About Luxury Japan Travel
Japan, and nothing else
For a thousand years a family in Japan has been known by its kamon, a single crest with the whole of a family within it, dyed into the curtain at the door, lacquered onto the boxes carried between households, set into the roof tiles, and worn in five places on formal silk. A family of any standing never announced itself. It was simply recognised.
To carry a crest was to carry the whole of a family's standing: what it made, the word it kept, and the way it received a guest. In traditional Japan nothing was worth more.
Ours is a five-fold sakura, the cherry blossom of Japan, drawn in the ancient tradition of the kamon painters, the monshō-uwaeshi, with a bamboo compass, a straightedge and a brush of a few hairs. It stands on everything that bears our name.
The whole of its story is told in our monograph.
What we make
Japan has a word for those who give a whole life to one art: shokunin. The swordsmith, the lacquer master and the master of a sushi counter are honoured for exactly that, a lifetime of devotion that no talent can replace.
For almost two decades, Luxury Japan Travel has created and operated journeys through Japan, and no other country has ever had our attention. Our art is Japan itself.
Its finest experiences are rarely announced. They are found in the quiet confidence of a great ryokan, in the precision of a meal prepared at the counter, in the particular beauty of a garden, a bath, a season, a craft. The pleasure lies in knowing what matters, and in having the time and access to experience it properly.
We have pioneered journeys to many of Japan's unknown regions. We were the first to offer luxury tours of Hokkaido, and the island remains a second Japan for those who already know Kyoto and Tokyo.
Each of our journeys is composed as a great kaiseki is composed, around shun, the moment a thing is at its height, and around ma, the pause that gives it grace.
The word we keep
In the old merchant streets of Kyoto and Osaka, a shop's name was dyed into the noren, the curtain across its door, and Japanese still speaks of guarding a reputation as noren o mamoru, protecting the curtain. Japan has more companies that have lasted a century than any other country on earth, and they have lasted for the same reason: no one was ever allowed to harm the curtain.
Ours is protected the same way. We plan, organise and run every tour. From the first call to the last evening in Japan, a journey is in the hands of our own people, and our name stands behind all of it.
The way we receive a guest
Omotenashi, the Japanese art of hospitality, asks the host to see what is wanted before it is asked for and to leave no trace of the effort. It is the highest form of care we know. It is the way we receive a guest, and it is the art our Tour Directors bring to every day of a journey.
Every journey we have run now stands behind our crest, and we run each new one as though it were the only journey by which we will ever be known.
Considered. Intimate. Perfect.