MATER Sustainable Travel

Emilia and then Augustina responded to our queries rapidly and accurately. Diego our guide: ponctual, professionnal, knowledgeable and has great music in the car!!! Had great tips to improve our sighseeing experiences as well as shopping adventures. I had a bit of a medical problem: without me asking him, he accompanied me to the pharmacy and facilitated the purchase of what I needed. Favorite moment: everyday. Everything stood out. The mountains, the scenery, the food and wine. In my everyday life, I avoid having discussions by text messages or emails. The KimKim way of doing business is exclusively in this manner. A zoom call to start the planification process would be very efficient and facilitating. Email exchanges afterwards would then be ok.

Hotel Reviews

Pristine Camp Salinas Grandes

Jujuy

Out of this world experience, a must, even for one night. 5-star accommodations with amazing food and wine. Personnel were more than helpful and available for everything. Would recommend without hesitation.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Las Marías Hotel Boutique

Tilcara

Amazing views for the room, staff were more than helpful, providing advice and hints for matters we did not even think about. They arranged for restaurant reservations and transportation efficiently. Definitely a plus to stay there. Hotel and rooms are beautiful as well as the gardens.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Marqués De Tojo Hotel

Purmamarca

Rooms were quite large and very clean. Overall, very quiet and not far from the center of this small town. Decor might need to be refreshed a little bit with a coat of paint. This being said, would stay there again, no worries. The air conditioning unit started spilling water in the room during the night. Staff were located quickly, everything cleaned up rapidly. They offered another room: we declined since we were leaving in the morning. Standard breakfast with eggs made up on request.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Infinito Hotel

Buenos Aires

Room on the small side for two people, two beds and luggage. However very clean and quiet. What made this hotel great was the staff: whether to tell us how to use subway, where to get off, etc. which restaurants in the area etc. they made a point of giving us all the info we needed. Standard breakfast with egg dishes on request. Good location.

Authenticity & Character

Standard hotel with all standard services offered

Location

Staff

They made our stay more enjoyable. Gave us tons of useful information so we would have to go through Google searches.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Rooms a bit small.

Villa Vicuña Hotel Boutique

Salta

High-end french-style hotel. Lovely with excellent breakfast. Staff were exceptional.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Review

Quebrada de Humahuaca, visit of the Hornocal

Argentina

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Argentina is a great place to visit. Under Milei, it is on its way to again being rich and a world leader. Buenos Aires has a really cool combination of post-socialist grunge (graffiti, old buildings) and brand new cafes and restaurants. In general, all of our connections were on-time. We generally avoided large buses and groups, which we preferred for our family group of four. Each of our destinations (El Calafate, Bariloche, Iguazu, BA) were world class. We were happy with the Boutique hotels chosen in terms of location and facilities and breakfast.

We had an amazing time in Argentina with the itinerary Juan and the team at KimKim planned! This was our first visit to Argentina so it was great to have a local customize our trip. We started in Buenos Aires and was welcomed by our wonderful driver Alberto. Alberto ended up doing all of our airport pick up and drop offs from Buenos Aires which was awesome because he’s great and it was good to have a familiar face with us each time. He also gave us some suggestions on neighborhoods and sights to visit during our drive.

Jessica was our first BA local guide and she was wonderful! We went around to different parts of the city and learned a lot about the culture, history and city life in BA. San Telmo was one of our favorite neighborhoods with the food and craft markets. We also saw a Tango show at El Querandi which was intriguing and educational.

Our next stop was Puerto Iguazu where we went to Iguazu Falls on both the Brazil and Argentina side. Both are amazing in different ways and a must see! Our guide on the Brazil was Manuel and our guide on the Argentina side was Ramon. Both were awesome in making sure we navigated the parks and customs flawlessly. Highly suggest the Gran Aventura boat ride on the Argentina side if you don’t have any health restrictions - we’re very glad we decided to add this excursion. The town of Puerto Iguazu was also very cool to experience. On one hand, there’s a touristy downtown with great bars and restaurants (recommend the Argentine Experience food and wine tasting) and on the other, you have Guarani villages that you can visit (highly recommend horseback riding with Beto and Alberto at Cabalgata ecológica del indio solitario).

We also visited Salta and Purmamarca. Salta was a bigger city with bars, restaurants and shops. One day here was enough to walk around, go on the cable car to Cerro de San Bernardo and see the sites. The next day, we were picked up by our guide Federico who was super fun and knowledgeable. He took us to San Antonio de Los Cobres (small mining town) and Salinas Grandes (salt flats). We drove along the scenic route 40 and saw a lot of locals from the mountains and farms. We saw all the Llamas, Vicuñas and Donkeys :)

To our pleasant surprise, Federico was back the next day as our guide! We saw the 7 color mountains and 14 color mountains. Federico shared a lot about the people and culture from the area and it was such a great experience to learn from him.

Our last day back at Buenos Aires was perhaps one of the best. We visited the Boedo neighborhood with Graciela and Pierre, our local guide/dinner host. It was so rewarding to meet them, their sons and their pets! They showed us how to make empanadas and we had a wonderful home cooked meal with them.

As for hotels, most were good. Our favorite hotel was Mine Boutique Hotel in Buenos Aires. This was closest to what we would expect of a 4 star boutique hotel. Awwa in BA was spacious but didn’t have much ambiance. La Reserva in Puerto Iguazu was a nice resort with a nice room and was literally in the jungle. My only reservation here is that the bathroom was not too new - it didn’t match the rest of the resort. Villa Vicuña in Salta had a very nice bathroom with an older colonial boutique room. Purmamarca had amazing views from the hotel room and a wonderful balcony. The bathroom again was not as good and there was no A/C if that’s a concern. Overall, we selected boutique hotels as our lodging option and believe that that’s what was arranged for us.

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to get to know locals and see the culture from as much of a non tourist perspective as possible. KimKim did a wonderful job with this - especially with the Graciela and Pierre.

I would definitely recommend KimKim if it is your first time to a city or country. They gave great suggestions and the logistics were seamless. Drivers were always on time, excursions were confirmed and local flights were at times that helped maximize our day. Thank you Juan and Joaquin!

Agustina and Joaquin kept me up to date daily with pick up times for our various trips and organised our boarding passes for internal flights to Mendoza from BA and return. Very organised and super helpful. Definitely recommend KimKim and the Argentina team.

Activity Reviews

Day Trip to the Pampas & Estancia Lunch

Buenos Aires

Not too far from the city and beautiful ranch with amazing food and friendly tour guide.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Aconcagua Experience

Mendoza

Great day out in the Andes. Great photo opportunities, amazing views.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

We had a wonderful experience with our tour and Emilia was wonderful helping and suggesting ideas on the way. Argentina is a beautiful country, lots to see and experience.
Emilia made arrangements to meet us, which was very kind.

We loved our trip to Buenos Aires and Patagonia, specifically El Calafate. We highly recommend both. That said, the actual execution was a mix of good and not. We were pleased with the overall planning process and the overall itinerary suggestions by Agustina and her responsiveness to questions about the trip.. However, the actual execution fell short in a few ways:

Our transfer to the local airport to fly to El Calafate was a no-show, and we didn’t get immediate response from our original local contact, who turned out to be on holiday a lot of the time we were in BA. It was very stressful, and we never got an apology or really any sympathy, just a quick refund of the cost we paid to get a taxi ourselves at 4:30 a.m. with the help of the hotel.

Speaking of the hotel, we loved the Mine Boutique Hotel in BA and would highly recommend it, but only ended up there after we asked for multiple more options from those originally suggested.

(Also the country guide materials shared with us stressed the strictness of luggage weight limits, and so we took the time to repack for El Calafate. However from what we could see, there was no apparent attention paid to many of our fellow passengers very large suitcases.)

We also requested additional options for hotels in El Calafate from the one originally suggested, and eventually without notification, when we went to review the final itinerary, the hotel to which we had agreed was not the one listed in the itinerary. Only after asking did we get a reply that the original one was no longer available, and so Agustina had booked an alternative. That one didn’t appeal to us, and set off another round of hurriedly reviewing options. We ended up at Terrazas del Calafate, which was tolerable but not great.

We had two walking tours in BA. While we were happy with them and the plan, the first one was rained out and rescheduled for the last day of our trip. That guide, Sandra, did a great job but we were surprised that she showed up without any apparent knowledge of the places that we were expecting to see that day. We then lost some time dealing with public buses over to La Boca that could have been easily saved with a taxi. No blame for Sandra, I don’t think, but someone didn’t get the message about the tour plan for the day.

On the positive side, the excursions in El Calafate were amazing: boat to Estancia Cristina, Perito Moreno glacier via both walking platforms and boat, and a day at Nibebo Aike sheep ranch including 3 hours on horseback. A note about Nibepo Aike—it is a long, bumpy ride to get there. However for us it was definitely worth it, but I wasn’t mentally expecting the gravel road trek.

As mentioned before, we highly recommend the Mine Hotel, but also generally that part of the Palermo neighborhood is a great great place to be, particularly for restaurants and shopping, as well as a base to go to other parts of the city and proximity to the National airport too.

Hotel Reviews

Mine Hotel Boutique

Buenos Aires

Authenticity & Character

Location

So close to many restaurants and shopping in the neighborhood, plus close to the National airport and decently located to get to the other major neighborhoods and sites

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Terrazas del Calafate

El Calafate

Somewhat dated. Walkable but a long way to main drag, though taxis are easy. Nice view of lake but not really to the mountains. Mix of great and surly staff. Pretty much lives up to its website—calibrate your expectations. I wouldn’t recommend seeking it out, but if you’re short other options, it serves its purpose.

Activity Reviews

Trekking at Estancia Cristina

El Calafate

Perito Moreno Glacier & Safari Azul

Argentina

Quality of Experience

Estancia Nibepo Aike

El Calafate

Quality of Experience

Food

Lives up to expectations for the roast lamb experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

This was an incredible trip!

The KimKim team helped us organize a logistically complicated trip and it went flawlessly. The local cooking class in Buenos Aires was excellent and the time in each city was perfect for what we wanted to see.

Hotel Review

Rochester Calafate

El Calafate

I loved this hotel. The location was close to the main town (walking distance or accessible by shuttle). I loved watching the birds in the lawn in the morning and looking out my window at the beautiful view.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Experiencia Boedo, an evening with a porteñian family

Buenos Aires

this was one of our favorite parts of the trip. We learned so much and were really able to appreciate the culture of Buenos Aires

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Tango & cena show at El Viejo Almacen

Buenos Aires

This show is very long and ends late at night (there is then a bus ride back to the hotel that takes a while). You do learn a lot about the development of the tango

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Trekking on Perito Moreno glacier

El Calafate

One of the highlights of the trip. The guides were amazing

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Bike tour: Palermo & Recoleta

Buenos Aires

it normally would have scared me to bike in a big city, but Buenos Aires has good bike lanes and the guide is good. This is a rigorous day we biked just under 12 miles and were out for about 4 hours.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Gran Aventura Navigation tour

Puerto Iguazú

this trip helped you really understand the power of the waterfalls and see them from a different perspective. I also really liked the trip in the 4-wheeler type vehicle through the jungle to get to the boat.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport