Luxury holidays in Japan
Reach a Kyoto garden before the temple gates open and spend a night in a traditional ryokan. We time every bullet train and book your private guides, so each day runs calmly.
It comes off your final price, and is refunded in full if you don't go ahead.
Japan
10 days · 9 nights
Fukuoka → Aso → Unzen → Kokura → Kitsuki → Hiroshima → Kyoto
You start in Fukuoka with the canals of Yanagawa, then board a luxury train for four days through Kyushu, stopping at Mount Aso and spending a night at a hot spring ryokan in Unzen. The bullet train takes you to Hiroshima and Miyajima, and you finish in Kyoto with temples, a tea ceremony and a geiko dinner.
There is a moment on a first trip to Japan when everything settles, often in a hot spring bath at a Hakone ryokan with Mount Fuji in the distance. Kaiseki dinner arrives course by course, a futon is laid out while you eat, and the morning starts with green tea.
Kyoto is the heart of a first visit, with temple gardens, tea houses and the lanes of Gion at dusk. Tokyo is the contrast, a huge, orderly city of small bars, fine sushi counters and neighbourhoods that each feel like a separate town. The bullet train links the two in a little over two hours, and Osaka, Nara and Kanazawa are easy additions.
Spend time with craftspeople who keep old skills alive, such as sword making in Tokyo and sake brewing in Kyoto.
Spend a private evening in Kyoto with a geiko, sharing a traditional meal while she performs dance and music and talks about her art.
Visit Kyoto's oldest breweries in Fushimi with a sake master, tasting as you learn how the craft has been refined over centuries.
Step into Tokyo's last traditional sword workshop and watch the master at work, learning how a blade takes three months to make.
Follow a local guide through Shinjuku's lights and lanes at night, into tiny bars and eateries most visitors walk straight past.
Explore the shops, cafes and museums behind Japan's famous animated characters and cartoon icons, with a guide who knows the scene.
Discover the food, morning markets and woodcraft of Takayama, a beautifully kept old town high in the Hida mountains.
Most first visits split the two cities, and Kyushu suits a second trip.
Tokyo's shrines, gardens and neighbourhoods, then the lakes and hot springs of Hakone, with Mount Fuji in view on clear days.
Kyoto's temples and geisha district, Nara's great bronze Buddha and deer park, and the food streets of Osaka, all close together.
Japan's southern island, with the volcanic Aso caldera, the hot spring town of Unzen and the food of Fukuoka.
Spring and autumn book out early, so it pays to settle your dates well ahead.
Cold and clear, with quiet temples in Kyoto and winter light on Mount Fuji.
Still cold, with plum blossom late in the month in Tokyo and Kyoto.
Cherry blossom often opens in Tokyo and Kyoto in the last week of March.
Peak cherry blossom early in the month, then fresh spring days, so book early.
Mild and green, but avoid the Golden Week holidays at the start of the month.
The rainy season settles over Honshu and Kyushu, with irises and hydrangeas.
Hot and humid after the rains, with Kyoto's Gion Matsuri festival all month.
Hot, humid and busy with summer festivals and the Obon holidays.
Still warm, with typhoons possible, especially in Kyushu.
Clear, mild autumn days, with early leaf colour in the mountains.
Autumn colour peaks in Kyoto, Hakone and Tokyo's gardens.
Cool and dry, with winter lights and the last autumn leaves early in the month.
Tokyo has direct flights from Europe, North America, the Gulf and Australia, and fast trains link the main regions.
Seoul is about two hours' flight from Tokyo, and the two cities make a lively contrast.
Seoul's palaces, mountain temples and the food of the markets.
The Great Wall, the Terracotta Army and Shanghai's skyline.
Tell us when you want to go, for how long and who is travelling. Your travel expert replies in writing with a trip shaped around you.
