Custom Self-Driving Tours of Australia

The guides and taxi drivers were very friendly and very concerned about being everywhere on time and there to help us.

We especially liked the QT hotel in Auckland, very exotic and very interesting,!!

Would probably pass on the 10 Hour Dr. up to coast to see the 12 apostles, next time we come,

The Australian open was exquisite, and we love to see the Australian people party and enjoy the event,

One of my favorite activities is going to the crocodile park, just north of reef house, very unique and very simple to get to!! Plus we learned a lot, and it was very hands-on,!

Thank you, Vickie, appreciate all your efforts!

Connie from KimKim helped organize an amazing trip to Australia for my family this past summer. We had a lot of special requests and specific activities we wanted to make sure to include in our 4-state trip. Connie was very patient with us, gave us lots of suggestions and worked closely with us to ensure that every detail was planned perfectly. Me, my husband and two adult children had the time of our lives. This was an amazing, stress-free trip thanks in a large part to our KimKim travel rep.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Australia. Kim-Kim's local travel agent, Vicky Steinhardt, did a great job working with us and our traveling companions, over an extended period, to plan our trip. I love planning travel but in the cases that we have used Kim-Kim they did a far better job than I could have done on my own. In this case Vicky had good suggestions which we would not have thought about. We were traveling with a second couple who participated in the trip planning. From our perspective the itinerary came together fairly easily. The hotels that Vicky selected were all well located and were ones that I would consider staying at in the future. I liked getting private car service from and to each airport. I was pleasantly surprised at how seamless that worked out.

Our Melbourne hotel was well located for walking to Victoria Market, the Australian Open, a laundromat, and restaurants. We had two small group tour daytrips while we were in Melbourne. One was a drive along the Great Ocean Road to see the beaches and the 12 Apostles. It was a very long day and while the scenery is spectacular it similar to what we have in California. The second tour to Phillips Island, to see the penguins march ashore, was more fun.

Aside from seeing the Australian Open, snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, was the other major highlight of our trip. The Crystalbook Flynn Hotel was great and really close to the Cairns marina. The Seastar dive boat was also really good. There are only about 45 passengers and the crew is very attentive and personable. The underwater scenery is, of course, great. We also took a worthwhile small van daytrip to Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rain Forest.

Our Sydney hotel was conveniently located next to Chinatown and Darling Harbor. There are a lot of restaurants, and a shopping mall nearby and it's close to a tram stop. We enjoyed our full day daytrip to the Blue Mountains and Leura. We were skeptical of touring the Sydney Opera House but it turned out to be a good call by Vicky. Our wives also enjoyed shopping at the weekend market at the Rocks. I'm also glad we got a half day tour of the highlights of Sydney.

The only travel problems that we had were pretty trivial. We had gone through multiple itineraries before arriving at the final one. Before we arrived in Sydney, Vicky caught the fact that our itinerary listed the wrong hotel. One of our domestic flights was on Jetstar. I would try to avoid them if I was traveling within Australia. Their maximum luggage weight limit is less than that of the international carrier and their check-in and boarding are chaotic if you're flying with them for the first time. We were dinged with a $120 hit for having overweight bags, however their gate agents were so disorganized and harried that they let us fly without collecting it. We had breakfast included at each of our hotels. This worked out well in Melbourne and Cairns but not so well in the Sydney Darling Harbor Vibe Hotel. To catch our tours we had to be out the door before 7:30 AM but they don't open their dining area until 7 AM and they only serve prepared meals and not a buffet.

Overall a very good trip and we expect to use KimKim in the future.