Customer reviews and what they say

The most important thing we can do to improve our service is listen to what our customers have to say, which is why you can now read their comments unedited on our website.

Upon returning from Southeast Asia all our clients are sent a review form and here you can see what they are saying about their experience of travel to the region and of the service we offered both during the trip planning process and in the build-up to the trip.

Search the reviews, check the image gallery and see for yourself how our clients rate the InsideAsia experience.

Displaying 1 - 10 of 358

Cycling in Vietnam countryside
Siobhan T
Travelled to
1 month 4 weeks ago
★★★★★

Fabulous Trip.

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Ratings

Overall
★★★★★

Fabulous Trip.

Travel consultant
★★★★★
Jessica Williams

Trip went as planned with no hiccoughs
Jessica was helpful and responsive to messages prior to our departure.

Accommodation
★★★★★

All
Accomodation was fabulous.
Beautiful rooms and we were updated on arrival to better rooms a few times.
Location of hotels great - very central and within walking distance of restaurants etc

Value for money
★★★★★
Information pack
★★★★★
Aerial view of Lumpini Park in Bangkok, Thailand
John M
Travelled to
2 months ago
★★★★★

Everything we had hoped for, we had a wonderful holiday

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Ratings

Overall
★★★★★

Everything we had hoped for, we had a wonderful holiday

Travel consultant
★★★★★
Liam Koehler
Accommodation
★★★★★
Value for money
★★★★
Information pack
★★★★★
Chef Ai running a market tour in Vietnam
John S
Travelled to
2 months 1 week ago
★★★★★

Excellent tour to Vietnam. Everything worked perfectly. The tour was full of interest and we returned with some great photos...

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Ratings

Overall
★★★★★

Excellent tour to Vietnam. Everything worked perfectly. The tour was full of interest and we returned with some great photos. A most memorable trip!

Travel consultant
★★★★★
Oona Cardew

Very friendly and helpful throughout.

Accommodation
★★★★★
Value for money
★★★★★
Information pack
★★★★
Peter B
Travelled to
4 months 1 week ago
★★★★★
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Ratings

Overall
★★★★★
Travel consultant
★★★★★
Aaron Boothe

Aaron put together an itinerary for us that worked well on paper and in the real world. He consulted us as we made our plans and changed things when we asked for that - very little, since the first draft looked so good.

Accommodation
★★★★

Seoul 9 Brick: loved it; well-equipped room in an interesting part of the city, with excellent shops and restaurants nearby. Unfortunately, the roof terrace bar was closed when we were staying. *****

Sokcho Sea Cruise Hotel: business hotel, lacking character; AC switched off throughout the hotel but they brought us a fan when we asked; impressive breakfast buffet; most of Sokcho felt a bit run-down, so I don't think we were missing out on another, better, hotel; and Sokcho is an excellent base for the Seoraksan National Park, which was amazing. ***

Gyeongju Si Eun Jae Hanok Hotel: traditional and just right for the "museum without walls"; owner was friendly, very keen to chat, and helpful throughout our stay. *****

Busan Good Ol' Days Hotel: very spacious and comfortable; some retro gimmicks work well e.g. record player; some don't - the filter coffee just didn't do anything for us; but the coffee place downstairs is excellent and the breakfast basket was good; good location with multiple shops and restaurants nearby. *****

Jeju Island SNOB Boutique Stay: OK but fairly basic and felt off-season; spacious room; breakfast didn't look great so we ate out.
***

Seoul Ryse Autograph: lovely hotel, right next to 9 Brick; they were happy to let us store luggage with them while we travelled the country and on our last day; same great location as 9 Brick; superb breakfast. *****

Value for money
★★★★
Information pack
★★★★★

Photos from the trip

Hill tribe village
Peter G
Travelled to
3 months 1 week ago
★★★★★

Personalised attention during trip planning, all arrangements on tour went smoothly, all expectations met

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Ratings

Overall
★★★★★

Personalised attention during trip planning, all arrangements on tour went smoothly, all expectations met

Travel consultant
★★★★★
Lien Dam

Great service, very knowledgeable

Accommodation
★★★★

Hoi An accommodation a bit noisy - perhaps an upgraded room would have been better ... otherwise hotel (with spa package) was excellent

Value for money
★★★★★
Information pack
★★★★★
Two people cycling along a quiet street in Udo Island
Hardeep S
Travelled to
3 months 3 weeks ago
★★★★★

South Korea was truly amazing. The 3 cities visited (Seoul, Gyeongju and Busan), the guided tours and the sights explored...

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Ratings

Overall
★★★★★

South Korea was truly amazing. The 3 cities visited (Seoul, Gyeongju and Busan), the guided tours and the sights explored independently were all impressive. The Korean people were very friendly and welcoming, the food exceptional and the transport system world class. The 4 different hotels were all of a high quality and very well located to explore, eat and shop locally.

Considering the logistics of the trip, with 4 train journeys and 4 hotels in 8 days, everything went smoothly and for that credit has to go to Sam Barrow and Inside Asia for organising everything. The locally supplied mobile Wi-Fi device was invaluable, as was the preloaded Tmoney (Metro) card which was used a lot. The guidebooks provided and the specifically curated Travel Info-Pack were very helpful in ensuring stress free travel and sightseeing across South Korea.

Travel consultant
★★★★★
Samantha Barrow

Sam listened to my requirements for the trip I wanted, with the cities I wanted to visit in South Korea and the fairly inflexible travel dates I had in mind and managed to arrange an itinerary that was well suited to me.

I was told when I initially got in touch 6 weeks before my trip that normally a minimum of 8 weeks notice is needed to organise a trip of this nature, but Sam was very helpful and said she would make it happen, for which I’m grateful.

In the lead up to the trip Sam was regularly in contact with me to go over details and keep me informed and also ensured that when she was unavailable that her colleagues would support me.

I also spoke to Sam before my trip and she provided some invaluable recommendations for South Korea, with her having just returned from a visit there which was similar to my planned itinerary.

Accommodation
★★★★

I found all the hotels to be very good in terms of accommodation, facilities and location.

At my final hotel in Seoul (Hotel Gracery Seoul) where I stayed for 1 night, due to needing to check out before 07:30am to head to the airport, I was not able to have the paid for breakfast at the hotel. I had asked the hotel the night before that most hotels in this situation would happily provide a takeaway breakfast/ sandwich, but this hotel refused. Something to note.

Value for money
★★★★
Information pack
★★★★

Photos from the trip

Soldier marching at DMZ
Paul W
Travelled to
4 months 4 weeks ago
★★★★★

We had a lovely holiday.

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Ratings

Overall
★★★★★

We had a lovely holiday.

Travel consultant
★★★★
Holly Brown

She wasn't always contactable.
The holiday had to be changed after we thought the itinerary was fixed so we went to Sokcho towards the end of the holiday. This may have been due to the local agent.

Accommodation
★★★★

We thought the Four Point Hotel in Seoul was the best hotel on the holiday. Definitely the best breakfast.
There were no menu choices when we stopped at the historic village in Andong. The food on both days was the same. We were there for the experience but it was a little disappointing. Apart from that the accommodation and people were lovely.
For some reason we were booked a twin room rather than a double for our stay in Busan.
Having clothes washing machines and dryers in many of the hotels was very useful. They weren't expensive. If we go back to S.Korea will take less clothes.

Value for money
★★★★★
Information pack
★★★
Trays of vegetarian Japanese food at Koya temple
Martin L
Travelled to
4 months 3 weeks ago
★★

We were very excited to celebrate our 70th birthdays and thought we went to the most experienced travel company for...

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Ratings

Overall
★★

We were very excited to celebrate our 70th birthdays and thought we went to the most experienced travel company for South Korea and Japan. We spoke at length to our agent about our interests and the kind of hotels we were looking at. We felt that many of our requests were not taken heed of. For example the size of beds and hotel star ratings, the areas they were in and some of the activities were wanted to do and places to see. We did not feel we were on a bespoke holiday. Nor were we given choices of places to stay.

Travel consultant
★★
Aaron Boothe

Aaron spoke to us and we told him what we wanted. He came back with a sample itinerary which we went through and said we were not happy with some of the hotels. He told us to pay the deposit to hold the flights, which we did, and he would change things for us. He did not and got our itinerary to us only a week before departure. He did not do his research and had us go to a pottery town on a day that everything was closed. This impacted on our end of trip and we had to cut out parts of it. He did not heed our bed and room requests and did not book our flight seats home so we were seated apart for the 14 hour flight home.

Accommodation
★★

There were no exceptional hotels in Korea except our last Hanok hotel in Seoul. In Japan we loved the ryokan we stayed in but other than the hotel in Osaka, Kyoto and our last stay in Tokyo,all the hotels were below par and dirty, which is a surprise in Japan where everything is so clean. Also some were booked in non central parts of cities.

Value for money
★★★
Information pack
★★★
Elephants in Kui Buri National Park, Thailand
Kathleen E
Travelled to
4 months 1 week ago
★★★★

The guides were mostly great. There were a number of 'Disneyland-esque' activities that we could have done without. In the...

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Ratings

Overall
★★★★

The guides were mostly great. There were a number of 'Disneyland-esque' activities that we could have done without. In the pre-planning we asked to not have them, yet they were left in. We were told we could negotiate them out with our guide, which didn't happen.

Travel consultant
★★★★★
Grant Ekelund

Grant worked well with us, including what we wanted, and not what we didn't. However, we specifically asked for no Disneyland activities, like the Community Village stupidity that we were forced to endure for 2 days. What a waste of time and money.
Our guide wouldn't take it out even though we were clearly agitated by it. These sorts of inclusions, without ability to remove up front or during, would make us question using InsideAsia again.

Accommodation
★★★★

They were over the top, unnecessarily so, and poorly located.

Value for money
★★★
Information pack
★★
Angkor Wat temple complex
Peter E
Travelled to
3 months 3 weeks ago
★★★★★

Inside Asia addressed our trip itinerary to include cultural, rural/local, and unique visits and experiences. We had a wide variety...

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Ratings

Overall
★★★★★

Inside Asia addressed our trip itinerary to include cultural, rural/local, and unique visits and experiences.
We had a wide variety of temples, cuisine and regional social interactions

Travel consultant
★★★★★
Steph Holman

Steph followed up with us on our trip and was a great asset.

Accommodation
★★★★★

The accommodations were great. Sala Lodges in Siem Reap, in particular is a fantastic laid back, central city rest bit.

Value for money
★★★★★
Information pack
★★★★★