Questions

Four kinds, and we plan every one of them. Our published tours cross Honshu and Hokkaido on set dates, each limited to 8 guests, with our Tour Directors throughout. The Custom Tour of Japan is designed around your party alone and run by the team that designed it. The Private Collection is four private journeys, ready to travel on the dates you choose, with a Tour Director every day. The Expert Japan Itinerary is a written itinerary for those who arrange their own travel.

We run six published tours, each on set dates, led by our Tour Directors and limited to 8 guests. All six are open for 2027: The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan, 30 March to 10 April, $22,500 per person, twin share; the Cherry Blossom Tour of Hokkaido, 28 April to 10 May, $18,500; the Summer Tour of Hokkaido, 25 June to 6 July and 11 to 22 July, $18,500; the Wild North Tour of Hokkaido, 27 July to 6 August, $21,500; the Autumn Leaves Tour of Northern Japan, 26 October to 6 November or 2 to 13 November, $19,500; and the Autumn Leaves Tour of Japan, 23 November to 4 December, $19,500. The 2026 departures of both autumn tours are sold out. Each price is per person, twin share, one inclusive price: all breakfasts, and all other meals as detailed in the itinerary.

Yes: four of our published tours run in Hokkaido, each led by our Tour Directors and limited to 8 guests. The Cherry Blossom Tour of Hokkaido crosses the island in 13 days, from 28 April to 10 May 2027, at $18,500 per person, twin share. The Summer Tour of Hokkaido spends 12 days among the lavender fields and lakes, on two departures in 2027, at $18,500. The Wild North Tour of Hokkaido is the wildlife tour: 11 days in the far east of the island, watching the Shiretoko coast and its wildlife from the calm of a boat, from 27 July to 6 August 2027, at $21,500. The Autumn Leaves Tour of Northern Japan begins in Hokkaido and continues through Tohoku, from 26 October to 6 November or from 2 to 13 November 2027, at $19,500. For a private journey on dates of your choosing, Pure Hokkaido is nine days from Hakodate to Sapporo, $21,600 per person, twin share. Every Hokkaido tour is set side by side on luxury Hokkaido tours.

Yes. The Private Collection is four private tours of Japan, planned in full and run by us, each taken on the dates you choose with the same Tour Director in every city, from the first evening to the last. Essential Japan is nine days through Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, $18,000 per person, twin share; Classic Japan is eleven days, $22,000; Definitive Japan is thirteen days, $26,000; and Pure Hokkaido is nine days, $21,600. A guest travelling alone takes the same journeys, and we quote the price for one when you enquire. A tour shaped around you from the first conversation is the Custom Tour of Japan, from $3,500 per person, per day.

Four private journeys, ready to travel on the dates you choose, with a Tour Director every day. Essential Japan is nine days through Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, $18,000 per person, twin share. Classic Japan is eleven days, adding two nights at Kinosaki, $22,000. Definitive Japan is thirteen days, adding two nights beneath Mount Fuji, $26,000. Pure Hokkaido is nine days from Hakodate to Sapporo, $21,600. Essential Japan and Classic Japan may be extended by three days to Hiroshima and Miyajima. Each journey is taken as designed, and each is booked by enquiry: tell us your dates, and the journey comes to you day by day. A journey shaped around you from the first conversation is the Custom Tour of Japan.

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 every departure and its dates. 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.

Limited to 8 guests, a truly small group tour: a party of this size sits comfortably in the ryokan, gathers around one table for dinner, and moves through Japan without ever feeling like a group.

Guests of eighteen and over, travelling twin share, usually a couple, sometimes two friends. A family is welcome where every traveller is eighteen or over, each pair in a room of their own. There are no solo places and no single supplements on a published tour. A guest travelling alone, or a couple who would rather travel privately, takes one of the four journeys of The Private Collection: ready to travel on your own dates, with a Tour Director every day.

On the Custom Tour of Japan, yes: a whole family is welcome, and the rooms, the days and each traveller's rate are agreed with us when the tour is designed. A ryokan may take a family in one room where the property allows it. The published tours are for guests of eighteen and over. We advise you plainly on each property 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 Directors travel with you from the welcome evening to the final departure, and the route, the rooms and the days are ours from the first plan to the final evening.

The most sought-after doors in Japan, and its most exclusive places, open only from within. Your Tour Director opens them: one of our own, fluent in English and Japanese, beside you from the first evening to the last. They enhance every day, turning a beautiful journey into a deep and authentic experience of Japan.

The Custom Tour is a journey we design for your party alone and then run, 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.

Send us an enquiry, and the full itinerary comes to you. If you would like to talk the journey through first, your Tour Director calls you at a time that suits you, in your own time zone. A deposit of $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 one inclusive price, from $18,500 per person, twin share, according to the tour: every night in luxury hotels and ryokan, first-class rail and private vehicles, your Tour Directors throughout, every activity and every entrance on the itinerary, all breakfasts, and all other meals as detailed in the itinerary. 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, whichever you prefer, directly to Luxury Japan Travel. A deposit confirms your place, and the balance is due 95 days before departure.

Yes. Every payment is safe, secure and encrypted. Your card details are kept by Stripe, to the highest security standard in the card industry (PCI DSS Level 1), and a bank transfer goes directly to Luxury Japan Travel. Our bank details come to you only from us, with your invoice; should details ever arrive that differ, telephone us first. Any question about a payment is answered at accounts@luxuryjapantravel.com.

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.

As early as suits you. Each published tour runs on one set of dates and is limited to 8 guests; a deposit of $3,500 per person secures your place, and the availability calendar shows every open date.

No. You book your own flights, and from the moment you land every day is ours. We advise on the routing, the timing and the flight that lands you in time for the welcome evening. We strongly recommend comprehensive travel insurance, and we are glad to tell you what it should cover.

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 form, our questions about the tour you have in mind. Your answers shape a private call with our team, and after the call a curation fee of $1,500, credited in full to your tour, sets the design in motion.

From $3,500 per person, per day. Your proposal sets out one figure for the whole tour and exactly what it includes, agreed with you in full before you travel.

A tour designed for your party alone and run by the team that designed it. Ours is the Custom Tour of Japan: suites at the leading hotels and ryokan of Japan, each chosen personally by us, a private car and driver every day, helicopter or private aircraft between regions, Michelin-starred dining, and your own Tour Director from arrival to departure. It runs from five nights, on the dates you choose, and nobody else is on it. For a guest travelling alone, or a couple who would rather take a journey already made than shape one from the beginning, The Private Collection offers four journeys just as private, from $18,000 per person, twin share.

You stay in the finest luxury hotels and ryokan in Japan, each one chosen personally by us for its luxury, its comfort and its setting. We look first for the best room the property has, the top suite or villa where it is worth the difference, and we know the properties that outshine their better-known neighbours.

Yes. Within each city a private car and driver waits wherever you are. Between cities you travel in first class on the shinkansen, or by helicopter or private aircraft where the hours matter, and on certain days your luggage is sent ahead to the next hotel. You never queue and never carry anything.

Yes. A helicopter over the mountains to a ryokan, a private aircraft between regions, and a private yacht between the art islands of the Inland Sea are each bookable as part of the tour, and each is quoted in your proposal before you commit to anything.

Yes. Tokyo has more Michelin-starred restaurants than any city in the world, and the top tables are yours: a private room, a whole counter taken for your party, or a chef who comes to your ryokan. Kyoto's kaiseki restaurants, a sake brewery in Nada and a whisky distillery between Kyoto and Osaka are arranged the same way.

Yes. An evening with geiko in a teahouse that receives guests by introduction, a private tea ceremony with a master, an afternoon at the bench of a lacquer or knife maker. We arrange each in person, and each is written into your proposal.

Five nights, with no upper limit, beginning on the date you choose. A solo traveller is welcome: tell us, and we will quote for your tour. If you would rather have a journey already made, ready to travel on your own dates, The Private Collection welcomes a solo traveller.

From $550, 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.

Every hotel and ryokan is named on its tour page. You stay in the finest luxury hotels and ryokan in Japan, each one chosen personally by us for its luxury, its comfort and its setting.

When you enquire. Each tour page gives the shape of the journey, and the complete itinerary, day by day, arrives with our reply.

Gentle by design. Mornings are slow, the evenings are yours, and time to relax is built into the route, from an afternoon in the onsen at a ryokan to an hour in a garden with nowhere else to be.

The pace is gentle: slow 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 beside you from the first evening to the last, and at the ryokan, at the counter and in the car, you are simply the guest.

With notice, yes. Tell us before you travel, and every kitchen on the route composes your courses around you.