Kimkim Trip Reviews

I have had the opportunity of planning travel with several established companies previously, ie Backroads, Vermont BicycleTours, Costa Rica Expeditions. The experience we had with Quechua Treks / Mayra was EXCEPTIONAL. She truly designed an itinerary specific for my family which was unique and certainly not the traditional Inca Trail/Machu Pichu visit. The opportunity to do the Lares Trek allowed us to see amazing countryside and visit with actual native folks. This was only possible because of Mayra's long history in this area and mastery of the Quechuan dialect. We did not see other tourists for 3 days! We found her crew (horsemen , cooks) to be professional, friendly and very punctual. The specialty guides arranged for us were very knowledgeable, truly bilingual and obviously proud to show us their country, not just going through the motions. This trip involved multiple lodging and transportation connections which all took place seamlessly. Accommodations were described accurately and there were no unexpected "surprises" either in quality of lodging, food or additional expenses. Most importantly Mayra was enthusiastic, knowledgeable and flexible with our desires. She is genuine and professional and an outstanding representative for KIMKIM.

Everyone we had contact with was friendly, professional and spoke excellent English. Small hick up with a driver who overslept, but Bianca was right on it. The person who took us on the Jeep trip was excellent and was very knowledgeable about the area. I would highly recommend him.

Blanca was easy to get hold of and very responsive when we needed to contact her.

Andy went through all the details prior to our visit, so when we arrived, the trip was tailored to exactly what we had asked. The organization, once we were in Vietnam, was excellent. Someone was always waiting to meet us, and the guides were all friendly and informative.

No effort was spared to make little tweaks and changes. Correspondence was friendly and made us feel very comfortable about trusting Andy with our trip.

Everything went according to plan, The drivers and the guide were all fantastic. Well done!

Wow, what a great trip. Bianca was a delight to work with, and everyone she introduced us to along the way was fantastic. Can't wait to get back there and adventure with these guys again!

Bianca is extremely well organized and very effective. Highly recommended.

Jules, Tara and the staff at Expedition Colombia helped us to plan an AMAZING itinerary, but once we began our active holiday, the places we went and sights we experienced were beyond anything I could've dreamed. The entire trip was truly extraordinary. I figured Colombia was a beautiful place, but everything far surpassed all of my expectations! A great big thanks to the team of wonderful and charming people at Expedition Colombia! The knowledgeable and charismatic guides for our adventures (Nicho, Mael and Lucho) and drivers made our experience that much better. I highly recommend an active holiday with Expedition Colombia for anyone who is looking for a truly memorable, once in a lifetime experience in Colombia. Thanks again for such an incredible time!!!!!

Tara was incredibly friendly, knowledgable, helpful and responsive while coordinating with her to plan our amazing itinerary in Colombia. She is an absolute pleasure to work with!

The Peru trip was amazing! It beat expectations and was a marvel on so many levels. Our guide, Aldo, was a huge bonus as he was an amazing person to spend two weeks with escorting us through his magical country.

Very easy and organized booking process.

She was incredibly helpful and always responsive to my questions and/or needs during the trip. Fantastic organization throughout, with a prompt and professional staff.

I do have some feedback, really for North Sailing, but wanted to share here too since they are a partner of KimKim. We went on a whale watching tour which departed from Husavik. The seas were rough on the day of our reservations. When we checked in, the person assisting noted this to us - I was not sure exactly what this meant. They had already canceled some of the other trips that day.

We were provided with the jumpers, raincoats, and gloves. The waves were about 10 feet high and a number of them broke partially over the bow of the boat. There was no rain. The boat seemed to rock side to side at roughly a 20-degree angle. My mom (70 yrs-old), who was for a short time next to the side about mid-way down, noted that the sea level was about 2 1/2 to 3 feet from the top of the boat railing. Our backpacks were placed on a bench in front of the captain's control room (bridge on larger ships) and with one of the tips went sliding off and hit the side of the boat where my mom was standing. My husband followed shortly thereafter. He was also seated on the same bench. He slammed into my mom and she sustained a knee injury - it still needs to be diagnosed but it is either a sprain or possibly a minor tear.

After that, one of the guides was very helpful in helping my mom (I was too sick to assist). She made sure she had a raincoat and gloves and brought her to a better location on the boat (top deck). I was sick nearly the whole time. I am susceptible to motion sickness so I knew this would be a possibility; however, over the course of the trip about 2/3 of the approximately 24 guests had thrown up at least once.

That all being said, we did see whales. My perspective is that the decision to go out was not a good call. The conditions I would say were unsafe - considering that it is not unfathomable that someone could have gone overboard which would be pretty terminal (the life ring would not do much in those kinds of seas) - and the majority of the guests were sick. In the cafe afterward, some of the guests appeared pretty stunned - starring into space. Please pass along to North Sailing.

Overall, we were very happy with Chris' work on the Iceland trip. He provided valuable input that really shaped the trip itinerary. We ended up going around the ring road which we would not have thought of if Chris had not suggested it. We are so glad we did! Having information on the sites was very helpful and of course having someone knowledgeable about lodging and booking the accommodations, car rental, and activities was super!

We enjoyed our activities. However, on two occasions our guide/driver arrived earlier than listed so they had to wait for us a bit. I hope they didn't mind! Also, the hotel for our beach excursion was not aware that we were to have access to a room for changing and leaving out items as described in our outline (so we were unable to do so). No big deal though.

Nathalie was very helpful and patient during the planning stages. She listed to what we wanted and was flexible with our requests. We enjoyed working with her!

Thank you so much to the KimKim team for putting together such an amazing vacation for us. Everything was customized to exactly what we wanted. An extra special thanks for working with us through our 2-day flight cancellation/travel delay issues!

Halldor was great!

The service provided was the best I have ever encountered. I highly recommend using the kimkim service in Peru and particularly Mayra and James MacKender.

Mayra was terrific to work with. She was very responsive during a very difficult time in Peru. A strike in the Sacred Valley was announced for the same time I had booked a tour with kimkim. Mayra showed empathy and concern and worked with me to plan alternate contingencies and to keep me updated on the latest news. I heard from her from late at night to early in the morning. She stayed with me as things changed and I felt like she really cared about me and my trip. She made it happen, and our tour was completed and we arrived at Machu Picchu on time. She followed up afterward to make sure everything was okay.

The Norway Trip that we just experienced was with out doubt one of the best experiences that gave us a taste of everything on a short agenda.

Linda followed me up on every detail and I couldn't be happier with her service.

Our trip to the mountains of Nepal was great. It was well organized by Ngima, who was very responsive to the demands of the schedules of members of our group who were all coming and going from different parts of the world. He worked out a trip that made sense, mostly, and it was well organized, everything was thought out in advance and worked out, nearly, perfectly.

The only reason the trip was not perfect was that the weather interfered since we started with a flight to Lukla that was weather-dependent, so we lost 1.5 days from our trek and had to shorten it by a destination. This was not Ngima's fault, of course. But, in hindsight, I'd recommend that if one is on a very short trip like we were, then losing a few days to weather (only because of flying, we can hike in rain) is painful and I'd recommend a destination that does not require such a flight if it is going to be vulnerable due to weather.

Great facilities. Friendly staff. Flexible about moving us from a rainy day to a sunny one. right. She is delightful and informative.

Our guide Becca was wonderful. She tailored the trip to us just

I was very pleased with the work done by kimkim.

My family and I really made it challenging for Chris to arrange our plans: We were located in 3 different cities all giving different feedback. Chris did an excellent job coordinating and adjusting to our {changing} needs.

The trip was more than we could have expected. We had great hotels, amazing drivers and the team did everything to make it easy for us at the border.

Platform-wise, I would have liked to select my currency while planning the trip or to have it more obvious than prices were in USD. We are Canadians and used to platforms automatically converting to CAD using cookies. The exchange rate was, therefore, a very bad surprise.

Also, a module for the agent to provide local contact details we could have downloaded directly would be great (or kimkim app to save them) and the possibility to download the conversations locally for when we do not have wifi once on the trip.

Otherwise, the platform and concept were really good. Already recommended it in a few Montreal newspaper/tv. Good job guys!

Carina was great, always accessible and made all necessary adjustments before our arrival. Amazing job!

Everything was good and we had a wonderful time on our trip. I do feel like a few things could be improved. Kimkim was not proactive in providing itineraries or details. Everything was booked but I didn't receive confirmation number or vouchers with the tour agency. When I asked about this I was assured that everything was all set and I didn't need any confirmation number or voucher.

While everything turned out to be fine I would have felt more comfortable with some sort of voucher. Also, the receipts for payment are not itemized. That would also be appreciated. We did have a couple minor hiccups. Our guide had a hard time locating our snorkel group and the snorkel group had us booked for the next day. It was all worked out and we got to snorkel but there were about 45 minutes of confusion.

On our second day of touring, we had been told that lunch was included. It was not. We had not brought along any food. Luckily our guide shared his extra food with us and all was fine. But had he not we would have gone very hungry as this was an all day tour.

But not to focus on the negatives! We had wonderful and personal experiences with guides who customized our trips. They were all friendly and full of information. We had three days of very rainy weather and they all helped us enjoy ourselves despite that. Booking with kimkim was convenient with the chat function and spread out payment. I would use the service again.

Nicole was excellent at organizing our trip. It was great to talk to a real person on the ground in Peru when I was booking from Australia. At first, our trip seemed expensive but now in hind sight considering everything it included and in comparison to other travelers we met along the way our trip was excellent value for money. Every aspect of our trip was organized we didn't have to worry about a thing. Our guide Josias was absolutely fantastic and really made the trip special. He spoke fluent English and helped us translate along the way and told us fantastic history and facts about the region. The food and accommodation were excellent. After a hard day walking it was great to come home to a real warm bed. I am a coeliac and catering along the way was fantastic! We couldn't have had a better trip. We are so happy we chose to book with KimKim.

Nicole looked after all of our needs. She was very patient and always helpful. She helped us booked our salkantay trek and gave me information about other trips and options available.

Nathalie was awesome and she gave us everything we asked for and the price was perfect!!! We had an awesome time and a lot of that was KimKim making all our arrangements!! It is so nice to get off a plane tired and just see s sign with your name on it!!! Love it!! And even my friends said we will use KimKim again for future travels!! Thank you so much for a great trip!!!