Kimkim Trip Reviews

I worked with Ingrid who was based in Norway and she was great. She even met us for a hike in her hometown of Bergen. I would highly recommend KimKim to anyone who is planning a trip and wants the expertise of those living in the area.

Damber was quite possibly the best guide I could have asked for. He was considerate, extremely knowledgeable, caring and very entertaining. The journey was significantly easier under his care. Many fellow trekkers didn’t make it, or struggled intensely. I am convinced much of my journey was made easier based on following his very experienced advice. I strongly recommend both the site and Damber specifically. In spending the time and money to attempt to get to EBC, make the effort to get the best guide possible. Damber is it.

Ingrid would get more stars if you offered that option.
Having just returned from 2 weeks in Norway arranged by Ingrid at Ethical Travel I can write an informed review. Ingrid, you are fantastic! The KimKim web portal works very smoothly and makes planning efficient and easy. You are attentive, detail oriented, personable, optimistic, very knowledgeable about Norway, flexible, accommodating, responsive, creative. And, you have a high power to weight ratio as we learned on our walking tour of Bergen. You are extraordinarily customer service focussed. The most telling example of this is when we texted you late on a Saturday afternoon that the hotel we were checking into did not have operable air conditioning and was uncomfortably hot. You not only helped make arrangements for a different hotel, you interrupted your personal activities to meet us in the lobby of the hotel to attend to the details. I can give Ingrid, KimKim and EthicalTravel my highest recommendation. FANTASTIC!!!!

James Flax, MD, MPH, DLFAPA

Trip was excellent. Amanda was more than awesome. I give her 10 stars, not just five. She handled all our needs, last minute changes and beyond.

Mingma and Dorje were top-notch and literally saved our trek by being agile in the face of Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Muktinath. They stayed informed of his changing schedule and altered our trek route and time-table to enable our visit. They both were knowledgeable, fun, and a pleasure to trek with. During trek days they stayed close to us in sketchy areas and gave us space in easier areas.

All transfers and accommodation were great.

The entire crew made it possible for Donna and I to drop into Adventure travel for two weeks and not lose any of that time to waiting for permits, negotiating for taxis, etc, etc, etc.

Thank you Amanda, Mingma and Dorje. Thank you kimkim!

Christy did a super good job accommodating all my special requests and last minute changes. We were supposed to fly into Lima but a delayed United flight caused us to miss our connection in Houston. I found a flight into Quito that put us there two days earlier than we planned to visit this city. Christy quickly fixed things, had a pick-up waiting for us at that new airport and had a hotel room waiting for us. Another memorable person was David who took us on an all-day food tour in Lima. He has a great fun loving personality for a tour guide. He will teach you how to make a Pisco Sour and Ceviche, tour a market and have lunch with a great view of the ocean. Other tour guides in Equador and Peru seemed to want to tell us lots of details about each city, suburbs, and counties. Things like population and square meters. I'm not sure maybe they need to know such information to pass their Tour Guide Exam. We finally mentioned to one that we were more interested in learning about the culture, history, flora, and fauna. The tour got a little more interesting at that point.

I want to say BIG Thank you to my wonderful agent Tamara, who I was happy to meet in Jordan, she did a excellent job to organize my trip. She was very welcoming and kind to me when we spoke in the office. I also want to say my special thank you to my guide in Petra, and my very big thank you to my guide and driver Bassam Helalat. Bassam is the best driver and wonderful knowledgeable person. With his help I was able to see and feel Jordan, meet amazing people and see unforgettable land-scarps. I miss you all, I miss Jordan very much. It was an honor to know you all. If I ever will have an opportunity to go to Jordan, I would be the happiest person in the world. My best regards to all team. Love you all.

Very well organised trip with kimkim. During our hike we didnt see any other tourists so it felt really special walking there only with the guide and porter. Our guide Padam Paudel was very kind and told us a lot about Nepal and the local villages and the life there.

The lodges were perfect aswell. Nice beds and bathrooms with warm water. Also the food was good and the happy hour was included ;)

The views of the mountains were the best in the morning when the sky was clear. Incredible experience!

I had a wonderful experience with KimKim and the trekking company the set me up with, Responsible Treks. Let me fill you in!
After checking out trekking options on kimkims website, they connected me with trekking specialist Kunchok Nima, who was able to provide me with wise advice and suggestions as to which trek we should do, based off the amount of time we had and experience. After booking the Poonhill trek he continued to keep contact with me, confirming details and answering questions, which was very helpful indeed!
Upon arrival in the country, Kunchok met us at our hotel, he gave us an overview for the upcoming adventure and we were off to Pokhara the following day.
And let me tell you, everything for the next 5 days was very well taken care of, including us...we immensely enjoyed getting to know guide Rickjin and porter Kunchok! Even though the weather was a little overcast, these guys made up for the lack of sunshine! Poonhill trek has a good variety of geography, you see local villages, lush jungle and majestic mountains. And the trek itself is well spread out and gives plenty time to rest.
So if you despise planning and details, KimKim is the number one option for you to partner with to experience the beauty of Nepal! Thank you to kimkim and the guys at Responsible Treks for making our Nepal experience a memorable one!

Hi Preeti,

The trip was terrific. We appreciated your help a great deal and everything was fine. My feedback is only about the things that I thought could have been improved. Please know that overall we were very happy.
First of all, the email situation during the planning phase, the long threads and the occasional difficulty wading through. I always appreciated your immediate response but wished the format could have been a bit different.
Second: I know we were on The Ring Road that that's pretty easy but we could have made use of a few directions! We use waze and so we were ok but without that we would have had some trouble. There was no notation for distances between sites or turns, even when we went to Reykavik. A few directions would have been helpful.
Third: The Hotel Ranga was the only place we weren't 100 percent pleased with. Our shower didn't work, the bed was uncomfortable and my dinner was pretty awful The manager agreed that my dinner was a disaster though and he took it off the bill.
We would use your organization again and we thank you for your excellent help throughout! When I misplaced the voucher for the Blue Lagoon Rico came through very quickly and all went well! I would suggest that you add the tomato farm to the list of things to do
Nancy

We were 7 members of one family , all over 55, who wished to go on a birding adventure in Peru. Katy Shorthouse of Aspiring Adventures listened carefully to our requests . She did an amazing job of meeting our needs and desires so in the end we had an exceptional trip. Our guides Nestor and Luis were wonderful, the food provided by chef Alex was fantastic, the accomodations were comfortable and the tour ran like clockwork. Katy provided personalised service at every stage of our trip. Both Manu National Park and Machu Picchu blew our minds.The Inca heritage in Cuzco was fascinating. If you are considering a guided tour to Peru, Aspiring Adventures will surpass your expectations.

Ante did a fantastic job tailoring the trip to our needs. Allen and his wife Natalia the owners of Avocado were amazing as well. The islands we visited ( Mljet, Havar, Korchula, Saipan) and meals cooked on board were so much better than anticipated.
Allen has so many toys (seabob, electric bikes and paddle boards) you do not need to book any tours.

We had already booked our flights to Peru, so we had very specific dates to plan our trip to Machu Picchu around. Nicole asked us what we wanted to do and worked around our dates to create a great itinerary. Each day of our trip was planned out for us, including accommodations and most meals. We were able to see Machu Picchu and even got to hike to the top of Huayna Picchu!

Nicole made sure that all of our last minute needs were met and even gave us recommendations for our time in Lima after our tour with KimKim.

Marco and his assistant were really quite perfect for what we were looking for---10 hour lay-over, we were met outside and taken care of by Marco, who showed off his Ethiopian pride by showing us a capsulated version of the vibrant city. We feel that he sensed what we were looking for and was generous with his knowledge and money---we had little cash, so Marco paid for some souvenir with his cash and we settled up at the end. We loved the enculturation of hanging with local people, coffee ceremonies, lunch, breakfast and the markets.

I highly recommend this kind of trip to anyone who has a brief time in Addis ESPECIALLY for the food and culture. Thank You to all.

They were extremely helpful when any traveling issues arose such as forgetting my passport or extending my stay in ollantaytambo and our guide was very knowledgeable about the Incan civilization and was able to tell us all about the places we were hiking through. The only thing I would have wished was different was that we could have spent more time touring macho picchu with the guide before getting to hike up the mountains.

Our Trip- Myanmar off the beaten track 10 days.
If we could give this trip a 10 we would. Anne was a fantastic organizer/planner. She understood what we were looking for and put together an itinerary that suited us immensely.
Everything went logistically smooth in terms of timelines, dates, pick ups and bookings. Our guides or drivers were always there greeting us with a big smile wherever the next place be.
In terms of the guides themselves they were all locals from the specific region we were traveling in. They were friendly, warm, caring and very knowledgeable. We genuinely enjoyed their company.
Myanmar was an amazing country to visit. From the landscape, the people and the experience itself. We definitely would love to explore more there again in future.
We would definitely recommend Myanmar, Anne and her team of guides to give you a truly wonderful and real Myanmar experience.
Thank you!
Alex Trey

My wife and I had a quick 6 day trip in Sri Lanka, with Rukan, our guide. This was a great experience and we visited all the main tourist spots we wanted to, plus more, that Rukan fitted in along the way. Our accommodation along the way was superb and everything went as planned. We even got to watch 2 leopards during our safari at Yalla Park, which was a highlight.

I cannot speak too highly of the team at KimKim. From the moment I first made contact to the very end of our trip the service was outstanding. They focussed on finding out exactly what we wanted and then provided way above expectations. Mads put the trip together checking throughout if it was exactly what we wanted. The city guide Rajive was very knowledgeable and informative. The Inn Patan was a great place to stay.

The trek was just the right level for us. It stretched us. OK some basic teahouses, but some pretty good ones too, and the views, unbelievable. Our guide on the trek, Suman, was a guide, a butler sorting out food orders etc and a guardian angel keeping an eye on us at all times. Suman and our porters, Manoj and Laxman, became part of our family. They were suoerb and great company.

The pavilions in Pokhara is a fantastic hotel to relax in. Then Chitwan. The Baraha Jungle resort is luxurious but you must go to Tiger tops and be with the elephants.

Finally I must mention Raj, the office manager. He made sure the trip worked. He seemed to have a sixth sense and once when one of our party had to get a doctor within minutes. he phoned me up to check all was OK. How he knew I don’t know as we did not tell him. Constantly checking in the background I guess. Perfect as we did not want to be on an over organised trip but were glad of his quiet efficient organisation.

Perfect trip. I highly recommend Mads and his team to you if you are going to Nepal.

Hi Tashi and Prajwol,

Sorry I've taken so long to review but I was thinking it over and didn't want to write exactly how I was feeling at the time. I'm going to just give a breakdown of my experiences on the trip you planned for me.

Day 1- the touring day.

The guide was very knowledgeable and he made the whole experience quite pleasant for my friend and me. We do recommend using him in the future. However, there were two situations where we felt VERY uncomfortable. I had been feeling off about it and when I asked my friend she said she also felt the same. It sort of felt like our guide had made prior deals to try to force us into spending more money than we wanted to. First time we felt this way was when we stopped for lunch in the Square. Our guide took us to an EXTREMELY expensive restaurant, where the food was VERY average. In fact it might have been the worst food I had during my entire 17 days in Nepal, and yet it cost more than double the meals I had in Thamel. When I went to ask why my food was taking so long to arrive (my friend's food had arrived about 15 minutes before mine) I found our guide lounging with the owners as if they were friends. When he saw me he got up very quickly as if he was trying to hide his affiliations. This is when I got very suspicious. I might be wrong but my friend felt the same way.

The second time was when we were going through the old city and we stopped outside an art school. He told us a bit of its history and ASKED us if we wanted to go in to see the artworks. We, of course, said yes. When we got to the top one of the masters was patiently waiting for us and immediately started giving us a tour of the art. This gave us more suspicions because it was DEFINITELY prearranged. Which means either I had PAID for this tour (in which case I don't understand why our guide asked if we wanted to go in), or else our guide had organized it. When the tour ended the master painter became VERY forceful about us buying art. He kept repeating that it was our choice but he did it in such as way that make us feel we didn't actually have a choice. We told him multiple times that we didn't have money and they kept in forcing the subject and came up with alternative ways for us to buy (eg they charging our hotels or the guide and us paying them back). My friend even mentioned how uncomfortable they made her feel.

I might obviously be wrong about the guide trying to scam us a little, but either way we learnt a lot about the history of Nepal from him so we enjoyed that.
If I am wrong about the guide, and he took us to such an expensive restaurant as it was part of the normal program then I'm more disappointed in you guys as I told you repeatedly that I didn't have a lot of money as I'm a student so I definitely didn't appreciate the poor planning there.

The driver for day 1 was really professional, I really recommend him for future use.

Day 2 and 3- trekking.
This was my biggest disappointment for my entire trip to Nepal. The first day of trekking was better than the second. It went through the forests and several farms so I definitely enjoyed that. It was only a little underwhelming but I was expecting the second day to be better so at the time I was happy. The second day to Nagorkot was VERY VERY disappointing. So much so that I was very irritated with whomever chose this route for me. There was so much construction the ENTIRE 7 or 8 hours, and on top of that I'm sure 95% of the trip was on the road. This isn't what I wanted at all, in fact it might have been the exact opposite of what I wanted. Perhaps you weren't completely aware of this but that just shows poor planning, because it was not a good experience. I actually felt like I wasted one of my few days left in Nepal because of this last trekking day.

My guide Pemba was good. He gave me space to just be by myself which is what I wanted, and he answered my questions whenever I had them. My conversations with him left a bit to be desired but that might have been my fault since I had had little sleep the night before so I didn't have the energy for much conversation. The lodge and guesthouse you booked for me were very disappointing as well. I understand the lodge being how it was but I expected way more from the guest house.

The driving that got me to the trekking start was fine. The driver that took me from Nagorkot to the water rafting was NOT good. But my experience with him was very likely Pemba's fault. This is the only thing I did NOT like about Pemba- he made me worry unnecessarily. The night of day 3 he told me that breakfast will be at 6 and then we will leave for 6.30 as it will take us long to get to the water rafting. He said it will be tight but we should make it on time. When I came for breakfast the next morning at 6.05 my breakfast hadn't even been made yet and Pemba started reprimanding me on my bad time. He didn't outright say it but he basically said "if you miss your river rafting then this is clearly not my fault". This honestly made me very irritated with him. He made me feel like I was a child who had no sense of responsibility. I finished eating at 6.15 and when I said I'm going to brush my teeth and then we can go he again made a comment that if we late it is my fault not his. I really didn't appreciate it. We left at 6.20 (10 minutes BEFORE he said we needed to leave) and he again made a comment about how we might miss the river rafting. So of course I worried. This is where I really started to dislike my driver that took us to the river rafting. Within the first 20 minutes he pulled us over so he could speak on the phone to his family. Normally I wouldn't have minded but Pemba got the idea that we were going to be late into my head so I was worried. After about 5 min we started again. Within 10 min he pulled us over again to phone someone else. He did this a third time. After an hour he pulled us off again so he could go to the toilet (which he should have done before we left if we had such a tight schedule). We ended up arriving over an hour BEFORE it started so all my worrying caused my Pemba was for nothing.

Other than this though, Pemba was great. He was well mannered and was always trying to make me more comfortable (whether it be him carrying my sleeping bag, or making sure my food arrived and that I had enough of it, or making sure my drinks were cold). So because of this I still highly recommend him for future use because even though I very much disliked the trekking route, he made it better.

Day 4- white river rafting.
This was by far my most memorable activity in Nepal. I had an absolutely incredible time. I highly recommend it for future suggestions to tourists. Traveling through the valleys was incredible and we saw monkeys and loads of mountain ranges. Was definitely a highlight for me.

I honestly found my experiences unusual because we had spoken at such great length about what I was wanting and not wanting. I'm not sure if I will use KimKim again in the future. You were UNREASONABLY expensive. I saw the prices for the lodges and guest houses, for my breakfast/lunch/dinner during the trekking, for the river rafting and for guided tours. What I didn't see was what the price for private cars was but I assumed it was between 5000 rupees and 10000 rupees per day. Even with this by my calculations you overcharged me by about 25 000 rupees. Plus I still had to pay tips which came to another 7000 rupees. Plus on top of this the reason you told me that you couldn't provide prices to me was because you were receiving special DISCOUNTS from the companies, so the trip should have been even cheaper. I honestly felt very cheated, whether it was because of poor planning or else you just taking advantage of my ignorance in prices, either way I didn't appreciate it.

I did like the fact that you came to meet me in person to introduce the guides etc. It was professional and I appreciated it. But that courtesy wasn't enough to fix it all.

Overall I'd give a 6/10 stars for the trip, but it is only so high because of how much I enjoyed the river rafting.

We could not have been better paired with our guide and driver - Yenten and MigMar. Yenten was excellent company throughout the trip and was able to explain complicated subjects clearly and easily to us.

Anthony and then Aurelia were very responsive and prompt. I was very happy that they always responded quickly and completely to my questions. I felt it was a very personal and professional interaction. So Thank you!

Also, all of the arrangements for hotel check-in, restaurants, luggage transfer, and taxi transport were absolutely perfect. Everything went exactly to plan. Wherever we went we were immediately greeted as "WalkInn" and welcomed with smiles. It was wonderful to see everything so well arranged.

We are also very grateful for the very, very prompt assistance that was provided when we misplaced our walking road book early in the walk. We believe that it was left at the Glanum site where someone quickly picked it up. One note here--we do not understand why we were initially given only one road book for the two of us. If we had had a second book, there would have been no problem! When we received the replacement, we were then given two booklets. Also, since we were not given the road book until we were leaving Avignon, we did not have access to any of those recommendations.

Our walks were really spectacular--both in Les Alpilles and the Luberon. Directions were good except for two things:
(1) the directions for Walk 1—Eastern Valleys and crests—should advise walkers that they might visit the Glanum ruins after they visit the Saint Paul de Mausole. Currently the option only lists the monastery. The walk then takes you away from the ruins. We had to circle back to the ruins after the walk when it would have made much more sense to see them before the rest of the walk.
(2) The only time the directions totally failed us was Walk 3—to l’Abbaye de Sénanque. We learned that other walkers with the same directions had problems with this, having to backtrack several times. The problem occurs when there is a reference to: “only 50m farther you reach the 2nd yellow hiking post with the same name: Abbaye de Sénanque. Here turn left and up a stone road La Pouraque.” There should be a direction that says to ignore the 1st yellow hiking post to the left in the parking lot and continue walking past the Eglise Abbataiale, Communauté, Hotellerie. We (and others) were very confused by the 1st yellow hiking post—since it was not referenced at all. We ended up taking an alternate path and walking up the paved road to reconnect with the directions at THE PASS. But we lost a lot of time trying to figure this out. And we learned that other walkers (on Country Walkers self-guided) had very similar experiences. So the directions should be fixed.

My sister and I fell in love with all of the locations where we stayed. The hotel in Avignon was very well situated and beautiful. Our hosts in St. Remy--Pierre and Armell--were particularly helpful and supportive. Breakfast there was the best. The most beautiful lodging was Le Mas de la Beaume in Gordes--absolutely spectacular! Wendy is a very caring and attentive hostess and the bedroom and in-suite bath are perfect. The hotel in Lourmarin is amusing with its modern, purple room and pictures of bathing beauties. They had by far the best linens and towels and, again, helpful staff. The Saint Cristophe in Aix gave us a great location and comfort. We did not like the hotel in Marsaille but it was a great location with very nice staff. The New Hotel's ground floor exterior appears to be burned out or something. Breakfast was sufficient but perfunctory. The reception area is just functional. Our room had someone else's clothes hanging in the bathroom and there were trash items on the floor that never got cleaned out while we were there.

The included dinners were all very special. Number 9 in Lourmarin was also a lot of fun. Our hostess at the Outsider in Gordes went out of her way to make us feel welcome when we arrived completely soaked from walking in a surprise thunderstorm. The rosé she recommended was the best we had in the two weeks.

Gordes, Les Baux, Lacoste are all so lovely. In Lourmarin we walked back to our hotel at night under the most beautiful cobalt blue night sky. We really loved St. Remy, especially on market day.