The best Japan tours for curious travellers
From seeing the snow monkeys in Hokkaido or taking a deep dive into art, Japan offers every type of tour for every type of traveller. Here are our picks.
From snowshoeing across frozen lakes in Hokkaido and cycling through subtropical Kyushu to “leaf peeping” your way through autumn or taking a deep dive into art, Japan offers every type of tour for every type of traveller. Here are eight to look out for when planning your next holiday.
Abercrombie & Kent – Classic Japan 2025
Meticulous attention to detail and exceptional service are hallmarks of any Abercrombie & Kent tour, and here it begins at the airport, with a meet-and-greet service and private transfer to Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi. A travelling bellboy looks after luggage and a laundry service is also included on this nine-day jaunt through the cultural and culinary heartland of Honshu. Join a restaurant crawl through Osaka’s dazzling Dotonbori district, hone your sword skills in a private class with a master samurai, and feed the free-roaming deer at Nara Park. The tour includes nights at St Regis Osaka and the exclusive Gora Kadan, a Relais & Chateaux-badged ryokan in the hot springs resort town of Hakone. Emperors never had it this good.
Various departures from September to December 2025, and from February next year; from $23,180 a person, twin-share, for group tour; private tours available.
Walk Japan – Hokkaido Snow Tour
Each winter, storms from Siberia sweep across the Sea of Japan, coating the northernmost island of Hokkaido in a thick cloak of powdery snow. Skiers gravitate to glitzy resorts west of Sapporo, but why should they have all the fun? Swapping skis for snowshoes, guests on Walk Japan’s eight-day Hokkaido Snow Tour venture into the sparsely populated eastern region, walking across frozen lakes where anglers dangle lines in holes in the ice, following fox tracks in the snow, watching sunsets over ice floes in the ocean, and visiting coastal villages that feel like they haven’t see a visitor in years. You might be remote but you won’t be roughing it; your digs are modern Japanese inns with onsen hot springs. Daily walking distance is just 5-7km, leaving plenty of time for wildlife spotting or enjoying a sake by the fire.
Departures from January to March 2026; from 638,000 yen ($6720) a person, twin-share.
Renaissance Tours – World Orchestras in Tokyo
Renaissance Tours operates one-off, special-interest tours curated and led by experts in their field. Classical music aficionado and broadcaster Christopher Lawrence leads a 10-day sojourn that gives guests premier tickets to performances by some of the world’s best orchestras – Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra from the Netherlands and Japan’s own NHK Symphony Orchestra. The program runs the gamut from Mozart, Schumann, Brahms and Ravel to Stravinsky and Alban Berg’s groundbreaking 20th-century opera, Wozzeck. In between concerts – and there are seven – you’ll dine at local restaurants and enjoy private guided tours of landmark institutions such as the Kisho Kurokawa-designed National Art Centre and Tokyo National Museum plus stroll the serene Edo-era Rikugien Gardens. There’s time for free-range exploring too.
Runs November 12-21, 2025; from $17,450 a person, twin-share.
Butterfield & Robinson – Southern Japan Biking
With its empty roads, subtropical climate and diverse landscapes, Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu is Shangri-La for solitude-seeking cyclists. What’s surprising then is that this eight-day itinerary is actually designed around the island’s finest hotels, stringing them together by way of scenic cycling routes. Pedal past rice paddies and tea plantations, skirting remote coastlines and smoking volcanoes, meeting local artisans along the way and soothing sore muscles in hot onsens every night. The trip is suited to avid cyclists, with daily distances from 25-50km, including several challenging climbs. B&R provides a selection of bikes, including performance road bikes, flat-handlebar hybrids and e-bikes.
Runs October 24-31, 2025; from $US11,295 ($17,192) a person,
twin-share.
Bunnik Tours – Best of Southern Japan
If you’ve got the best part of three weeks to spare and love exploring the road less travelled, try this trip around the remote reaches of southern Japan. Stretched across 19 days, the pace is sedate, and lodgings luxe and unique, none more so than Azumi Setoda, the former Ikuchijima Island estate of a wealthy salt merchant reimagined as a boutique, sukiya-style ryokan (see Perfect 10, Page 10-22). Learn the art of green tea-making in Hoshino Village and sample food cooked by the steam of Beppu’s hot springs, a method known as “hell steaming”.
Various departures from October 7, 2025 to May 5, 2026; from $14,795 a person, twin-share, airfares included.
Collette – Japan & South Korea: From Tokyo to Seoul
Collette’s “explorations” category of small-group tours takes guests deeper into a destination, fostering authentic and meaningful interactions with locals. The personal becomes the political on this 15-day transnational journey, where you’ll have the chance to chat with a North Korean defector, enjoy a traditional lunch at a family home in Seoul, and pay a visit to the Korean Demilitarised Zone. Spend some time with Japan’s female “Ama” pearl divers in Ise-Shima, then visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, hearing first-hand from an atomic bomb survivor. It’s not all heavy; the Kyoto component is big on geisha and gastronomy, and includes a homestyle cooking class with the local women’s association.
Various departures from October 2025 to May 2026; from $10,874 a person, twin-share.
Botanica World Discoveries – Japanese Culture, Art & Gardens in Autumn Splendour
Tasmania might have the turning of the fagus but Japan has momiji-gari – literally “leaf peeping”; the simple pleasure of surrounding yourself in autumn foliage. Pack for maximum momiji-gari on this eye-popping 12-day tour of Japan’s most vibrant autumn gardens, led by expert botanical guide Simon Rickard and backed by a supporting cast of snowy mountains, shrines, temples and tea houses. Highlights include visits to the Edo-period Kenroku-en garden in Kanazawa, the haunting Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto and Yasugi’s Adachi Museum of Art, with 165,00sqm of meticulously landscaped gardens that could inspire you to greatness in your own backyard.
Departs November 10, 2025 and November 3, 2026; from $15,995 a person, twin-share.
Wendy Wu Tours – Offbeat Japan
There’s an infectious, offbeat energy to every Wendy Wu tour, and this highly immersive 14-day jaunt round the hotspots of Honshu hits all the right notes, packing a taste of everything that’s weird and wonderful about Japan into two action-packed weeks. Tick off Harajuku, Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, then hit the road to see Mount Fuji, share a hot spring with snow monkeys, take a rickshaw ride through a bamboo forest, join monks for morning prayers, meet geisha, learn origami, attend a traditional tea ceremony, watch a sumo wrestling tournament … is that Japanese enough for you?
Various departures in spring and autumn 2025/2026; from $11,380 a person, twin-share.
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