Book uncommon local experiences with Seek Sophie. Bucket list adventures, nature getaways and cool hidden experiences near you. Every experience has been hand-picked by our passionate team of travellers. Seek Sophie is committed to positive-footprint travel. Over-80% of the money you spend goes to creating jobs in the local communities, and offsetting the carbon footprint of travel. For every $1 spent on Seek Sophie, we offset 1lb of carbon emissions.
Reviewers overwhelmingly had a great experience with this company. Customers frequently mention that the booking platform is extremely smooth, reliable, and easy to navigate for planning trips. Many consumers appreciate receiving prompt responses and helpful communication when arranging their travel plans through messaging.
Travelers also note the exceptional quality of the tours, observing that knowledgeable guides and friendly crews provide truly memorable adventures. People deeply appreciate exploring unique locations away from usual tourist crowds while feeling completely safe and well cared for throughout. Reviewers consistently state they would gladly recommend these services and plan to book future adventures through the platform again.
We loved our floating bungalow experience! I researched quite a few places and Seek Sophie had the best options for the best prices. They were easy to compare, and I was able to book the experience we wanted with a private guide and the bungalow that looked like what we would like. It was perfect (Except for the pouring rain, but they had no control over that haha). I would definitely recommend Seek Sophie for future travel!
Seek Sophie 回复2026-09-15
Thanks so much, LaNae! We’re really happy you had such a good experience with the local team. Great hosts and guides are often what turn a good trip into a memorable one, so it’s lovely to hear they made the difference for you.
Did the 2N3D Danum Valley trip. Danny was an unreal guide. Insane knowledge, fun to talk to. Very lucky to have access to a guide like Danny. Very happy with the trip and the experience
Seek Sophie 回复2026-09-15
Thanks so much, Rael! We’re really happy you had such a good experience with the local team. Great hosts and guides are often what turn a good trip into a memorable one, so it’s lovely to hear they made the difference for you.
Great tour, well organised and we saw all we came for. Highly recommended
Seek Sophie 回复2026-09-15
Thanks, Elaine! We’re so glad you had a great experience with us. Really appreciate you taking the time to leave this — and we hope we get to help with another adventure soon.
Good trip in Kuching, Malaysia. The website asked for information about each traveler but then the tour operator wanted other additional data. This could have been smoother. But I would use Seek Sophie again!
Seek Sophie 回复2026-09-15
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review! Understand it can be frustrating when there's an infinite request of information or when provided information is not observed. This is valuable feedback for us and we will look to do better! Thank you for trusting us with your travels!
They provide consistent updates and important details for each experience they provide. They ensure that there are reminders, confirmations, and ease when booking.
The website might be a little hard to navigate, and its hard to find vouchers or gifts that we have.
Seek Sophie 回复2026-09-15
Thank you for the review, Rafqi. I'm sorry to hear you found the website hard to navigate when trying to claim your gift cards. Do let us know how we can make it better by contacting our team at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you!
We had a really bad experience with Seek Sophie. Their operator kept us waiting until the last moment (the evening before) that a trip starting at 8am the following day was cancelled when it turned out that they knew all along that they wouldn't be running it. This meant that it was too late to arrange an alternative and that we wasted a day of our short trip. Really upset and frustrated.
Seek Sophie 回复2026-05-05
Hi Robert, I'm really sorry to hear that your request to book with one of our partners was declined at the very last minute (our request to book feature allows our partners up to 24 hours to respond to requests, because many of our partners are away in the field, conducting experiences and may not always be able to get back right away).
As an avid traveller myself I know how frustrating it is when trying to make plans and not hearing back from experience operators in a timely fashion.
In this particular case, our partner, who are of an older generation and not great at technology, had forgotten to update their availability and had left for a team trip, being out of reach to respond to your messages.
Our customer service team had also tried to get in touch with our partner, but because they were out of signal coverage, were unable to do so.
Completely understand that this matters little for you as it ruined your day, but I did want to make clear on why that happened. We do try to give an opportunity to many local small companies that offer great service on the ground, but may not be the best at online communication, so issues like this do crop up. But we are always trying to improve our service - if you have any ideas on how we can solve this one, let us know!
Our customer service has reached out to you and we hope we can make up for this incident.
Kind Regards,
Lina
The outing was excellent, exactly as described. I appreciate that it was a locally owned company. Only complaint is that I didn’t hear back from the company after Sophie sent the confirmation; the handoff from Sophie to the company was unclear how or who would make pickup arrangements
Seek Sophie 回复2026-05-05
Hi Rick, thank you so much for the kind words about the experience itself — and also for the honest feedback about the handoff. You're absolutely right, and that's on us to fix. The moment between booking confirmation and the operator reaching out is exactly where we work hard to make things smooth, and it sounds like that didn't happen for you. We've passed this back to the team to look into. Really appreciate you flagging it, and so glad the trip itself lived up to what was described. Team Seek Sophie 💛
Highly recommend not to book by seek by Sophie‼️
Me and my best friend went for the kinabatangan river safari 3D2N.
The add ons they have which we realized by the time we were there, are insanely overcharged‼️
This company lives by thinking that people will pick these add ons like we did and not double check the price in person. Especially when they are so influencer friendly with fake reviews.
We added the Sepilok urangutang center and 2 night cruises.
Seek by Sophie took 100US$ per person for the urangutang center which is insane!
Directly there they charge 100 ringit (around 20US$).
We spoke with several people and even the center told us it was a scam price. The night cruise same thing, seek by Sophie took 60US$ each online and the camp in person (run by locals) took 20 ringit per person.
We got the money differ back from the night cruises but no net even an answer back when we pushed on for speaking with the management about the huge overcharge they’ve made. Seek by Sophie is a sneaky resell agency, this is how they earn a lot of money by thinking tourist are stupid. Please check out the prices before from the specific things you want to see.
Seek Sophie 回复2026-04-16
Hi Sean,
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us back in July 2025, we’re really sorry to hear that parts of your trip left you feeling this way. We completely understand how frustrating it must have been to feel that certain activities were seemingly priced differently from what you later saw on the ground.
We’d like to clarify that the prices listed on our site are provided directly by our operating partners, and they often include bundled elements such as coordination, advance booking, and securing availability — which can differ from walk-in rates at the destination, which are often times only the entrance fees such as the fee to enter Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. That said, we recognise that this wasn’t clear in your experience, and we’re sorry for the confusion caused.
Regarding your booking, we did review your case carefully and responded at the time, including arranging a refund for the transfer fee to the rehabilitation center where there was a miscommunication with our operating partner on the exact nature of your add-on. We’re glad we could resolve that portion, but we’re sorry that you felt your concerns weren’t fully addressed — that’s certainly not the experience we aim to provide.
Your feedback is important to us, and we’re taking it seriously as we continue to improve how we communicate pricing and inclusions more transparently. If you’d still like to discuss this further, we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation and see how we can help.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts, and we truly regret that your experience didn’t meet expectations.
Sincerely,
Lina
We loved our stay at the farm, the cooking class, and the Khao Sok lake. I do wish communication was better and details about transport options were provided beforehand.
Seek Sophie 回复2026-05-05
Hi Lorelin, thank you so much for the kind words about the farm, the cooking class, and the lake — we love that combination too. And thank you for the honest feedback about the comms and transport details. You're absolutely right; that's exactly the kind of pre-trip information we want to get to travellers earlier and more clearly, and we've passed this back to the team to look into. Really appreciate you flagging it. Team Seek Sophie 💛
Overall smooth and easy though there were some confusion over the bookings. Good thing it was rectified with ease and speed. However, will be best to cut out unnecessary forms to fill.
Seek Sophie 回复2025-12-08
Hi Loke, thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We are sorry to hear you had some issues with your booking with us. We have followed up with our partner who was requesting quite a lot of additional information prior to the start of your workshop and have asked them to no longer request it. Your feedback is super important to us as it helps to improve the experience going forward to future customers. Thank you so much for taking the time once again! We hope to do better next time :)
First time using them, responsive and professional!
Super responsive! Initially showed my tour date was unavailable but they were able to get the Website updated with the date I wanted. Tour went amazing.
Seek Sophie 回复2026-09-15
Thank you for the review, Denise. I'm sorry to hear that initially you were not able to find the dates you were looking for. We are always trying to improve so this feedback helps us to think of ways to do so. Thank you again and hope you enjoyed your trip!
This is my third time booking with Seek Sophie. It is reliable and hassle-free. The local guides/contacts are usually English-speaking and professional. For the latest Mt Batur hike, it would’ve been better if it was explicitly mentioned on the booking page that the hike does not go to the summit of Mt Batur.
Seek Sophie 回复2025-09-19
Thank you for sharing your feedback, and we’re so glad you’ve trusted us with your trips multiple times! For the Mt Batur experience, the listing did state that it was a caldera hike (which is shorter and doesn’t go to the summit), but we completely understand how that might not have been clear enough. We’ve since worked with our host to make the description even clearer so future travellers know exactly what to expect. Really appreciate you pointing this out!
We booked 3 programs with seek sophie and all of them were super nice! It’s nice to sincerely know who you help and the website’s layout is just great!
important fact: when you book with seek sophie the tours are more expensive then when you would book on-site, there could be a bit more transparency about this.
but anyway you help a great blog and lovely local people with a great experience and you support their knowledge and care for their country, seek sophie helps you to support the best businesses in town!!
Seek Sophie 回复2025-08-15
Hi Marthe, thank you for taking the time to leave a review. Can you let us know which experiences you booked with us? We try to price match as much as possible as we know that's important for our customers, but on occasion some of our partners may offer ad hoc discounts when customers come directly which we have no control over.
If you feel you've overpaid for any of your experiences with us, do let us know and we will see what we can do about it.
Hope to hear from you!
I sent my question about booking payment to customer service and after 2 days still no answer, the automatice respond email said that they will respond to me within 24 hours, but it has been more than 48 hours, and they charged the payment to my card without resolving my request first, it is really not a nice experience.
Seek Sophie 回复2025-07-31
Hi Pamela, we are so sorry to hear you've had a negative experience when corresponding with us. Our team has made an honest mistake in overlooking the email. They have now contacted you and offered a small discount to cover the first time booking promo code discount you initially missed out on. I hope you will give us a second chance to do better.
I am puzzled by the positive reviews from this company. We booked a turtle rescue experience in Bali 2nd July. Neither the host or the website directly were contactable at any time. Multiple messages did not get any response, despite the automated "thank you, we will contact you within 24 hours". Would never use this service again. Such a shame to miss what was advertised as a worthwhile experience, and seemingly no refund available despite not actually cancelling the booking. It was made clear there were no refunds, which is acceptable, but to have no further communication with a customer is completely unacceptable.
Seek Sophie 回复2025-07-15
Hi Anna, we are so sorry to hear you didn't hear from us in a timely manner. Our partner missed out on the notification email after your first messages due to incorrect settings on their profile which they have now updated. And our team didn't respond quickly enough as they were trying to find out what happened. We have also gone over these procedures internally and have improved our SOP. We appreciate customer feedback and truly take the time to improve.
I will note that we have reached out to you directly and processed a full refund for the experience which you missed out on due to bad traffic.
We hope you will give us another chance on another occasion.
Happy travels!
The tour is misleading - title alone suggests 3 day tour when day one starts at 3pm and day 3 ends at 1pm.
Farmstay was good - Mr Yu is was funny and welcoming but cooking experience was over pretty quickly when were expecting 4hours worth of activity based on the itinerary.
Food at the second accommodation was dire. All meals were flavourless and most dishes were served stone cold. I understand it's a remote place with limited resources but the least you'd expect is hot food. 'Set breakfast' was one pancake and one banana on the table with flies when we returned from the morning safari. Day 3 lunch was a box of watery rice and vegetables that had some questionable black marks on it.
I totally understand that you can't predict what is going to be seen on the safari but we only saw monkeys and none of the animals listed in the itinerary which again is misleading.
The staff at the raft house were not welcoming, felt like we were an inconvenience. The tour guide was friendly, chatty and knowledgeable.
What I will say is, the customer service team at SeekSophie have been great and have responded to our feedback and dealt with our complaint well. I do hope they review the descriptions of this tour and the suppliers.
Seek Sophie 回复2025-07-06
Hi Yanah,
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback with us — we truly appreciate it. We're really sorry to hear that parts of your experience didn’t meet expectations, especially with the food and hospitality at the raft house. We understand how disappointing that must have been and have provided a partial refund in acknowledgment of that.
Regarding the 3D2N listing, we want to clarify that the tour is described as 3 days and 2 nights because it takes place over the course of three calendar days. This helps ensure that guests are aware they’ll need to set aside time across all three days. We also make sure to indicate the specific timings for the start and end of the tour in the listing so that everything is transparent.
We’re always looking to improve and have shared your feedback with our local partners to address the areas that didn’t go well. We're also reviewing the tour description to see where we can make things clearer.
Thank you again for your kind words about our customer service — we’re glad we could support you. We genuinely value your feedback and hope to have the opportunity to offer you a better experience in the future.
Seek Sophie Team
We had a lot of fun on this trip, even though the weather was bad. Our tour guide Wi and driver Yosi were really lovely, and the breakfast provided at the top was large and full of choice. Might have to try it again on another day, hoping for better visibility.
Seek Sophie 回复2025-06-23
Thank you for the review, Chad. I'm sorry to hear you didn't have great weather. We hope you have another opportunity to experience this with better conditions.
They don't really provide any value at all. They just do a better use of marketing at Social Networks. Once you contact the product, they do the same with a 3rd party which contract with the final provider. So you are paying to three companies instead of just one. I did a Klias River excursion. Olivia Kota Kinabalu was the local seller and Klias River Cruise was the real provider. Furthermore all the rest of Travel Agencies had a representative there except us....
Seek Sophie 回复2025-03-15
Hi John,
Thanks so much for sharing your honest feedback—we genuinely appreciate hearing your perspective.
I'm sorry if it wasn't clear upfront, but we do mention on our site that Olivia arranges logistics directly with local providers. Olivia is a local woman entrepreneur from Sabah, and we genuinely love supporting amazing local people like her who pour their heart into their businesses.
Olivia partners closely with trusted local providers (like Klias River Cruise) to ensure travellers enjoy a great experience at transparent and fair prices, which is why we work with her. For context, most other online platforms offer the same Klias River experience at around 235–290 MYR, and these prices typically don't include an in-person representative either—that service usually comes at an additional cost. Olivia keeps it affordable at 190 MYR by providing seamless behind-the-scenes organisation.
I'm really sorry we didn't fully meet your expectations this time, but your feedback helps us do better. Thanks again for letting us know!
Best regards
Jacinta
Co-founder, Seek Sophie
“Seek Sophie” provided me with no communication when i had questions after booking with them. I reached out by phone number given on reservation confirmation, their website and email provided weeks before trip. The only response i got was 2 days before the trip when a message finally came through the website, which was not helpful when i was trying to get the address of port and make shuttle arrangements in advance.
I admired the companies ethics in advocating for environmental mindfulness when researching companies to book with. Being mindful of plastic bottles is “what the consumer is supporting”. Yesss yes yes! However, the company they used for the excursion gave us plastic water bottles? What????
Seek Sophie 回复2025-03-12
Hi Sally,
Thank you so much for sharing your feedback – we’re really sorry to hear about the challenges you faced leading up to your trip. We completely understand how frustrating it can be when you're trying to reach someone, especially when you're traveling to a new place.
We’ve checked our records, however we didn’t find any messages from your email address. From what you’ve shared, it seems you might have contacted our partner directly, as the confirmation emails include their contact details. We’ve spoken with Cozy, and they’ve mentioned they were experiencing a higher volume of inquiries than usual, which led to some messages being missed. We’re working closely with them to improve their communication moving forward, and we truly hope this will make a positive difference for future travelers.
We also completely understand your concerns about the plastic bottles on board the cruise. While we always encourage our partners to adopt sustainable practices, we know that for some smaller ones, it’s not always feasible due to higher costs. As part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability, we’re actively collaborating with all of our partners to help them improve over time – not just for the environment, but also for the benefit of local communities.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. We really appreciate you helping us improve, and we hope your next experience is much smoother!
Kind Regards,
Lina
This rate simply highlights the price gap between Seek Sophie and the tours that you can find directly in town. Indeed, for a 2D1N experience in Khao Sok National Park, the tour is about 2500 THB (3250 THB in Seek Sophie). And unfortunately, the price difference is explained by... nothing. We get exactly the same experience than people who booked with other cheaper tour operators. Some people can say that booking online is a good way to secure a date... But we had to delay our tour with one day.
However, this is important to highlight that the tour is really great, location, GUIDES<3, food, activities. This bad rate is simply because you should avoid using Seek Sophie and directly book in town.
Seek Sophie 回复2025-01-31
Hi Romain
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback—we really appreciate it. We’re so glad to hear that you loved the tour itself. That’s exactly the kind of experience we want every traveller to have!
We couldn’t find a booking under your name, but we’d love to learn more about your experience so we can improve for future travellers. Please drop us an email at [email protected]—we’d love to understand what happened and make things right for you as soon as possible.
As travellers ourselves, we completely understand your concerns about pricing. We always strive to offer the best value and do match prices for the same experiences. The price difference you noticed isn’t due to hidden markups—it’s because we work directly with reliable local hosts to ensure a smooth, hassle-free experience. Some lower-priced options in town are offered by high-street agents who unfortunately overbook, leaving travellers without accommodation even after they’ve paid. We choose not to work with hosts who engage in such practices because we want every traveller who books with us to have peace of mind, knowing their experience is secure.
We’re really sorry if we fell short of your expectations this time, and we’d love the chance to make it right. Please reach out—we’re always here to help and want to ensure you have the best possible experience.
Best,
Jacinta
Co-founder of Seek Sophie
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