Japan Train Trips

The Simply Japan tour is excellent for introducing visitors to the geography, history, and culture of Japan. I highly recommend it. I rated the itinerary good, rather than excellent, as this trip felt like a "full on" trip to me rather than moderate, as advertised. There are many, many stairs involved in public transportation and in visiting shrines and temples. Also, luggage forwarding is an additional complexity. And there are crowds of people to maneuver through. We were fortunate to have a terrific tour leader, Henrik Roslef. I cannot imagine a better tour leader for this type of trip which relies heavily on public transportation. Henrik is well-organized, has great command of both English and Japanese, gives clear instructions, and goes above and beyond to ensure all visitors have a memorable holiday. If you've never been to Japan before and are still on the fence about going, just go! You'll love it, especially if Henrik is your tour leader.

We had a wonderful time on this tour. The hotels, including the Monsteray and Roykan, were excellent. Some of the breakfast dining rooms felt a little crowded, but it was still manageable. We also enjoyed travelling on around five bullet trains—such a great experience. The IC card provided, pre-loaded with 5,000 yen for train travel, was very useful. Our trip highlights included the snow monkeys, Kyoto, the Hida No Sato thatched-roof village, Hiroshima, and Miyajima—where the floating Torii gate was absolutely stunning. In Kyoto, we especially loved the bamboo forest and the beautiful zen garden that followed it and a river boat trip We also enjoyed as the impressive 10,000 Torii gates at Fushimi Inari. The itinerary was excellent. Yes, there were a few free days, but with a little planning they were fantastic. For example, during our free days in Tokyo we booked Shibuya Sky, Tokyo Skytree, and TeamLab, which made those days memorable. However, we did encounter some issues with the guide. Our first guide, Marika, was new and often seemed irritable. She dressed entirely in black and did not use a flag or marker, which made it difficult to keep track of her in busy stations. She was soft-spoken, and when asked to repeat information she sometimes appeared annoyed. She rarely waited for the whole group to gather before speaking, and when those who arrived moments later asked her to repeat instructions, she looked frustrated. On several occasions, she even raised her voice. This was particularly upsetting when directed toward an older couple in the group (aged 80 and 70). She seemed to lack patience if they couldn’t hear her, walked more slowly, or needed clearer explanations. At our introduction meeting she advised us that we shouldn't tip staff in restaurants etc but she continued to say that would be happy to accept a tip from us at end of our trip..... When Marika fell ill, she was replaced by Parisa, who was also new and not Japanese. Unfortunately, she too treated the older couple poorly and showed a lack of professionalism. Both guides seemed to forget that many of us are well-travelled and experienced. Instead of trusting us and engaging confidently, they tended to speak down to the group or act with unnecessary caution. We do feel grieved by our guides - initially we were meant to have someone called Antony/Antio. Given that we paid £5,500 each (including flights), we were very disappointed to end up with two inexperienced guides. After reading previous reviews praising “exceptional” guides, my husband and I felt let down and didn’t feel we received the value for money we expected. The tour is operated by 80 days Japan

Our recent tour of Japan was well organised and the itinerary gave my husband and I an excellent overview of Japanese history and its fascinating culture. As mentioned in the description of the trip, you do need to be reasonably fit, as there is a lot of walking and travelling by train between different accommodation carrying day bags involved (main suitcases are forwarded on for you). There were plenty of highlights included and we were also given some free time to explore independently, when Geoffrey, our Tour Leader, often offered the option of additional walking tours. Geoffrey is fluent in Japanese, which was very helpful, and he proved to be extremely knowledgeable and passionate about Japanese history and traditions. Thank you Geoffrey and also to our happy band of fellow travellers! We hope to return to experience more! Carol and Chris

Some of the accommodation was old and dated and not up to normal standards, for people taking on this trip you need to be fit and mobile as all of the trip is on public transport, bus, train and metro system

We had a great time, the itinerary was very good (very busy but we saw a lot and got a great overall impression) and the accommodation was great. As well as nice hotels the two traditional accommodations were fun/interesting. Our guide was very knowledgeable and very happy to help with anything and everything. He was also very happy to run optional tours on the free days.

Great itinerary with a very caring and dedicated guide (Santi) who really went above and beyond. This is a fantastic tour to introduce an amazing country. Loved the unconventional (non hotel) accommodation… It’s these things that make explore trips special and give you something that would be difficult to sort out yourself on the first visit to a country. I heard that Simply Japan may be dropping one of these for 2026 which would be a mistake in my opinion. There could also be a bit more thought to scheduling detail - for example in Hiroshima the hotel is really close to the Peace museum and would be easy to schedule a visit at a time that is less busy.