I’d like to do a 2 week family vacation in Japan in 2022 or 2023 – myself, husband, and 2 sons in college. We’d like to visit 2 destinations: A beach location (maybe one of the smaller islands?), and a mountainous spiritual/quaint village. Not interested in Tokyo or Hiroshima. I feel like we should use a group travel company, since none of us have Japanese language skills, but everything I find includes time in Tokyo. I wouldn’t mind a 1 day Tokyo stopover, but the big city vibe is not what we’re going for.
My questions are –
1. Do any of you have experience with a group tour company that you’d recommend?
2. Is there a company that designs a trip that you can do on your own?
3. If we don’t go the group travel route, what two places do you recommend that would hit these goals? We want this trip to feel like local Japan and not touristy chaos.
Thanks!
Tracee
4 comments
Based on number 3, make your own plans is almost a must.
1. Most on here will likely be critical of tours. If you do one, make sure it’s a “small group tour” so you aren’t just being herded like cattle. Otherwise, not knowing Japanese isn’t as huge an issue as you might think. We are all happy to help.
2. You’ll find that most tours do the typical areas, but some have a large selection and offer custom / private tours (gadventure and alljapantours maybe?)
3. Spiritual Mountains: Koyasan, Mt. Misen
Not so spiritual but fun with quaintness: Fuji, Yoshino-yama, takayama + shirakawa
Beaches: Okinawa has many (think Hawaii), Tsunoshima, there are more, depends on itinerary.
Based on what you want, I’d fly in and out of Osaka (KIX).
I also think that based off your third point, it would be better to plan the trip yourself. It may seem daunting at first but trust me, planning a trip to Japan is incredibly easy and there are tons of info and great resources out there. If you check the sidebar in this sub, there’s a whole guide for you available, and you can also use the search bar to search up past itineraries of what others have done on their own 2 week trips. A beach location would entail Okinawa, as for mountain village you’d find that back on the main island, maybe Takayama and Shirakawago?
Not to mention, group tours to Japan are usually horrifically overpriced. As well, they usually hit the main tourist cities and not more quaint, off the beaten path destinations. To find those gems you’ll have to plan yourself.
My suggestion would be to begin writing down what you and your family members want to do/see, group it by city then you can flesh out an itinerary from there. The usual 2 week itinerary I would say includes Tokyo (with possibly a day trip to Kamakura, Nikko, Kawagoe etc), Kyoto/Osaka with a day trip to Nara, and Hiroshima with a day trip to Miyajima, however since you mentioned you wanted to avoid touristy things maybe your interests lie in visiting other places.
The vast majority of the tourist going to Japan do not speak a word of Japanese. Just get internet with you with apps to translate on your phone and that would be a good tool.
Tour group will usually hit the most requested area, so most likely within the big cities and you will have to follow the group, so it can be hard to customize.
For sure there is travel agency that can design a plan for you, but you might as well just search online on what you want to see and draw your own itinerary. It’s fairly easy to book hotels online nowadays.
Beach : [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2461.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2461.html)
Mountain : there is a lot of mountain all across Japan if you want to do some hiking and many are close to smaller town. you can check [Currently Hannah](https://www.youtube.com/user/xxlilangelxx1) on Youtube, she have done many hiking video lately.
I would advise to read more about what Japan have to offer and what you want to do. And if you do not want to spend time in Tokyo, you do not have to, there is no problem to directly fly into a regional airport and just spend you time outside of the big cities.