Japan Luxury Vacation Review: Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Nikko, 17-Day Trip

Our trip was well organized, with no glitches. All the hotels were fully paid for, without extra charges. All the trains were reserved and travel was seamless. All pickups were on time or early. Zicasso’s travel partner was very helpful.

The one thing I would raise is the quality of the guides. We had guides in Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Kanazawa, and Nikko, provided by our travel agency. Most were elderly and some did not speak English intelligibly.

I did a significant amount of preparation for the trip, studying Japanese history and culture to help me understand what we were going to see. I am thankful for that. Many of the guides began their careers after finishing a work career. This is their way of supplementing their income in retirement. That is perfectly fine, but they need to be up to snuff. They are required to pass a competency exam in English. However, passing such an exam does not mean one is able to function at a level appropriate for guiding.

Our one guide in Kyoto was somewhat frail and did not tell us much of anything. Her English was unintelligible unless we listened very carefully, and I seemed to be telling her more about the sites and history of the Nara, Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods than she imparted. Guides need to show adequate competency in English in order to work.

Our best guide was one I found online to guide us through the history of Kobe, with emphasis on World War 2 and the history of the Jewish refugees who came to Kobe in 1940 and 1941. They were saved from the Holocaust by Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Vilnius, who issued fake visas and saved their lives. This guide’s English was impeccable and his knowledge of what we were interested in was amazing. He led the tour for free. If I can find such a guide, such guides should be available for other sites and could be found by an experienced travel agent.

I believe a guide should be a teacher and we her/his students. For me, a guided day in a place is like a classroom. If it requires more payment to find a first-class guide with adequate, intelligible English, then so be it. I speak five languages (not Japanese, of course), but would guide only in three as my fluency is not adequate in the other two.

Indeed, if one adequately prepares oneself, it might be better to have a self-guided day in a city with a step-by-step itinerary containing information on transportation between sites etc, rather than having a guide who does not speak adequate English. If it is not possible to find such guides, it would be better not to have one at all.

I know our Zicasso travel agency partners with another company, so the above comments are likely targeted at that company. I hope that this is helpful going forward.