Make Your Next Trip Extraordinary

Lori and Pat Kirk | February 27, 2025

Tom was able to plan a day trip to discover Amsterdam. We didn’t have a lot of time but wanted to experience as much of Amsterdam as we could. We met Ilse, our tour guide, and had a wonderful walking tour of the historic part of Amsterdam and the Van Gogh Museum. She had a lot of information to share about the history and design of the city and was very knowledgeable about the art in the museum. Experiencing this on foot with all of the bikes gave us a great perspective on life in the city.

We then toured the canals in a beautiful canal boat with lunch, which offered a unique perspective to see the amazing architecture. We ended the day at the Anne Frank house. The self-guided tour of the house was sobering and intense but the day in Amsterdam wouldn’t have been complete without it. I’m sure there is much more to see in the Netherlands which we may get back to one day. Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable visit.

My husband and I traveled to Amsterdam and Belgium for a week at the end of September. Tom did a nice job of arranging the trip. Our flight was cancelled so we arrived a day later than expected and Tom and his team did a fantastic job of rearranging things, so we still saw the major highlights in Amsterdam. Every hotel we stayed at was in a great location and service was exceptional. The only change I would make is to stay outside of Amsterdam because it is so crowded and at night you could hear everything outside our hotel room. The countryside and small villages right outside Amsterdam were charming.

On the way to Belgium, we stopped at Royal Delft and Kinderdijk, and I wouldn’t miss either one. Our first stop in Belgium was Bruges and we absolutely loved the hotel and the city. We had a private tour of the city and then a bike ride countryside in the afternoon. We would have liked to have spent an extra day in Bruges. In Ghent, we enjoyed the tour of the city as well as some beer tasting and amazing chocolates along the way. Our last two nights we spent in Brussels where we went from hearing Dutch for the last 5 days to French. Another amazing hotel and great location. The only thing was the traffic. We arrived in Brussels during rush hour and traffic was almost at a standstill and we spent a lot of time in the car. During our driving tour the next day, traffic was awful again and we ended up not going on part of the driving tour because of traffic.

Overall, an exceptional trip. It would have been difficult to coordinate all the private tours, drivers, hotels, etc. The other change I would have made is to have the tours broken up a bit. Most days we spent 8 hours straight touring without much time on our own. Next time, I would ask for 3 hours of walking tour, a break for a few hours, and then a 3-hour bike tour. Our next trip through Wendy Perrin is Vietnam in December and given what a nice job Tom did, we have high expectations for Ethan and his team.

Private boat on the Amsterdam canal.

A private canal cruise in Amsterdam, one special feature of a 35th anniversary trip. Photo: Traveler Ruth Reading.

Working with Tom’s company was an absolute pleasure. Tom assisted us with planning a pre- and post- river cruise itinerary in Amsterdam, Luxembourg and Belgium. This trip was to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary and it went perfectly due to the outstanding planning. Tom worked with us to personalize the itinerary to our specific interests.

All of the tour guides, drivers, transportation and accommodations were excellent. We particularly enjoyed the private canal cruise with a beautiful lunch in Amsterdam, an outing with a naturalist in Vielsalm to see the red deer rutting as we were there in that season, the outdoor Battle of the Bulge tour (not just in a museum) in Bastogne, the culinary tour in Ghent and Bruges enjoying chocolates, cuberdons and waffles, and the private yacht cruise in Ghent followed by a lovely dinner on an outdoor terrace at Auberge Du Pecheur. We also particularly enjoyed our stay in Clervaux at the Le Clervaux Boutique Design Hotel and our time hiking in the local area. The hotel 1898 The Post in Ghent was also wonderful.

Every guide was personable, knowledgeable and delightful to be with. All planned transportation was first class. The company also did status checks with us throughout the trip to make sure that all was going smoothly and to our liking. A very memorable trip made possible by the team! Thank you, Tom, for planning a wonderful trip!

Tom and team were excellent at every turn, logistics were perfect, execution was perfect. We achieved our goal of a broad overview of Belgium and Luxembourg. Battle of the Bulge tour was best of trip! Antwerp diamond tour was excellent. Tour in Bruges was excellent, really liked the guide! I probably overbooked tours for my wife’s liking…she appreciates more down time to explore cities on her own.

One bit of constructive feedback, the Post 1898 was understaffed. The hotel is unique, beautiful and we would stay there again but they did not have enough help.

I would definitely use Tom and team again.

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