think there’s anything particular that Mandy and Alex could have done better, but the big thing was that we were all talking about a lot of different things at any given time, and we lost track of some of the things that were still not complete. Both Mandy and Alex were super professional and helpful with answering all our questions and getting us ready to go.

Awesome trip

We loved this trip! Hike to the top of an active volcano at sunset (Giorgia ordered the full moon, too), snorkel in the Ionian Sea, learn about the earlier inhabitants of Sicily, their architecture and way of life, amble Baroque towns, hike to ridges looking over volcanic islands and along the seashore and through the marsh (Giorgia organized the flock of wild flamingos), eat gelato, drive and explore at your own pace. The hotels were FABULOUS! The hiking routes really made the trip, especially the hike on Lipari and the Vendicari Nature Reserve south of Siracusa. The Stromboli volcano was unforgettable. I appreciated having an expert guide us on the itinerary and loved just calling the rescue number when the ferry and flight were delayed. Thank you!

Georgia was super responsive, especially when we were experiencing delays in flights and ferries. It was very helpful to have someone to brainstorm possible itineraries with.

The planning and booking of the trip were top notch.

Having read up a little bit about KimKim before hand it seems like a great tool to allow clients like my sister Renee and myself as well as others from around the world to connect with outfits like yours. It gives a chance to see and experience Nepal, its people, and its culture with the guidance of a great local guide and support staff.

Raj, and the rest of his staff were great and extremely helpful. They went out of their way to help us with all of our questions before and during our stay in Nepal. I would gladly recommend them to friends and family who are looking to do similar treks in Nepal in the future.

The service from Rico and Halldor was fantastic. They were very easy to work with and communicate with.

Our trip was excellent, actually, however there are some things related to our itinerary that would have helped us manage our time better during the day. For example, including how much time we might need for certain hikes and warning us which roads might be gravel/dirt and might take us extra time to navigate would have been helpful suggestions. We had a dicey drive heading out to Elephant Rock and ultimately had to turn around and skip that stop because Route 54 was full of potholes and impassable with our smaller 4x4 vehicle. We also had to skip a hike to Skaftafell because it would have been 3-4 hours round trip and we didn't get to Vatnajökull National Park until later in the afternoon. Also, the GPS we received from the car rental company wasn't useful. We should have ended up getting the wifi hotspot instead. We did end up using Google Maps for the whole trip, though, by downloading our itinerary for the day in the morning before we left the hotel.

Our trek in the Annapurna Conservation Area (9/10-15) was just the getaway my brother Mark and I wanted/needed. It was very well organized, simple and peaceful. Our guide (Arjun Kulung) and porter (Bazdowz- sp?) were lovely- very personable and gracious. They made everything easy for us. Arjun’s knowledge of the area and the tea house proprietors/community members was fantastic. They both provided a perfect first impression of Nepal. I would recommend them and this trek without hesitation to friends interested in discovering Nepal. Sharing a meal with Anura our last night in Kathmandu was also great. All of the staff we interacted with (drivers in addition to the three named above) helped to make us feel very welcomed in Nepal.

Timely, informative responses to our emails; patience when we needed time to get organized on our end after prices were provided. The only thing I might have liked more directed information about was the need for waterproof boots (to keep leeches out!). I had listened to my friend who had lived in Nepal a few years ago and done more or less the same trek before. She said, one could do it in trainers. Maybe she'd gone at a drier time of year!

First, the positive comments. Iceland was a beautiful country to visit and our accommodations were very comfortable.
However, we were quite disappointed in the effort put out by your sub-contractor, Wild Westfjords for a number of reasons. We had expected the same level of service as provided to our friend, Susan Turner.
The itinerary that Susan was given showed a choice of accommodation at each location and specified the cost at each. We were given one choice with the note that if that wasn't OK, we could be offered some thing else.

Upon arrival at the Hotel Fron on Day 1, we were asked to pay for the room and that there had been no request for a gluten-free breakfast. It took a couple of phone calls to clarify both issues.

The itinerary put together for us seemed to rely a lot on "cut and paste" with little attention to detail. Some examples are:
We learned from the Hotel Fron that the bus stop designated for pick-up for the Golden Circle Tour no longer existed.

Our voucher for the Dimmurborgir Guest house did not state that breakfast was included so we bought supplies only to find out that breakfast was included.

Our Day 6 itinerary stated 466 km on well paved roads. It was somewhat disconcerting to find ourselves on a long stetch of extremely potholed road. Consulting the map we had bought confirmed we hadn't gone astray and that the road section was identified as gravel.

As a volunteer at a conservation area, I was looking forward to visiting the Arctic Fox Center. I was upset when arriving there at 4:15 to learn they had switched to a 4PM closing as of Sept 1st.

Day 8 suggested viewing the teeming bird life near the Svortuloft Lighthouse. The info sign at the lighthouse indicated that all the birds depart before the end of August. Our bird count - zero.

On Day 9, the instructions to visit the Landbrotalaug hot spring near Eldborg were useless to someone who did not have a GPS. A simple instruction such as"Within 200 metres of the turnoff to the Gerouberg Basaly columns, turn on a road marked Stora Hraun and travel 1.5 km on a terrible road to the hot spring" would have been more appropriate.

We were somewhat dismayed to learn that we had a 8AM reservation at the Blue Lagoon although we realized that this was the only morning time available on that day. However the staff at the Hotel Geo kindly informed us that this only meant we could not enter BEFORE 8 AM and that a 9:30 arrival would be perfectly OK.

Our conclusion was that not a great deal of thought had been put into preparation of our itinerary by Wild Westfjords.

Our major concern, however was the lack of financial accountability and the refusal by Wild Westfjords to give us an accounting of the costs of our accommodation, car rental, etc. I do not buy their contention that these are confidential between WW and their suppliers and that we bought a "package". We were advised at the Hotel Fron that the booking there had been made through Booking.com. All the bookings could have been made through Booking.com and those rates are known to the public. Further Booking.com has a 24 hour cancellation policy in most cases so there was no reason why we could not have paid for accommodation upon arrival rather than paying for the whole trip in advance.

The bottom line for Kimkim is whether we would recommend your services to friends planning to visit Iceland. At this point our response would have to be NO if you were to subcontract the service to Wild Westfjord and no financial accountability was provided.

The sites were great as was the drivers in both Jordan (Nabil) and Israel (Abed) as they were not only excellent drivers but their knowledge was excellent for our group which was not a religious tour. Our guide MaHa, in Jordan was also good in adjusting the itinerary to our particular preferences. I felt this was more a group tour in a small van rather than a private tour. We would have appreciated being offered a broader range of accommodation options to suit a range of budgets. We would have also appreciated a broader set of itinerary's - for example - just camp dinner at wadi rum with no overnight We also had to identify our own more upmarket hotels in some locations.

Basma was excellent in adjusting the tour to our needs but we were surprised when she informed us she was leaving the tour half a day earlier because it suited the tour company better and there was no guiding to be done in the last leg. It would have been better if you had informed us we only needed a guide for 3 days instead of four.

The trip was close to perfect. Great choices on destinations and activities. One day was overplanned: it would have been too much to get off the ferry at 17:30 in Brjanslaekur, then drive to the cliffs of Latrabjarg, then drive back to Patreksfjordur. So we skipped Latrabjarg.
It was fun to stumble on the Wild Westfjords office in Isafjordur and meet Halldor, Preeti, and the kids. The next day we got to spend a good bit of time with the family. We drove up above town to a ski area to take a lovely hike. When we got back to the car, it had a flat tire (our second of the trip). When we were having trouble getting the tire off, I called the office. Halldor and family actually drove up to help us, made an appointment at a garage to get a new tire, and arranged for a reimbursement from Enterprise. We felt very well cared for.

Friendly and responsive staff. good itinerary. We enjoyed the trip very much.

Navigation directions had inaccuracies or were out of order that led to skipping some destinations or having a "phantom" starting point on one of the detours.

Not clear if going on a potholed road all the way to Látrabjarg makes sense, since the puffins leave in mid August.