Tailor-made Japan vacations shaped around your passions

Many visitors come to Japan to immerse themselves in the country’s singular culture — both traditional and ultra-modern. You can explore the lantern-lit alleys on a guided tour of Gion, Kyoto’s renowned geisha district, or dive into the cutting-edge tech and pop-culture scene with a guided tour of Tokyo’s different districts.

For more hands-on approach, you might consider a class. You can learn to make ramen, try your hand at taiko drumming, or take a kintsugi workshop to learn the art of mending broken pottery with gold.

While the cultural aspects of Japan are often visitors’ primary focus, there are plenty of opportunities to explore the country’s natural beauty. You can walk through majestic cedar forests on the Nakasendo Highway, climb the three sacred mountains of Dewa-Sanzan, or venture further afield to find pristine swathes of nature in Hokkaido.

Spanning the gamut from luxurious ultra-modern hotels to charmingly rustic ryokan, Japan offers a wide range of stays in both the cities and the countryside. Where you stay depends on what you want to see and your personal style — your specialist will help you choose the right option for you.

For the most authentic experience of Japan, we do recommend spending at least one night in a ryokan. These inns range from rustic B&Bs perched amid the mountains to Kyoto’s most sublimely sophisticated establishments.

You can also opt to immerse yourself in the country’s spiritual side with a stay in shukubo — lodgings within a Buddhist temple, like those found on Mount Koya. These spartan quarters give you a front-row seat to the daily life in the hushed, holy spaces.

If you’re only going to visit Japan once, you should make time to see both Tokyo and Kyoto. A visit to these two cities, which are connected by a bullet train, gives you the chance to explore both the modern and traditional sides of the country.

If you want to extend your stay, where you go depends on what you’re interested in and what time of the year you visit. You might want to unwind like the locals do and stay in a ryokan (rustic inn), soaking in a natural hot spring onsen. In spring, the country’s many cherry trees explode into pink bloom, attracting visitors from around the world. To explore the wilder side of the archipelago, you might head north to the Japanese Alps to hike the Nakesendo Highway.

Japan’s excellent train network makes it easy to move between cities, even small ones. Within the cities, you can take advantage of an efficient and comprehensive subway and bus system. We can help you navigate this system with how-to guides, detailed instructions, and even a guide who will meet you early in your trip to give you an orientation tour and explain the nuances.

Driving yourself is an option, but not recommended if you want to spend most of your time in the cities, where traffic is dense. Your rental car will come with GPS, and all road signs are in Japanese and English, so navigating is usually easy. You’ll need both a valid Canada driver’s licence and an International Driving Permit.

Nonstop flights from Toronto to Tokyo take about 12.5 hours, depending on airline.

The time zone in Japan is UTC +9.

You don’t need a visa to enter Japan if you’re staying less than 90 days. Your passport must be valid for at least six months after the date of your departure from Japan and have at least one blank page. If you’re not a Canada passport holder, you can check the visa requirements here.

Your doctor can provide you with immunization advice for Japan, but you should also ensure you’re up to date with the recommended vaccinations for your home country. You can also check the recommended vaccinations by visiting the Government of Canada - travel vaccinations website.

Some of Japan’s best cuisine to try includes ramen, sushi, sashimi, bento boxes, teriyaki, sukiyaki, tempura, and nabe. Additionally, you can sample a wide range of sake and beer brands. With one of the world’s most sophisticated and distinctive cuisines, Japan offers a veritable feast of options for any visitor — and any guide to eating in Japan is necessarily merely an introduction.

It’s easy to enjoy yourself at any price range, from inexpensive noodle bowls to opulent Michelin-starred eateries. A highlight for many is a kaiseki meal at a ryokan. Serenely formal, these multi-course meals celebrate the seasons, featuring only very local ingredients. On the other end of the spectrum, izakaya offer a boisterous, social experience with inexpensive tapas-style menus of small, often-fried dishes.

A guided tour can also help you get your bearings, whether you’re sampling street food in Tokyo, traditional cuisine in Kyoto, or soul food in Osaka.

The title of best sushi restaurant is fiercely fought over, but for the best city, we suggest Kanazawa. Kanazawa is best known for its rich tradition of crafts, but its location also gives it access to some of the country’s freshest fish, caught in the icy waters of the Sea of Japan. (The cold water is thought to improve the taste.) You can also take a tour of Ōmichō Market, an old-fashioned fish market where you can watch the fishmongers ply their trade and pick up some sashimi.

This is, of course, a matter of taste but many agree that the tonkatsu ramen in Fukuoka City is the best in the country. Fukuoka is considered the Noodle Capital of Japan thanks to its no-frills tonkatsu ramen with ultra-fine noodles. You can find it dished out every day in big bowls at more than 100 stalls across the city. It’s easy to include the city as part of our self-drive tour of Kyushu.

Where to find best okonomiyaki is a contentious question — both Osaka and Hiroshima claim that accolade. The word literally translates as ‘whatever you want, grilled’, which is an accurate description — these popular street snacks are savory pancakes loaded with whatever protein and accoutrements you’d like. Both Hiroshima and Osaka are located on the main island, making them easy to visit on a classic tour of Japan.

Each region is justifiably proud of their local sake, but the Kansai region — including Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, and Nara prefectures — has perhaps the densest concentration of excellent sake in the country. The drink, which is called nihonshu in Japan, has been brewed in this region for centuries. To get a glimpse of the process, we can arrange a culinary walking tour of Kyoto that includes a visit to a sake brewery and the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum.