Kimkim Trip Reviews

1. Driver on time - great
2. Jeannine checked to be sure we were aboard - BETTER THAN GREAT
3. Rony Perez- excellent guide - good English , really good with my husband who walks (little) and Slow! Good information - will definitely recommend in the future
4. Meal great - so very fresh
5. experience overall - exactly what we were looking for - thank you Nathalie for suggesting
6. interacting with the local people very good experience - they were very kind to us

Everything about this trip, from planning to the actual trip itself, was wonderful.

Mads was extremely responsive to my every questions. I gave him the date range and what I wanted to do, and he planned everything else for me.

Our guide for the trip, Chhepal, was very experienced, knowledgeable, caring, and fun to hangout with (especially important since our trip was 20 days long). He took care of all the details, from airport check-in, finding a capable porter for our entire trip, to finding tea houses every night, so we didn't have to fight the crowd or worry about anything. During the trip, I developed diarrhea. Chhepal had a medicine box with all the necessary medicine to help me recover. Even though we lost a day to resting, he was able to rearrange our trip schedule so we ended up visiting all of the places on our original itinerary.

Towards the end of the trip, after speaking with other travelers we met on the trek and hearing their horror stories, from terrible guides and porters to getting lost in glacier crossings, we have a new appreciation for the services offered by Kim Kim, Himalayan trails, and our guide and porter. I will definitely use Kim Kim again for my future trips and Mads for my future Nepal treks.

We needed to arrange this on very short notice. Marine was very responsive and we we got this planned quickly. We stayed in beautiful small hotels and ecolodges that were immersed in natural beauty. We went to Tayrona Park and Minca and our guides were very good, very knowledgeable. Unfortunately we were slightly disappointed that when in Minca we had car trouble early in the day, another car was not sent to continue our trip but to return us to town.
Cartagena is a beautiful historic city and we stayed in lovely boutique hotels in the old part of town. Our guide for here, Sergio, was terrific. He took us to neighborhoods out of the tourist area to see how the locals live and to his favorite places.
Our last days were spent at Punta Faro on an island. Great place for a couple of days to relax. A boat ride is the way to get there and can be a bit choppy but well worth it. Due to weather, our return was difficult. The hotel arranged an alternate method for us (and a few others) to get back to the mainland (shorter boat ride and a bus) including a taxi back to our hotel at no additional cost.
Marine and Elisabeth were in constant contact throughout to check on things. Always easy to get in touch with if necessary. We happened to be there during the rainy season and a holiday weekend so more potential than usual for issues to come up.

James and Mayra have been great throughout the itinerary planning process. Responsive and flexible, and they give very sensible suggestions. Our guide in Cusco Miguel was great too - he knows the area in and out and is quite resourceful in accommodating our requests (dinner choices, getting local SIM card, etc.)

Special touches were much appreciated, such as picnic lunch prepared by Quechua's private chef when we arrived, off the beaten path hikes in Yucay, great recommendations on dinner restaurants in Sacred Valley, to name a few.

BTW we compared Quechua Treks with other providers such as Jacada, Audley, andBeyond, etc., and found Quechua (on Kimkim platform) to be the easiest to work with, most reasonable in price, and with the most approachable folks. Perfect for us, travelers who want something in between "roughing it" and "absolute luxury". The other providers might offer additional concierge service e.g. booking great restaurants, but it may not be guaranteed and you definitely pay for it.

Net net, Quechua is legit and good people, work with them!

We loved our trip! It was a great balance between tea houses and camping in remote areas. The views were spectacular and our guide, Gelu, adjusted our itinerary to suit our hiking speed (faster than initially planned for). The porters were knowledgeable and helpful the entire way and everyone seemed to be having a genuinely good time which put us at ease and made things even better!

Everything was splendid before , during, and after the trip. The only thing that was REALLY hard was the hike to the lodging at Keulap.

Excellent in all regards. Sherpa Pemba and our Porter were terrific. Good guys, set a good pace for trekking. And are extremely knowledgeable. I can't imagine having better weather. We clearly picked right time of year for this experience. The lodges we stayed were perfect for the experience as well. Just enough amenities mixed with just enough "roughing it" as one would expect on a trek of this nature. From local cutlure, to wildlife, bouncing across suspension bridges, dodging donkeys, cattle and yak on the trails, simply amazing! Oh yeah, the incredibule views of Everest and a terrific Heli ride up to EBC and around many sites (Lakes, Glaciers, Ice Fields and the Himalayas!) Thank you so much!

Didn't really have much contact with Howard, mostly done with Lize Enderstein, who always responded to our emails quickly and efficiently.

Maybe more could be done initially to ascertain client's preferences in terms of types of hotels and budget, and maybe more questions regarding client's likes and dislikes, but overall Lize chose very good Hotels and we were very happy with Paradise Tours in Cape Town.

A little more fine details information would have been good, e.g. good idea to book tickets online for Table Mountain and Cango Caves to avoid waiting in long queues. Also more information about the Amakahala itinerary would have been helpful as we didn't realise that we would get lunch and a safari drive on Day 1, and nearly missed this.

Overall very happy and will be back!

We had a great time with our guide Karma Sherpa and our porter Buddha Rai.
They were supportive and friendly along the 16 days of the trek.

We had a marvelous experience in Nepal. Our guide was patient, attentive with us and showed us beautiful spots in Nepal. He took us to great, local places to eat which were genuine and fresh.

We would love to come back to Nepal to explore more, and we would definitely book with kim Kim again and request our guide Lhakpa again!

Well done and thank you!

Nepal is absolutely amazing! We had lots of great moments there and it's best lifetime memories, thanks to kimkim, Himalayan trail, our best guide Cheppal and porter Zambu, guys you made it all really unforgettable and cool! Pikey Peak trek is an authentic experience that still exists in Nepal, it's a pretty wild path with very little amount of trekkers and just local life and beautiful nature along the way. Scenery is great since you can see the whole range of mountains from Annapurna to Everest from the peak summit. Trek is tougher than the more explored ones with changing altitudes, very basic lodges and no reception. But it gives it's own pleasure to be disconnected from the busy outer world and live the most simple life for a week and then come back home and appreciate all the small things that you forget about having everyday. We will defo send our parents to Nepal for the easier trek iuring spring time to see all the blooming orchids and rhododendrons and will come back in some years to do round Annapurna or EBC one.

p.s. many thanks to all Nepali people that hosted us during the trek, every night was the best food ever and always different organic experience, everything comes from the garden to your table! We are coming back for momos and dal bhat!

Tui, our guide, was amazing. He is such a warm and pleasant person to spend a week with. He is helpful, resourceful, insightful, intelligent, and fun. We had a wonderful experience and holiday and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We would recommend this to many people. The trip worked like clockwork and was a great pleasure and we will look to do more holidays with Grasshopper. Tui should be commended for being a great guide. We had no incidents in the whole trip. The Sennali hotel was a poor experience with the noise from the speaker announcements at night. we suggest changing this hotel as it is not comfortable also.

Thank you for a wonderful holiday.

Shaky. Definitely made it right - but I think we all would have preferred a smoother communication channel and not necessarily between us and Chris but rather getting the needed info to us to smooth the process i.e. direct contact info for accommodations (phone #'s!), the very important knowledge that an accommodation does not accept credit cards even though the reservation was secured with a credit card. Little things that need to be tightened up.
We could book through booking.com ourselves and accomplish the same thing, we were looking for the "smoothing" aspect using Kim Kim.
As for the suggestions of places to visit and time to allow, I think Chris did an exceptional job! All of the accommodations were perfect for our trip and the vehicle suited the terrain we were traversing.
Despite the various hiccups, we all loved Iceland and our experience overall.

Everything was perfect using Kim Kim. We had 3 guides in different parts of our trip plus a trip to Tiger Tops at Chitwan elephant camp. Rajeev was our first guide and we were impressed with how thorough his knowledge of the village and history was. Suman was our guide through our trekking stage and he went above and beyond. It was during this part of the trip that my husband wasn’t feeling very well to handle the full trekking days. Suman adjusted our plans and made sure my husband’s health was of primary concern. For this I am extremely grateful. Our last guide was Pratikshya and it was wonderful to see a woman guide in this male dominated field. There are some things that just need a woman’s touch and she provided that plus very detailed knowledge of the villages we went to.

Our time in Chitwan was priceless with Tiger Tops. Their values regarding the wildlife and how they particularly took care of the elephants was outstanding. Our personal guide/assistant was Bhim and he made sure we got to take part in all aspects of elephant maintenance and care. They took excellent care of us and the animals. Cannot say enough of how much this portion on the trip meant to me personally.

Keep up the good work!

Had a great trip in Nepal . I was greeted by the driver and Ngima at the airport.
Ngima was excellent to look after me from beginning to end of trip.

Also, Lhakpa (Guide) and the porter was knowledgeable and very helpful through the trek .
I would like to recommend Ngima team to everyone !!

Thanks for helping to make our trip to Nepal an amazing trip of a lifetime!

Very professional and high-quality service from Martina, accommodating all of our requests and needs during the trip.

The North part of Peru is not very well advertised and there are not too many tourists in this area (good for people like us, who really enjoyed the real Peru experience, not overtaken by tourism industry yet.) We were nicely surprised and definitely I would suggest using this as a key point in the advertisement of this region. So thank you, Martina, for pointing to us these incredible places to see and stay.

Kuelep, Mausoleum of Revish, Sarcophagi of Karajia - amazing sites. Getting to these places through the real Peruvian villages is an attraction on its own. Chachapoyas and Cajamarca - very authentic Peruvian towns with beautiful main squares and beautiful architecture (a little bit disappointing was the fact that there was a major renovation of the main square in Chachapoyas - which we did not expect).

Also, the drive from Cajamarca through the valleys, mountains, and an incredible one-line road was amazing: the views, the trill passing another vehicles and change of sceneries were unforgettable.

Two amazing places we have stayed I would like to mention. Perico and Lola house in Nogalcucho: quiet and isolated house with beautiful private accommodations. Great homemade dinner and breakfast. Lots of options for walks or areas to sit and enjoy the beauty of their place.
Another is in Cocachimba hostel Sacha Puyo (best view on Gocta falls). The views and quietness of this place are out of this world.

Even though we did not have a guide, our driver Beto was able to give us enough info so we did not feel lost without knowledge of Spanish. But the knowledge of a minimum of Spanish language is a must when traveling in this region so I would recommend to always let people know about this fact. In general people in Northern Peru do not know English.

Yangon: guide Pyae. Excellent. Engaged, knowledgable, friendly, mature. Provided very interesting rickshaw rides through markets, and even better in poorer village across river in Dala. Hotel Sule and location excellent
Bagan: guide Zie. Very good. We think selection of monuments possibly could have been better. Excellent hotel Aureum Palace.
Mandalay: guide "Ken". Excellent, enthusiastic, knowledgeable. Hotel Eastern Palace had some interesting design features but was clean and efficient. Least impressive hotel. Unable to compare with other offerings. But very acceptable.
Inle Lake: guide Thanh. Highlight. Guide was engaged, efficient, helpful, experienced. Hotel Pristine Lotus beautiful, well built & designed and located. Great having 3 days there. Photographer's paradise.
All cars and drivers well chosen - always felt safe and comfortable and were well supplied with water bottles and wipes.
All connections and pickups went smoothly and although I was anxious at first only having very basic information from Kimkim/ Myanmar Diaries about these, there was never a problem.

From the initial inquiry to Kimkim - which was answered in less than half an hour - to the final moments of our stay in Myanmar, our experience was over-the-top excellent. I have traveled extensively, doing most of the planning myself, so it was with a few qualms that I turned the planning over to Anne. I needn't have worried - every aspect of the experience was even better than I could have planned myself and far exceeded my expectations. Anne really listened to what we wanted and translated it into a brilliant experience - from the things we saw (temples, incredible temples, beautiful countryside, towers of firecrackers) and did (e bike through Bagan, soaring in a balloon over Inle Lake, feeding the retired elephants), we had a great time. The best part though was the people we met - our local guides were knowledgeable and fun and made sure that we got to see the real country and not just tick off a bunch of boxes. Special thanks to Anne for making the whole thing run like clockwork, Nay in Mandalay, Arkar in Bagan, Htun in Kalaw and Inle and Hla in Bagan for making our experience unforgettable. As the kids would say, 11/10 would do again.

I also want to make one comment about the Rohingya situation - it is terrible, for sure, but not reflective of the people and attitudes we encountered in the rest of the country. Myanmar is poor and just starting to figure out how to be a more democratic and progressive country, and they néed your support. Visit, while the place is still unspoiled and you can make a real impact on everyone you encounter.

My experience was highly positive. I enjoyed the unique high country of Nepal immensely as well as the people I met both with Himalayan Trails and those along the trek. I was impressed with the wide range of ages represented by the trekkers and at times dismayed with the sheer numbers. The highlights for me were the climb of Chukhung Che and the trek over Kongma La pass and the Khumba glacier. Enjoying the trek with my son and brother was particularly gratifying and motivating. A highlight was meeting up again with Peter in Dzongla after he had to go back down to Pheriche from Chukhung. My son and I had little trouble with the treks or the altitude, which I ascribe to the great pacing set by our guide Ngawong. The porters Lhakpa and Dorjee were helpful, cheerful and worked hard to carry our "too much stuff".

The only slightly negative commentary on the trek was the time duration after going over Renjo pass. Its length was constrained by our return flight to the states (which had already been delayed by one day by China Southern). In my estimation the trek could be shortened by 2-3 days still leaving time for shopping/sightseeing in Kathmandu, if desired. We ended up staying three nights in Namche on the way back and 3 days in Kathmandu. Admittedly it gave us time to relax and hang out but we had already been gone >3 weeks and were ready to go home.