Tokyo Tower lit orange at dusk above the layered skyline of Shiba, the roof of Zojoji in the foreground

private and small group journeys

Luxury Tokyo tours for 2027

Our luxury Tokyo tours open The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan with three nights by the Imperial Palace moat, and begin each Honshu journey of The Private Collection with three nights in the capital, on the dates you choose, with a Tour Director beside you every day.

Tokyo Tower at dusk over the roof of Zojoji

The 2027 tour
The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan30 March to 10 April 2027, $22,500 per person
On your own dates
Three journeys of The Private CollectionFrom $18,000 per person, private to your party
Created for you
The Custom Tour of JapanFrom five nights, on the dates you choose
Our guests
By the end of the trip, our tour director felt like one of our best friends.Molly C.

the city

A city of a hundred villages, each with its own shrine, its own streets and its own way of eating.

Tokyo began as Edo, the castle town of the Tokugawa shoguns, and became the capital in 1868, when the young Emperor Meiji moved his court here from Kyoto and Edo Castle became the Imperial Palace. Rebuilt twice in the twentieth century, after the earthquake of 1923 and again after 1945, it grew into a federation of neighbourhoods rather than a single city, and it now has more Michelin-starred restaurants than any other city in the world, many of them counters of eight or ten seats where the chef cooks for the people in front of him.

On our tours the city is arranged around you. A private chauffeur meets your flight and takes care of the luggage, and from the first evening your Tour Director, fluent in English and Japanese, speaks for you in Japanese wherever you go, from the car to the counter. What is left to you is Tokyo itself: the hush of the forest at Meiji Jingu a minute from the crowds of Harajuku, and a bar of six stools on the eighth floor of an unremarkable building, where the whisky is poured over ice cut by hand.

Our tours stay overnightOur tours visit for the dayOn a Custom Tour of Japan

tours and prices

Luxury Tokyo tours, small group and private

Every journey below includes Tokyo. The published tours and the journeys of The Private Collection are priced per person, twin share, each at one inclusive price: all breakfasts, and all other meals as detailed in the itinerary.

All prices are in US dollars.

The published tours

The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan opens with three nights in Marunouchi: the blossom tunnel along the Chidorigafuchi moat, the Meguro river in flower, a hanami picnic at Yoyogi Park with a bento from a Michelin-starred kitchen, and a welcome kaiseki in Nihonbashi, served course by course beneath a Noh stage, with Noh and Kyogen performed between the dishes. It is limited to 8 guests. The Autumn Leaves Tour of Northern Japan ends in Tokyo in November 2027, with two more nights in the city on its Tokyo extension. The Autumn Leaves Tour of Japan, which opens among the gold ginkgo of Meiji Jingu Gaien, is sold out for 2026.

The Private Collection, on your own dates

Essential Japan, Classic Japan and Definitive Japan each begin with three nights in Nihonbashi, on the dates you choose, with the same Tour Director in every city, from the first evening to the last. The days take in Senso-ji and the lanes of Asakusa, the forest of Meiji Jingu, the Imperial Palace East Gardens, the Tsukiji Outer Market and Ginza, and one evening belongs to a sushi counter, before the journey continues west.

Created for you, or planned for you

The Custom Tour of Japan is created around your party alone, from five nights, and Tokyo can be as much of it as you wish, from a table with three stars, or the whole counter for your party, to every experience below, arranged around your days. If you would rather travel on your own, the Expert Japan Itinerary plans every day of your journey for you and is delivered in seven working days.

districts

Tokyo, district by district

Each quarter of Tokyo keeps a character of its own, and your Tour Director plans the days so that you move between two or three of them by car, never across the whole city in a hurry.

  • Marunouchi and the Imperial Palace

    The emperor's palace stands on the site of Edo Castle, inside its original moats and walls of dressed granite, and the East Gardens keep the stone base of the keep, the largest ever built in Japan. Marunouchi, beside it, has the grandest hotels in the city, and the Chidorigafuchi moat to the north-west is lined with cherry trees for seven hundred metres.

  • Nihonbashi and Ginza

    Nihonbashi was the merchant heart of Edo, and its bridge is still the point from which Japan's national roads are measured. Ginza runs south from it, with Wako's clock tower at the crossing, the food halls beneath Mitsukoshi, where melons and wagashi are set out like jewellery, and the Kabuki-za. The Tsukiji Outer Market, with its knives, dried bonito and tamagoyaki, is a short walk east.

  • The Tokyo Skytree rising above the low roofs of the east side of Tokyo at sunset, mountains on the horizon
    The Tokyo Skytree above the east side at sunset

  • Asakusa, Yanaka and the east side

    Senso-ji, Tokyo's oldest temple, is reached through the Kaminarimon and its great red lantern, and Yanaka, to the west, escaped the fires of 1923 and 1945 with its wooden houses and temple lanes intact. This is the old craft quarter, where knife-makers and the cutters of Edo kiriko glass still work, and where the Tokyo Skytree rises 634 metres above the low roofs.

  • Omotesando and Meiji Jingu

    Meiji Jingu stands in a planted forest of some 100,000 trees, and its gravel path leaves the noise of Harajuku behind within a minute. Omotesando, the zelkova boulevard laid out as the shrine's approach, is now a gallery of modern architecture by Tadao Ando, Herzog and de Meuron and SANAA, and at its far end the Nezu Museum keeps its collection in a building by Kengo Kuma, above a garden of ponds and teahouses on a wooded slope.

  • The double-arched stone bridge of Nijubashi reflected in the Imperial Palace moat, a watchtower above
    Nijubashi, the Imperial Palace

  • Shinjuku and Shibuya

    From the towers of Shinjuku, Mount Fuji stands on the horizon on clear winter days, and Shinjuku Gyoen below them is a former imperial garden of 58 hectares. Shibuya Crossing, where up to three thousand people cross at once, is seen from the open deck of Shibuya Sky.

  • Roppongi and Azabudai

    The art quarter of the city: the Mori Art Museum at the top of Roppongi Hills, the National Art Center in Kisho Kurokawa's rippling shell of glass, and the gardens and galleries of Azabudai Hills, below Tokyo Tower.

experiences

Experiences we arrange in Tokyo

  • A sushi counter of eight seats

    Dinner at one of Tokyo's celebrated sushi counters, where the master cuts and seasons each piece in front of you and hands it across the cypress bar, course after course, in the order of the season.

  • Knives, glass and the makers of Edo

    An afternoon on the east side with the makers whose families have worked there for generations: a blacksmith sharpening a knife to your hand, a cutter of Edo kiriko glass at the wheel, a dyer of indigo tenugui at the vat.

  • Kabuki at the Kabuki-za

    An afternoon of kabuki in Ginza, with the story told to you beforehand, so that the costumes, the stylised poses and the shouts from the gallery all make sense the moment the curtain opens.

  • Tea in a daimyo garden

    A bowl of matcha and a seasonal sweet in the Nakajima teahouse of Hama-rikyu, reached by a long wooden bridge across a pond that rises and falls with the tide, the towers of Shiodome reflected in the water.

  • A morning at a sumo stable

    On a Custom Tour of Japan, a morning in Ryogoku watching the wrestlers of a sumo stable train, followed by chanko nabe, the stew that sustains them.

A roofed wooden garden gate beneath a tall avenue of gold ginkgo trees in autumn
Gold ginkgo above a garden gate in autumn

seasons

Tokyo through the year

Spring
Cherry blossom over the Chidorigafuchi moat, where rowboats pass beneath the branches, and along the Meguro river and across the lawns of Yoyogi Park. The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan opens here, and runs from 30 March to 10 April 2027.
Summer
Irises in the inner garden of Meiji Jingu in June, and in late July the great fireworks over the Sumida River.
Autumn
The ginkgo avenue of Meiji Jingu Gaien turns gold, and the maples of Rikugien and Kiyosumi colour around their ponds. The Autumn Leaves Tour of Northern Japan closes in Tokyo in November.
Winter
Clear, dry days, when Mount Fuji stands white beyond the towers of Shinjuku, the winter peonies of Ueno Toshogu flower beneath their straw shelters, and the trees of Marunouchi are strung with light.

where you stay

Where you stay in Tokyo

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.

In Tokyo our journeys stay in the centre of the city: Kioicho, between Akasaka and Yotsuya, on The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan, and Nihonbashi, the merchant quarter of old Edo, on the journeys of The Private Collection, with Ginza a short walk away.

Tokyo's luxury hotels, ranked and district by district

A lit garden terrace with low seats above the towers of Marunouchi at night, Tokyo58
A club terrace above Marunouchi at night

plan your visit

Tokyo on a journey through Japan

How long to stay
Three nights give Tokyo its due, as on The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan and the journeys of The Private Collection, and four or five allow a day out to Kamakura, Nikko or Hakone at an easy pace.
Getting there
A private chauffeur meets you at Haneda, about thirty minutes from the centre, or at Narita, about an hour away. Kyoto is a little over two hours west by Shinkansen, in first class on our journeys.
Pairs well with
Tokyo begins or ends most journeys in Japan: Kamakura and Nikko are easy days out, Hakone and the Fuji lakes make a natural first onsen stop on the way west, and Kyoto is a little over two hours away.HakoneKamakuraNikkoMount FujiLake KawaguchikoKaruizawaKyoto

questions

Luxury Tokyo tours: questions answered

How much does a luxury tour of Tokyo cost?

The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan, which opens with three nights in Tokyo, is $22,500 per person, twin share, for twelve days from 30 March to 10 April 2027. Essential Japan, the shortest journey of The Private Collection, begins with three nights in Tokyo and is $18,000 per person, twin share, on the dates you choose. Each is one inclusive price: all breakfasts, and all other meals as detailed in the itinerary. A Custom Tour of Japan, created around your party alone, is from $3,500 per person, per day.

What is the best luxury tour of Tokyo?

For the cherry blossom, The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan: three nights in Tokyo, then Mount Fuji, Kyoto, Kinosaki Onsen and Osaka, limited to 8 guests. On dates of your own, a journey of The Private Collection, private to your party, with the same Tour Director throughout. For a journey shaped entirely around your interests, the Custom Tour of Japan.

Are your Tokyo tours private or small group?

Both. The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan is a small group tour, limited to 8 guests. The journeys of The Private Collection and the Custom Tour of Japan are private: your party alone, on the dates you choose.

Is a private guide included on a Tokyo tour?

Yes. Every published tour and every journey of The Private Collection includes a Tour Director, one of our own, who is with you from the first evening and speaks for you in Japanese at the counter, the temple and the ryokan, so that you never arrange anything yourself.

How many days do you need in Tokyo?

Three nights at the least, and four or five for a first visit, which allows the main districts at an easy pace and a day out to Kamakura, Nikko or Hakone.

Where is the best area to stay in Tokyo?

Marunouchi and Nihonbashi, beside the Imperial Palace, for the grandest hotels, the palace gardens and Ginza on foot. Roppongi and Azabudai suit those who want the galleries and the evening restaurants, and Shinjuku the views over the west of the city to Mount Fuji.

How do you get from Haneda or Narita to central Tokyo?

On our journeys a private chauffeur meets you at arrivals and takes care of your luggage. Haneda is about thirty minutes from the centre by car, and Narita about an hour.

What are the best day trips from Tokyo?

Kamakura for its Great Buddha and Zen temples, Nikko for the Toshogu shrine, Hakone for onsen and views of Mount Fuji, and Yokohama for its harbour and the Sankeien garden. Each is within two hours.

How far is Kyoto from Tokyo?

A little over two hours by the fastest Tokaido Shinkansen. On our journeys you travel in first class, and a private car meets you in Kyoto.

reading

More on Tokyo, and the places around it

From the Japan Edition

Nearby

Tokyo, planned for you.

Tell us when you would like to travel and what draws you to Tokyo, and we will answer with the journey that suits you best: one of our published tours, a journey of The Private Collection, or a Custom Tour of Japan created around your party alone.

The Custom Tour of JapanThe 2027 tours, by season