Kimkim Trip Reviews

This was a very well planned trip. We really enjoyed the first night in Egilsstadir as well as the road trip to Vik. We wish we'd ha done extra day to do a bit more hiking as we ended up spending extra time in Vik.

Joost helped with every single step of this trip and was amazing with returning emails. The one time I reached out on the first day of the trip we received a quick response from one of his team members. Fantastic service!!

Really outstanding local agent, guide and porter and wonderful experience overall. The only thing that could have been better is for the route to start in Soti Kola and end in Dharapani because the itinerary as is included 2.5 days of walking on roads with jeeps whizzing by. By cutting these 2.5 days on the roads you could add a couple days exploring up high and keep to the same overall 16 day length. I don't blame the Nepalese for wanting more roads but I don't want to trek on them. Make sense? I hope so. Overall great experience though and will recommend friends coming next year book with you all as well. Thanks again!

Ngima was great. Top notch professional.

The trip was great, and the track is outstanding. At the last night, we had a taste what annapurna circuit would be like. The land space looked amazing also but far too many other trackers and quite touristy. Happy with the choice of manaslu. The organisation regarding transport and accommodation were good, it is easi r to have your private transports Than going on the public bus and avoid the walking in on the first day to soti kola. As the days went on, we trusted more the guide and the porters. At the beginning guide was using some trainers and jeans instead of some hiking gear. He then bought hiking boots as the ones he had broken, and from day 4 onwards he had appropriate gear, including pants and down jacket. It may be our judgement, but I believe it is important guide and porters to have proper gear, it is another safety measure. Porters did almost the entire track in flip flops except the day of the pass in sneakers. They said that is what they are used to. So this would be my only remark, ensure guide and porters have the appropriate gear. The Xperience was outstanding and the guide and the porters fantastic, which definitely contributed positivity to the whole experience.
Our guide was able to answer majority of the questions that we had about Nepal and or nepali culture. This is important feature of the guide to be able to talk about the country and not only about the trek

Before the trip, communication was extremely efficient. In nepal, she was friendly and approachable. Nice touch at the end, with a meeting after the trip to hear feedback and give us a
Little survenir

Early notice that Tsum valley was closed eas very helpful, so that we had the right passes to go to Nar-Phu. Guide was excellent, very attentive, spoke fluent English, and accommodated our changes tho the itinerary.

Really responsive to our pre-trip questions and the face tho face meetings were also really helpful.

I guess my two suggestions would be: 1. You don't necessarily have to spend the night in Hile, especially when you have a car arranged to pick you up there. I guess for those that have a tighter schedule. 2. When you do stay overnight in Hile just as we did, in hindsight we would have had no problem to walk the next day to Biretanthi. I mean the car was perfect and we had I think the best driver of the whole of Nepal, yet it feels a bit like we bother the villagers and trekkers that did walk down from Hile.

Such a pleasant man :-)
We concluded our aqcuaintance with a lunch in Boudanath yesterday, it was great to be able to chat with him a bit more. All his knowledge of trekking!

Very satisfied with all aspects of the trip, from planning through to the final goodbyes to our guides.

Friendly and helpful and more - which other operator would invite us to a local bar and then buy is a drink? Wonderful person!

Very easy to book, great system to ask questions and get answers. The system flows creating a great overall experience.

Mads and team were fantastic and made us feel taken care of from start to finish. We had obstacles come up which required adjusting our itinerary , Mads and team were able to accommodate and offer alternative recommendations that fit what we wanted.

Podestine was a little far from town and accommodations of room were not great i.e. Sheet for blanket, shower did not drain, however Lara at the desk was amazing! Sailing trip did not have much time for swimming and snorkeling, majority was sitting on the boat, skipper was nice but would not recommend. Plitvice was amazing as well as accomadations, Dubrovnik is beautiful and Zagreb did not disappoint!

We thoroughly enjoyed the trip and appreciated the recommendations for restaurants and hotels. We don't usually use a travel agent, but for Iceland it was hard to know what to fit in for a quick 5 day trip, and Bjorn was great. Very easy to work with and responsive to our requests. He not only arranged airport transfers, he also set up a ride to the rental car, made sure we had a gps loaded with key spots, and gave us a phone to use with his contact info as well as all the other information we needed.

I was well taken care of the whole time! Thanks guys for planning this trip for me and getting me where I needed to go! The hotel at the end of my trek was amazing!! Thanks again:)

What I appreciated most was how was easy it was to organize and book. When we received the itinerary it was reasonably priced especially when compared to what I saw when I initially tried to book the trip on my own.

I was booking this trip rather late and I turned to KimKim because I was discovering that a number of the hotels I was interested in were sold out. Bjorn was able to get us a reduced rate with view rooms at a beautiful new hotel. He also found us a great "guest house". The activities he suggested weren't one that were found in the guidebooks. Bjorn listened to what we liked and found activities to match.

We would have liked to have a more in-depth conversation about the hotels and specifically the rooms that were going to be booked for the trip. In the end it worked our fine, but we were a little surprised when we got to the first hotel and would have considered spending more for a view or added amenity.

The biggest disappointment was a disconnect from our expectations of what KimKim offered when working with a local expert and what the final itinerary contained. We were expecting the final itinerary to include ideas/recommendations from the local expert for excursions, things to do or restaurants to checkout that may be slightly off the beaten path.

See previous comment regarding our expectations for the final itinerary.

It was perfectly organized and executed. Looking back I would have done one part differently, but it was really amazing to see that hotels were informed, transports by taxi or ship waiting when needed.

Was very engaged even throughout the vacation open for additional questions

My experience was wonderful. From helping with itineraries to restaurants, the service was great, even for cities that weren't necessarily advertised. I liked the personal experience with someone responding to my every question. Planning trips can sometimes take forever for me and consume my days, but Michelle allowed me to release that pressure.

It would have been great if in the planning phases, kimkim was able to tell me a route of a few cities to visit and the attraction of each. If I had thought through better, knowing I love the outdoors, I would have gone to Iceland instead of Stockholm before Copenhagen. Kayak has an algorithim of when its best to book, so if there was a way to integrate that and tell me to book before I lingered on the itinerary too long (which I admit I definitely did) then that would have been amazing. Overall a great experience though I just wish I had booked things quicker than waiting to go back and forth on them.

kimkim booked us a perfect honeymoon in Croatia. They found the best accommodations, transportation and activity ideas based on our preferences.

Things I liked:
- how easy it is to book a quality trip vs. doing our own research
- the route through Croatia was perfect
- chat communication vs. having to talk to someone by phone, although the back and forth would have been easier via email, instead of having to sign in each time to respond to a comment
- the full itinerary. we referred to it multiple times a day.
- sailing!
- our final hotel in Dubrovnik was a gem

Areas for improvement:
- back and forth communication by email, as shared above
- the two ferry rides were both sold out at the times we wanted for day-of purchases; buying ferry tickets online or at least warning us to buy early would have helped some logistical difficulty
- more country coverage… would have liked help with the Germany stage of our trip as well.
- would be great if kimkim could have booked flights for us

She was very patient in addressing some of my concerns. It was nice that prior to my trip the team at KimKim reminded me about some of the small details such as visa application, which i had completely forgotten.

Kimkim made this such an easy trip to book. I could log into kimkim and ask questions about anything and everything whenever they came to mind. Things related to trekking or Nepal in general. Kimkim would respond within 24 hours with great information. They were attentive to catering the trekking to what I wanted to do and see, kimkim worked with my budget and time frame to make sure I was getting the best deal possible.

Raj and everyone at social tours was super welcoming! They went out of their way to make sure things ran smoothly and that I was properly prepared for the trek. They checked in with me during the trek to make sure everything was ok. Once back in Kathmandu they were still very helpful and made sure I had everything I needed. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Raj and his team to other travellers looking to come to Nepal. Even if you just wanted to stay in Kathmandu, these guy have so many options for things to go and see and they really put the effort in to making sure you feel welcome and have an awesome stay in Nepal.

Very professional agency, the guide was a very nice person, also the porter. Since my arriving they always were in contact with me, also the days I didn't plan with their agency. I definitely recommend Ngima's agency

Day 1: really great. Nice walk up to a very cool hotel. Got away from the city and really got a feel for the country side.

Day 2: hike back down to Bhaktapur was ok. The second half of the hike was on a main road with lots of traffic, so not that enjoyable. I would have been better if we could have walked in more rural setting like the day before. We ended up catching a bus to get to the hotel. The hotel was noisy, and not very modern bathroom. I would have changed the hotel.

Day 3: very intense day. Early morning tour of Bhaktapor. Then move to Patan and tour and lunch and shopping there. Then Kharma Cafe, and finally goodbye dinner. Probably too many moves around on this day. Maybe would have been better to do Bhaktapor tour previous afternoon. Plus Kharma Cafe was not that interesting. I appreciate the concept of sustainable, local business, but driving 20 minutes there and 20 back for a coffee did not add significant value to the day...

I'm pleased with the support and service. I had no idea what to expect as I had never visited Nepal, so had some different thoughts in my head around what to expect. Organization and service was good, but now that I have a better idea of the urban Nepal, I would ask for some different options and focus things differently....

Namaste to all at Social Tours,
Thank you very much for all doing your best on this very special trip. My cousins and I are leaving Nepal with the highest opinion of its people due to your infallible attentions, flexibility and enthusiasm.
All of our tour guides were extremely nice and helpful.

We will do our best to recommend your services and hope to be back in the future

Raj was amazing.
We didn't get to meet him while we were there but we was incredibly helpful throughout the whole planning process and left us in very good hands!