We had Indochina customise a 21 day individual tour for us and I highly recommend it.
A family member actually said to me last night ‘how did you even go find out about some of those places?’ and I simply replied ‘our tour operator’.
We spent 21 days touring Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Our guides were professional, timely, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and just awesome! Hotels were spot on. Great locations, awesome facilities, attentive staff and some were full of character (in the best way). I usually spent so much time researching hotels and am very particular - these were better than I could have chosen.
Drivers were exceptional. Safe and always pressing a lovely cold water bottle into your hands.
A highlight of our trip was a visit to Free The Bears in Luang Prabang Laos. I have travelled quite a lot, and I feel this was one of my favourite ever travel experiences. This was added by our travel consultant Sreypov after I asked for some other experience to be excluded. However, animal ethics and welfare are important to me, so when I saw ‘bear sanctuary’ added I asked which one - and when Sreypov said Free The Bears I was very excited as they are a very ethical organisation. When I said this, Sreypov added Apopo - the mine detection rats - another bucket list for me! So our tour became very much about our interests. I actually wish I’d told Sreypov more about the things we liked to do and customised a bit more - as those customisations were the highlights!
I have so many friends asking me who organised my trip as they were following our adventures on Facebook and said our trip seemed one of the best they had seen.
Sreypov And Kea were both awesome to work with - so responsive to my emails - and there were a few!
They organised everything for us. Now, there are cheaper deals out there - but know this - this was a trip of a lifetime and there were NO HIDDEN EXTRAS. We barely spent a cent.
The lunches that were included were HUGE. A little too much food at times and at good quality restaurants and we got to try a nice variety of local cuisine. We did laugh and say our biggest expense was a cold alcoholic beverage at the end of the day! It was about the only thing not included (though two guides even bought us a surprise iced coconut coffee which was lovely!).
Whilst all internal flights were included (and oh wow, the guides meet you at arrivals, transport you to hotel and even check you in… but then they don’t drop you back at airport, they come in, check you in, and escort you all the way, it’s so lovely!) we did organise our own flights to Vietnam from Australia. And guess what did go wrong - those flights! However, when I was freaking out and worried, I reached out to Kea and she helped me through contacting our airline and fixing issue - even though it wasn’t her responsibility. Very grateful.
So yes, we had the trip of a lifetime and I highly recommend this company. We were very impressed with their care of us and professionalism.
We ran into some friends from home during our trip, they were doing a small group trip with another company and I feel we were having a much better time. It might cost more to have individual trip but that’s the difference between a holiday and a trip of a lifetime.
My tip - do tell them what you enjoy and have them customise the trip for you.