A private English-speaking guide in Japan gives a traveller one person's knowledge of one city for one day. A licensed guide knows the history, the gardens and the gates that are open on the day, and a specialist in a single subject goes deeper still.
A guide buys one person, for one city, for one day. At Daitoku-ji in Kyoto, a temple of more than twenty sub-temples of which only a handful open their gardens through the year, and others only for short seasons in spring and autumn, a guide who knows which gates are open that day is worth having. The questions are what kind of guide to hire, when a driver helps, and when a guide hired by the day is the wrong choice for the journey.
the licence
Hiring a tour guide in Japan: the licensed guide
Any traveller may hire a tour guide in Japan, and the most qualified are the National Government Licensed Guide Interpreters, Zenkoku Tsuyaku Annai-shi, who pass a state examination in a foreign language, Japanese history, geography, current affairs and the practice of guiding before they may use the title.
Until January 2018 a licence was required to guide foreign visitors for a fee. Since the law was amended on 4 January 2018, anyone may guide for a fee, but only licensed guides may call themselves licensed or national guides. The licence remains the best single mark of a professional.
Regional guides are licensed by prefectures and cities for their own ground, and some know a single place, Nikko, Koyasan or the Kiso Valley, better than any national guide could.
the driver
A private driver in Japan
Japan has a long tradition of the chauffeured hire car, haiya, kept separate from the taxi. A hire car carries green number plates, is booked through the operator's office for a block of hours, and cannot be hailed in the street. The drivers wear dark suits and white gloves, open every door, and are as punctilious about time as the trains.
Drivers are not guides. Some speak English well, and the best are excellent company, but they are not licensed to interpret a temple or a garden and do not walk in with the party.
the days
What a timetable does not give
The trains run to the minute and every major station is signed in English, but the best of Japan sits off the timetable. The great ryokan take reservations by telephone or by letter, in Japanese. The celebrated sushi and kaiseki counters seat eight or ten and keep no English booking page. Sights close on their own days, the Imperial Palace East Gardens on Mondays and Fridays, many museums on Mondays, some temples for ceremonies with no notice in English, and the order of a week has to be built around them. Luggage has to go somewhere between hotels. And meaning is the largest gap of all: a solo traveller at Ryoan-ji sees fifteen stones in raked gravel; with the right guide the same garden becomes a conversation about Zen, the Muromachi period and the art of leaving things out.
the director
A guide for a day, or a Tour Director for the journey
A guide hired in Japan is hired by the city and by the day. In a fortnight that means a new guide in Tokyo, another in Kyoto, another in Kanazawa, each meeting the party for the first time at a hotel lobby, and each day's arrangements made by the traveller between them.
A Tour Director is a different role. The Tour Directors of Luxury Japan Travel open the doors and take care of every arrangement, at the ryokan, at the counter, in the car and at the temple gate. The party never waits in a lobby for a guide to find it, and never begins a day with a stranger.
Luxury Japan Travel's Private Collection is four such journeys, already written: Essential Japan, nine days through Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka; Classic Japan, which adds two nights at Kinosaki Onsen; Definitive Japan, which adds two nights beneath Mount Fuji as well; and Pure Hokkaido, nine days from Hakodate to Sapporo.
The Kyoto hotel of The Private Collection, in Gion →
A party that wants a journey shaped entirely around it, its own route, its own pace, its own rooms, takes the Custom Tour of Japan, where the Tour Director works with the party and the company's Japan specialists to shape the tour, then travels with it.
The Custom Tour of Japan, designed for one party →
What a private tour of Japan costs, and how it works →
Shinkansen first class and GranClass, explained →
Supreme Class, the shinkansen's private cabins →
A first trip to Japan: where to go and how long →
The Private Collection puts a Tour Director with the party for the whole of a journey already planned by Luxury Japan Travel, taken on the dates the guests choose: the same Tour Director in every city. A private chauffeur meets the flight, the luggage goes ahead between cities, and in Kyoto the days include a private tea ceremony and kaiseki at a two-Michelin-star restaurant.
questions
Questions
Can you hire a private tour guide in Japan?
Yes. National Government Licensed Guide Interpreters guide by language and region. Since 4 January 2018 anyone may guide for a fee, but only licensed guides may use the title.
What is the difference between a guide and a Tour Director?
A guide is hired by the day for one city. A Tour Director opens the doors of the whole journey, as on every journey of The Private Collection and the Custom Tour of Japan.