Questions

Several, and every one is planned, organised, and run by us. Our published tours cross Honshu and Hokkaido on set dates, each taking a maximum of eight guests with a Tour Director throughout. To travel privately, the Custom Tour of Japan is built around your party alone, and our Couples Journeys and Solo Journeys are private, preplanned journeys for two or for one. The Expert Japan Itinerary is a written itinerary for those who arrange their own travel.

That depends on the Japan you are looking for: cherry blossom in spring, the cool of Hokkaido in summer, the maples turning through autumn. Inspiration sets out each season and mood, and the availability calendar shows what runs when. If you would rather talk it through, a call with our team is the surest way to find your journey. And if none of the published tours is quite right, the Custom Tour of Japan is built around you alone.

A maximum of eight. The scale is deliberate: a party of this size sits comfortably in the ryokan we plan, gathers around one table for dinner, and moves through Japan without ever feeling like a group.

Two people sharing a room: usually a couple, sometimes two friends travelling together. There are no solo places and no single supplements on a published tour. A solo traveller travels privately with us instead, on a Solo Journey designed around one person, and couples who would rather travel privately, at their own pace, have our Couples Journeys.

On the Custom Tour of Japan, children of any age are welcome, and the journey is designed with them in mind. The published tours are adult journeys. Ryokan and hotels in Japan generally receive guests over twelve as adults, each by its own rules, and we advise you plainly when we design your tour. An Expert Japan Itinerary can be written around children too, down to the places and activities they will love.

We do. Your Tour Director travels with you from the welcome evening to the final departure, and behind them stands our team in Kyoto. Nothing is handed to a third party: the route, the rooms, and the days are ours from the first plan to the final evening.

The Custom Tour is a journey we design for your party alone and then run ourselves, with a Tour Director throughout. The Expert Japan Itinerary is a written document: our planning expertise applied to a journey you book and travel independently.

Enquire through the form and we reply personally. If you would like to talk the journey through first, a call with your Tour Director is available, booked from a live calendar that shows open times in your own time zone. A deposit of USD $3,500 per person secures your place, and the balance falls due 95 days before departure. Dates and places for every departure are on the availability calendar.

Each tour carries a single all-inclusive price in US dollars: every night, first-class rail and private vehicles, your Tour Director throughout, and the greater share of your dining. What is and is not included is set out in full on each tour page and in our Booking Conditions.

By card or by bank transfer, in US dollars. Prices are tax inclusive: one price, paid once.

Tipping is not customary in Japan. In restaurants and hotels the service is in the bill. A gratuity for the Tour Directors at the end is standard practice and welcomed.

Each published tour takes a maximum of eight guests, and the ryokan we plan fill their peak weeks months ahead, so the strongest dates go first. If a particular tour matters to you, it is worth enquiring early. The availability calendar shows every open date.

No: you arrange your own flights, and we take care of everything from the moment you land. We do not book flights, and we do advise: routings, timings, and which flight lands you in time for the welcome evening. Comprehensive travel insurance is a condition of booking.

In our Booking Conditions, set out plainly before any payment is made. You book directly with Luxury Japan Travel and you travel with Luxury Japan Travel.

With the Journey, our set of questions about the tour you have in mind; there is no sales call. Your answers shape a private call with our team, and after the call a curation fee of USD $1,500 sets the design in motion: non-refundable, and credited in full to your tour.

Per person, per day, in US dollars, and the rate turns on the size of your party: two guests from $3,500, three to four guests from $2,750, five or more from $2,000. One figure, agreed in full before you travel; it varies with what you choose, and most journeys settle well above the floor. We tell you plainly what your figure buys.

USD $550 for journeys of up to ten days and USD $825 for eleven to fifteen days, tax inclusive. You receive a complete written itinerary within seven working days, planned by the team that runs our tours, with one round of revisions included.

No. The itinerary is yours: you make each booking yourself, with our document in hand. Those who wish us to arrange and run the journey choose the Custom Tour instead.

The properties are named on each tour page, so you can see the standard we work to. The complete detail of your journey follows your enquiry.

When you enquire. The website carries the shape of each journey; the complete itinerary, day by day, arrives with our reply.

Gentle by design. Mornings are unhurried, evenings are yours, and relaxation is planned into the route rather than left to chance. You are travelling to spend time in Japan, not to race through it.

The pace is gentle: unhurried mornings and relaxation built into the route. Japan does ask for time on your feet, in gardens, temple precincts, and old town streets. If you have any doubt about pace or mobility, tell us when you enquire and we will advise you honestly. The Custom Tour of Japan accommodates every level of fitness and mobility: it is designed entirely around you.

No. Your Tour Director is fluent in English and Japanese, and everything on the ground, the ryokan, the kitchen, the driver, is handled in Japanese on our side. You never order, negotiate, or explain anything. You are simply the guest.

With notice, yes. The kitchens we work with decide their menus in advance and will compose your courses around you when they know early, so we gather these details well before departure.