Kimkim Trip Reviews

The trip was excellentl. The Riads were First rate, The guides were knowledgeable, professional and friendly. Our driver, Mohamed Samouk, was one of the best parts of the trip. He became our friend, part of the family!

We will recommend KimKim and Off the Beaten Path to anyone wishing to explore Morocco.

Amazing experience with Kimkim.
Ingrid was very professional and made sure to tailor our trip to Oslo, Bergen and Tromso based on what we want and what we like and was always responsive in a timely manner.
Highly recommended!!

Our experience was great. Osi was very organized and friendly, conversed well. Itinerary was good, glad we went to Nuwara Eliya and not Hepatale. Would have been a very long drive to there from Kandy. Not sure if the drive up to Liptons Seat was worth the very long drive.

Except for the painfully long wagon ride Hiriwadunna was surprisingly good for such a touristed place.
We loved all the safaris. They all had their own charm. Watching the over 70 elephants come in for a drink at Minneriya National Park was special. Whenever we mentioned that we watched birds the safari drivers seemed enthused to do more, taking us to quiet spots. We saw over 120 species overall.
Our accommodation in Kandy and Newara Eliya was well out of town. They were excellent but made us completely dependent on our driver, not being able to go for a stroll when we wished.
Lovely country, lovely people, thanks so much, will probably return one day

The trip was fantastic!

My only suggestion is that there is more communication between the tour organizer and the driver before the trip takes place. Sanjaya made a few amendments along the way, one being changing our train journey which meant we did not have pre-booked seats and had to stand the entire way! It was quite uncomfortable and not as enjoyable as it could have been. The drivers are the ones on the ground and know how things work so their knowledge needs to be taken into account.

Mairesol was our guide both days - to Guatape and the coffee plantation. Both days were great!
We loved climbing the stairs of El Penol and it was followed by a great meal, away from other tourists too!. The visit to the coffee farm was great. The views were tremendous and the food and coffee was tops.

Hi Jess,
Sorry it took me so long to get to providing feedback.
All round I had a really great trip - an unforgettable experience.
Starting with exploring various options through an internet search - your website struck me as really professional and the co-branding with well-known brands gave me the confidence to go with kimkim. Your responses to my initial inquiries about possible options were prompt, friendly and efficient - I felt the same about the booking process and your subsequent follow-up notices.
We received a very warm and friendly welcome from the agency team in Leticia - it was immediately obvious that it was a professional and experienced outfit. We were well briefed and looked after.
The guide was fantastic - knowledgeable, caring and supportive and really good at keeping us well fed. The translators (we had 2) were also great - really friendly and helpful.
The hike offered a good mix of variety of activities - walking (or battling at times) through the forest, staying with the local population, sleeping high up in the canopy and camping overnight, kayaking and crossing the Amazon into Peru, and then exploring the jungle further via boat.
All the meals and stays along the way were very enjoyable.
A final observation from a marketing point of view (and please take it coming from a 63 year old man - BTW the guide told me I was the oldest person walked with) - I would rate the hike on the "extreme adventure" spectrum (6-7.5 out of 10) rather than "for those looking for something a little more adventurous". The terrain is very challenging and while you don't need to be super fit, you need to be firm very firm footed with solid muscle strength. And you need to be comfortable with heights and about crossing streams and pools on tree trunks (in the dark at times).
Notwithstanding, it was a truly wonderful experience. Thanks to you and please pass on our thanks to the crew in Leticia. All the best Deon

My boyfriend and I had a fantastic trip in Sri Lanka. We did a nine-day tour, and Shalindra patiently worked with us to create the itinerary and answered all of our questions. Our driver/guide, Kapila, was very knowledgeable and accommodating whenever we wanted to change up the itinerary a bit. He also gave us suggestions and brought us to some local roadside stands for snacks like coconut roti and hoppers. Our hotels were fantastic and the breakfasts were really great, especially the Colombo Court Hotel & Spa in Colombo. My favorite spots/excursions were Ravana Falls in Ella, the elephant safari near Dambulla, and the whitewater rafting in Kitulgala.

My two small "negatives" are 1) I wish we'd gotten to spend more time in a few places, like Kandy and Nuwara Eliya, but now I know for any possible future trips to SL and 2) the spice garden is a bit more of a touristy shopping trap, so I'd probably skip that in the future, but we did also get nice mini-massages there.

All in all, I'd highly recommend Shalindra/Kapila/Exemplary Voyages!

My friend booked this trip and I joined last minute, the communication with Erin in the booking process was really difficult, which she blamed on the time difference but that was just an excuse. My time difference with Erin was only 2 hrs and 45 min as I'm not located in the US and apart from that, she could go more than 24 hrs to reply. She never even apologised for this.

Once I confirmed the trip I never even got a confirmation that my money arrived until we followed up, which was unprofessional.

Upon arrival in Kathmandu I had two guys waiting for me at the arrivals. Once I got to the car I realised one guy was a scam as he just asked me for money. The representative told me to just give it to him otherwise he would fight him. This isn't directly the fault of KimKim, but the representative at the airport should have definitely stepped up.

The next morning Erin came to meet us at our hotel for a briefing, now working myself in the travel industry, I might have had high hopes as I've briefed many clients myself but this was just disappointing. There wasn't any clear information we got. She went through the program, but all she said was, today you will go for sightseeing, on the day you arrive back from Bhutan you will go for sightseeing.. No further details regarding the sightseeings.. We also had to confirm a couple of other details with her and when we asked her a question she seemed a bit annoyed answering it and that everything was just supposed to be obvious. I felt uncomfortable asking her any further questions from there. She also was a bit unclear with her program as she thought on the last day we were staying in Kathmandu and I had to make it clear that this wasn't the program.
I also asked her during the booking process if I could get a discount as I won't be doing any activities on the last day as I had an early flight out of Kathmandu and my friends only left late evening. She said that was calculated properly but once I asked during the briefing she didn't even remember my friends had any sightseeings that day. So I even doubted whether or not I paid too much for my trip.

At the end of the first day of sightseeing we received a rather cold message from her regarding tipping. I believe that our guide complained we didn't tip her, which is understanding but we thought we tip at the end of service and we knew we had the guide again for the last two days during our trip so we knew we had to tip her at that time, not at the end of each day.. Again something that should have been made clear from Erin's side during the briefing not writing us a vague and cold message about it later onwards. Apart from that, I believe tipping is based on how satisfied you are with the service, so if we weren't satisfied I think asking for a tip from Erin's side onwards the guide isn't the right way to go about it.

Now regarding the hotels, we stayed at the Patan Inn and Millas Guesthouse, both places were super lovely and amazing food, would definitely stay there again if I would return to Kathmandu.

Our guides name was Pratikshya and she was a super lovely and knowledgeable woman. I enjoyed every minute spent with her. She was very polite, explained in nice details but didn't overdo it and she was always on time and very professional. If I was to ever return to Kathmandu I would also use her again as a guide.

So to sum it all up, the guide and the hotels were really nice and a great pick for us but Erin's services were very disappointing. However to be honest, we already had a feeling that our interaction with Erin wasn't going to be so great as we noticed during the booking process.

Marina was very tentative from the very beginning. She’s very responsive and explained very details to us. At first I was a bit nervous using online travel agent since we didn’t have any in person interaction but after a while Marina made us feel very comfortable. I would recommend Kimkim to my friends and our future adventures.

Midgard Basecamp was a great place to stay. Friendly staff, and great food and drinks! Our guide Bjarni Guðmundsson was awesome! We spent a few days with Bjarni exploring the wilderness and he knew lots of great spots to show us. I would definitely recommend Midgard Adventure!

This is a complicated review to write because I had very mixed feelings about our trip. Let’s start with the positive: Lena quickly put together the trip and patiently fielded endless questions from me. Our driver in Jordan, Moustafa, was truly fantastic and made our stay in his country very rich and special. The dinner with a local family in Petra was the best meal we ate on the entire trip and the family could not have been more welcoming and kind. It was an unforgettable experience. We felt safe on the entire trip. Our guide in Jerusalem/Bethlehem, Issa, was also phenomenally knowledgeable, and he was just fun to be with for the day. Our driver in Israel, Gorge, was jovial and eager to please.

Now for the honest negatives. The accommodations were terrible. The boutique hotels in Amman and Tel Aviv were what we expected and we were perfectly happy there. We are used to staying in five star or chic boutique hotels, but in an effort to be economical we chose only boutique for this trip. I read all of the hotel reviews and looked at photos before we left, and I really went back and forth about staying at, for example, The Kempinski or The Hilton at The Dead Sea and decided that the extra thousand dollars wasn’t worth it for one night. I was wrong. Know that traveling in this area five stars will be closer to 3.5. The agent was not clear about that. However Lena and Tania were very responsive and helped us move. The alternatives were no better though the staff was very friendly so I hate giving a terrible review. We arrived in Israel in time for Purim, and, as a result, a couple of the attractions that I paid for were closed. Tania and Lena are refunding is, and I appreciate that, but I was not happy that we were not warned in advance. It’s a big holiday and three-four days long, so to arrive and have the driver say “everything will be closed have a nice time on your own today” was very upsetting. Fortunately he was wrong and we had a nice day.

I took a risk using a service based strictly on a NY Times recommendation, and while I was relieved to have a very organized itinerary, I think I could have done it on my own with much better hotels. I have used similar services with much better outcomes. The whole experience was ok but not without its issues.

Kuchara is the name of our tour guide.
3/15/2019 is the date of our cruise. When Perez Group arrived at the cruise port Princess have a bus that took us outside the port to meet our guide. Kuchara was not there and we are so worried because there are so many guides who is asking if you needed a tour. I have to call Sandun to locate our guide. My goodness, he was sitting in the bus and we did not see our name because the sign is just lying on the dashboard not posted on dashboard window. And as a guide, Kuchara should be waiting & standing for us holding the sign like the Viator and ToursByLocals guides we saw at the port.

I would like to suggest, your guide should at least provide bottled water to the tourist. It was already hot and humid although its only 9:00 am. All our guides;: Singapore, India, Sri Lanka, and Dubai gave us bottled water and it makes a big difference. Our guides also have cameras and took us pictures and email them to us after our tours. We felt special and connected with our guides.

The most memorable part of our tour is the lunch. Kuchara took us to a Chinese Restaurant while we were in Sri Lanka because we don't eat spicy food. The food was great, location and service were excellent.

All the best!

I'm so grateful to Ingrid, Kimkim and Trapper's Farm for helping me arrange the Norwegian adventure of my dreams. I wanted to chase the Northern Lights on a multi-day dogsledding expedition, and Trappers Farm delivered. The 4-day trip was highly personalized, authentic and filled with once in a lifetime opportunities. If you want to experience dog sledding off the beaten track, I highly recommend arranging a trip with them.

We had an amazing trip traveling to Athens and Santorini. Each hotel we stayed at was very accommodating and the staff was wonderful. Each tour that was set for us was very punctual and the guides were all very polite and very generous and kind and always made sure we were comfortable and enjoying the trip. We were very pleases with every aspect of the trip. Tasos was wonderful in helping us plan this trip to our liking and was very pleasant.

I visited Morocco 2 weeks ago with my 14 year old daughter. We had an amazing experience. We are truly pleased with the services provided by KimKim. The tour was arranged by Brahim. He had always provided timely, courteous responses to my questions and helped me every step of the planning process. We reached Marrakech later than scheduled due to flight delays. I had failed to inform Brahim of the delay. Brahim exhausted every resource available to him trying to make sure we were ok/ safe. He even checked in with us during the trip to make sure we were having a great time.

Our driver Amine was awesome. He was pleasant, safe and very punctual (we were the ones who made him wait :)). He tried to keep us informed in advance about the places we were visiting/ stops en route. It took him a couple of days to warm up to us, but when he did he was a lot of fun. We spent one evening playing cards after dinner, my daughter had a great time learning card tricks/ games from him and teaching him card games. He was very accommodating and stopped any time we requested a stop. He appeared to be quite knowledgeable of the places we visited and took us to some fantastic restaurants for authentic Moroccan lunch. He took us to places (women’s co-operatives and workshops) where we learnt in length about the fossils, argan, rose and carpets. The vendor at the rose products shop was very friendly, not only did he sell us some good quality rose products, but he also taught me how to make tajine and gifted me a bag of spices that he had bought to make his own meal. That was so very generous of him and his tajine smelled so good :)

The arrangements exceeded my expectations most of time. The arrangement at the bivouac in the Sahara desert deserves a special mention. The tent was very comfortable with washroom and shower facilities. Our camel man Sayeed deserves a special thanks for making our experience a memorable one. The food was plenty and the entertainment was fantastic. He helped me up and down the massive dunes and even gave us company while we were star gazing in the dark trying to explain the stars and life in the desert. The Riads were clean and comfortable. The hosts/ riad staff were very friendly and welcoming. Dinner served at the Riads (Dar Sofar, Hotel Amazir and Makhtoub in Ait Ben Haddou) were fresh, delicious and plenty, often too much for us to finish. Moroccan breakfasts are different from what we are used to in North America, but the freshly squeezed orange juice made a huge difference, delicious 

The only thing I would like to mention is that some Riads charge you for bottled water, but they don’t tell you that until when it is time to leave. This I thought was a little inconvenient especially since I had bottled water in the car, and I ended up paying almost 3-4 times the cost unnecessarily. Also, I had exchanged only limited $$ for each day and this resulted in my budget being messed up for tips, etc. Perhaps it would be a good practice to let the guests know in advance that there is a cost for the bottled water, so the guests can make an informed choice.

All in all it was a fantastic experience, I would recommend Brahim and his team in a heartbeat. You can trust them for your travel needs. Thank you Brahim and team!

Erin was a delight to work with. She was very prompt in responding to our questions, took our feedback on board and managed to put together our ideal itinerary. We had fairly limited time and quite a few things to fit in, but Erin managed it! Everything worked super well, all transfers on time and comfortable and the local partners she put us in touch with for the hiking equipment, lunches etc were also super lovely and helpful.
As 2 friends with very busy and quite stressful jobs in big cities, we just didn't have the time and mental energy to figure out this itinerary by ourselves. Having Erin take care of things so well for us was amazing and meant we could just relax and enjoy with full peace of mind that we were in expert hands. Thank you Erin & team!

It was a great trip. Everyone was super nice, the weather was great, and all the guides and drivers were very attentive.

Ingrid did a wonderful job planning our trip. She was prompt, professional and thoughtful. We had limited time and wanted to fit in Oslo, Bergen, the Flam railway, a Fjord cruise, dog sledding and the Northern lights. It took some adroit and creative planning to fit all this in 5 days, and we simply could not have figured this out on our own, and I give Ingrid great credit for figuring out a travel itinerary where we could do all this without feeling rushed. Everything went smoothly thanks to Ingrids' careful attention to detail. She was also on call during our trip — a mere text or e-mail away. I also want to thank her for arranging an Oslo walk with Stig, which was wonderful, as we got to see Oslo through a natives eye. We did the same in Bergen, where Ingrid took us on a charming walk through town and up into the hills. Both walks are strongly recommended. In all, I recommend Ingrid with the greatest possible enthusiasm. She will make your trip richer!

Why Jordan? Why not Jordan! What a wonderful trip we have just had to that exciting country.
From start (the booking) to finish ( saying goodbye to our experienced, eloquent, knowledgable guide, Mohammed) everything worked like clock work and nothing was too much trouble.

The people of Jordan are friendly , honest and always willing to help. The food was delicious especially the Kunafeh in downtown Amman!

The highlights are too many to mention them all so here are just a few;
1 Petra- wow! Advice for us older generation- walk in, go up to the Monastery by donkey , walk down the 850 steps from the Monastery and get a horse ride or chariot ride back to the entrance.
GET THERE EARLY!
2 Wadi Rum desert experience is a must. Such beautiful desert landscapes.
3 Jerash and Karak Castle are also a must see.
4 Dead Sea- put on that mud!

My Bali trip has been a dream. Beautiful island, warm and friendly local people, rich culture. Our local specialist Ayu had been so wonderful throughout the consultation and booking process. She advised and helped us book everything we needed/asked for to make sure we have a wonderful vacation. Our driver Krisna Arimbawa had been above and beyond our expectation. He was so friendly, resourceful, helpful and always with a big smile. Nusa Penida is so worth the trip to visit. Highly recommend the Authentic Balinese Day - you will get to meet and experience the humble and wonderful lives of a local Balinese family (they were absolutely wonderful, warm and loving).