Behind Tomplanmytrip
Who are we
Our Dreams, Our Values
Tomplanmytrip began with two childhood friends from France who fell in love with Colombia in 2015 and want to help other travelers feel the same way. We offer up-to-date travel guides, an extensive network of trustworthy local agencies, and optimized itineraries crafted from our decade of experience.
About Tomplanmytrip
It’s Mission Impossible to plan the perfect trip to Colombia without knowing the country—even Tom Cruise couldn’t manage it.
There are hundreds of decisions to make: where to go, how long to stay, the order of visits, how to get around, where to sleep and eat… In short, each decision brings doubt… did you make the right choices?
There used to be only one solution to avoid these headaches: using a travel agency. Some are excellent but very expensive (€350+/day/person). Others have more reasonable rates but offer classic trips—that you could easily plan on your own.
Now, there’s another option: Tomplanmytrip.
Our Concept: It’s Easy to Fall in Love with Colombia
Our goal is simple: we want you to have such an incredible adventure in Colombia that you’ll only want one thing by the end of your trip: to come back next year.
How Do We Plan to Achieve This?
By providing you with all the resources and tools you need to make the best decisions for your trip: quickly AND easily.
And trust me, it hasn’t been an easy task!
First, we want all travelers to have free AND high-quality access to information about Colombia.
Thanks to the Internet, free access is generally not a problem. Quality, however, is a whole different matter.
Solving the Quality of Information
That’s why we created a blog section: Traveling in Colombia.
There, you’ll find travel guides based on our 10 years of experience in Colombia, interactive maps to help you visualize the country, theme-based inspirations to help you choose the places you want to visit, and tons of tips to help you avoid rookie mistakes and optimize your trip.
Okay, the issue of information quality has been addressed. Now, there’s another crucial factor for a successful trip: local contacts.
Connecting You with Local Experts
It’s great to know what you can do, but if you don’t know with whom and for how much, it doesn’t help much.
That’s why we decided to make our network of local experts (built over years of on-the-ground experience) available to you, so you can contact them and book the perfect experience at the right price.
Even better! We help you get in touch with them to ensure everything goes smoothly.
Most importantly, we only recommend activities we love, with a complete analysis of the pros and cons to help you decide whether to book them.
All of this without charging you a cent.
ultra-optimized itineraries for a one-of-a-kind adventure
This service is currently under development and is scheduled to launch in October 2024.
It will revolutionize travel 😎—since this is our baby, we might be a bit biased.
Even with the best local insights and expert contacts, planning the perfect trip takes time.
Unless you let us handle almost all of it for you.
We’re offering a dozen 2 to 3-week itineraries to help you organize an exceptional trip to Colombia.
Just use our filters to find the perfect itinerary for you, and you’re all set!
We can’t wait to show it to you.
Now that you know our concept, let’s introduce the team.
TomPlanMyTrip Team
(no, we are not tuk-tuk drivers)
Tom
I am Thomas Espeute, creator and co-manager of the website Tomplanmytrip. I am responsible for creating all the content on the site and managing its technical aspects.
Adrien
I’m Adrien Bergue, co-manager of the website Tomplanmytrip. I am dedicated to building and sustaining excellent relationships with our local partners and key players in Colombia’s tourism industry. Additionally, I connect our readers with the country’s top experts.
Aleja
I’m Alejandra Caly, overseeing digital content (photos and videos) so you can journey through Tomplanmytrip’s pages. I also take care of social media.
Why Discover Colombia with Tomplanmytrip
3 main reasons.
TRAVEL SMARTER
Spending your trip taking selfies at the most famous spots in a country isn’t really traveling.
Due to social media, we want to see everything at once. Every day, I receive itineraries from travelers trying to fill their 3 weeks with the top 10 places in Colombia.
These travelers will only see the bus or airplane seat right before their noses.
With Tomplanmytrip, we’re trying to change that.
We’ve divided the country into 12 sub-regions to decide which areas of Colombia you want to visit. In each of our guides, we recommend a minimum duration to enjoy each place fully.
Our goal?
Ensure you can travel more slowly while enjoying an extraordinary journey without boredom.
I can assure you that as soon as you start changing hotels less often and taking fewer transports, you’ll immediately feel more relaxed and happier.
That’s why:
- Each of our travel guides is filled with examples of activities and excursions you can do.
- We carefully select the best hotels, so you wake up with a smile every morning.
- If it’s a tourist destination, we show you how to avoid crowds and tourist traps.
- We recommend the best agencies so you can have a great time.
- We analyze hotel and agency rates to ensure you’re paying a fair price—which doesn’t mean they’re the cheapest!
MEANINGFUL TRAVEL
Let’s be honest.
Traveling has a negative impact on the planet: mass tourism and pollution.
But that doesn’t mean everything is as black as a Pierre Soulages painting.
Traveling also allows us to meet new cultures, broaden our perspectives, and change the daily lives of families with far fewer opportunities than we have.
Traveling with purpose means minimizing negative effects and maximizing positive ones.
How to do it?
- Many destinations in Colombia are opening up to tourism. And believe me, they are even more spectacular than Cartagena, Guatapé, or Valle de Cocora. We strive to add as many of these destinations as possible to our site. So don’t hesitate to go off the beaten path instead of where everyone else goes!
- On our regional maps, you’ll easily see all the interesting destinations. Try to choose a region that particularly attracts you so you can travel as much as possible by bus instead of hopping on planes.
- Book directly with locals so they can benefit more from their tourist activities. With Tomplanmytrip, we try to apply the zero-intermediary rule as much as possible.
- Book with local agencies that respect the environment. These agencies are aware of tourism’s impact on the planet and implement solutions to address it, such as waste management policies.
Travel Differently
Every traveler expects something different from their trip. You’ll probably have a great time following the classic 3-week itinerary in Colombia. But wouldn’t it be even better to organize a 100% personalized adventure?
On Tomplanmytrip, you’ll find many “inspiration articles” to help you plan a trip with a particular theme. It could be waterfalls, coffee, beaches, dancing, hiking, history, etc.
There’s plenty to choose from!
We also offer the opportunity to chat with the best experts in Colombia to see if you want to book (or not) their activities.
What Our Readers Say
How to Book an Experience
Couldn’t be simpler.
You can filter our activities to find those that interest you and fit your budget:
1- Choose the currency. Conversion happens automatically according to the daily rate. The official price is in COP.
2- Choose the number of people. The simulation is limited to 4 people, but the prices often decrease with more people. Your expert needs to confirm this price.
3- Choose the destination and theme. You can also sort experiences by different criteria (price, duration, favorite).
Each thumbnail matches an experience we recommend. You can click on the small magnifying glass on each thumbnail (top left) to open a pop-up window with additional details about the activity.
Each activity is described in detail. I recommend reading it carefully:
- Price: It is given as an indication and must be confirmed with the expert based on various criteria.
- Duration of the activity
- Language spoken during the tour
- Deposit required
- Itinerary + Program
- Important information to read to enjoy your activity in the best possible conditions
- What’s included
- Options to confirm with your expert
- Our opinion on this activity: Pros & Cons
- A link to the expert’s profile
Interested in an activity? Great!
1- Click on the “Contact this expert” button.
2- An online form will open, allowing you to specify the date and number of people for this activity.
3- We’ll also need your WhatsApp number (don’t forget your country code) and your email address to connect you with the expert.
4- It takes just 1 minute.
After gathering all the information, we’ll create a WhatsApp group with you and the expert to share all the details about your tour.
Chat with the expert to customize your activity (if possible) and ask any questions.
Following the conversation, the expert will confirm the final price and the deposit to be paid if you decide to book.
Our role is to connect you with the local agencies we trust. The prices you see on our site (though subject to small variations because of the currency) are based on the agency’s official rates, with no markup.
This means that by using our forms, you won’t have any additional costs; you’ll pay the official price of the agency as if you were there in person.
This is rarely the case when using platforms like Viator or GetYourGuide.
Additionally, we review the prices of our activities annually to ensure they align with market rates. Our goal isn’t to find the cheapest providers. Far from it! But it’s crucial for us to find agencies that won’t charge you the “Gringo Tax.”
How Do We Source Our Experts and Information?
We have been traveling in Colombia since 2015, and Thomas lives in Colombia with Alejandra, his wife.
1- We analyze an area with tourism potential.
2- We select local agency profiles that interest us (foreign languages spoken, types of activities offered, recommendations from other partners…) and then contact them to test their services.
3- If the service is of high quality and the business is legally constituted, we add them to the site.
When we test a potential partner’s services, we always pay at least the operational costs of the experiences we participate in. This ensures we are free to recommend them or not, without feeling indebted. Our opinion is never biased.
We create travel guides only for destinations we are very familiar with. We also conduct active online research and verify all details with our experts in each city.
We only recommend accommodations in places we have visited. This way, we know the atmosphere of the city or village and the different neighborhoods we talk about.
Next, we spend dozens of hours studying the reviews of the highest-rated accommodation to synthesize the information and propose places with varying prices and atmospheres.
TomPlanMyTrip Business Model
Our website content is free for our readers, and we make money through two revenue streams:
We receive a commission when you use our links to book on platforms such as Booking, Expedia, Viator, or GetYourGuide. You don’t pay more because they pay us from their own commission.
For instance, if you book a hotel night for €100 through Booking, and Booking takes a 15% commission, the platform earns €15. Booking then pays us a commission (between 20% and 40% of that amount), which is between €3 and €6.
When a reader contacts one of these experts (via one of our forms) and books their services, the expert pays us a commission on the amount charged.
The price for the reader doesn’t change whether they come through us or find the agency on their own.
Our partners pay us from their margins. We bring them visibility and customers, and they pay us only when they make a sale. This arrangement is more beneficial for them than spending on advertising.
More information about TomPlanMyTrip
For the curious ones.
Tomplanmytrip Contact Information
TomPlanMyTrip is a website and therefore does not have a physical address. However, it is associated with the company Colombia Insider based in Colombia.
- Colombia Insider Address: Carrera 43A # 1SUR – 188, Medellin, Colombia
- Colombia Insider RUT: 901280235-2
- Email to contact us: support@tomplanmytrip.com
Milestones in Tomplanmytrip’s History
We have already come a long way:
- 2015: Thomas sets foot in Colombia for the first time.
- 2016 – 2017: Thomas works as a tour guide in Colombia.
- 2017: Adrien and Thomas officially launch the Tomplanmytrip blog.
- September 2018 to December 2019: Adrien and Thomas travel across the country to start building a solid network of local partners and discover much of the country.
- 2020: We are stuck in France due to COVID.
- Summer 2021: Thomas returns to Colombia and continues exploring the country with his Colombian partner Alejandra. He then settles in the country.
- 2022: Thomas and Alejandra continue their exploration in Colombia.
- 2023: Adrien returns to Colombia to seek new local partners and explore lesser-known areas.
- Summer 2024: We launch the new version of Tomplanmytrip after more than 7 months of internal development.
Discover More About Colombia
To learn everything about Colombia, check out our page dedicated specifically to this country!
