I build day-by-day itineraries for families travelling to Japan with children — and, when you want it, my company arranges the whole thing on the ground. Not blog recommendations. Telephone calls, in Japanese, to people who answer.
Start as small as you like. Most people begin with a review and move up when they see how much of this they'd rather not do themselves.
You've built an itinerary. I go through it day by day, tell you which days will break and why, hand back a fixed version, and record a video walking you through every change. No call needed.
See what's included →Built from scratch: routes, walking distances, a rain plan for every day, restaurant and experience shortlists with links and Japanese phone scripts, packing and station notes. You do the booking. Three rounds of revisions.
Enquire →Everything above, plus my company arranges it here in Japan — inns, trains, transfers, guides, private experiences. One point of contact, all communication in Japanese, problems solved from this end.
Enquire →Most Japan trip planning sold to American families is written by people who have visited. Useful, up to a point. The point it stops being useful is when the inn you want doesn't answer email, the experience you found isn't bookable online, and the answer you need only exists at the end of a phone call in Japanese.
My company holds a Japanese travel arrangement licence — 旅行サービス手配業. In practice that means I'm not asking on your behalf as a tourist. I'm asking as a trade counterpart, and I get a different answer.
That's the entire difference, and it's the reason some things on this site are not available to you any other way.
Written up one at a time, as I get round to them. Each of these is a segment of a longer trip, not a standalone tour.
Two nights at a six-room cultural resort inside the Aso caldera — with a hall out back that has a shrine to the kami of the sword and armour along both walls — then an overnight ferry that deletes an entire travel day between Kyushu and Osaka.
Read the whole thing →Duplicate aso-night-crossing.html, rename it, replace the words and pictures, then add a card here pointing at it. That's the whole process.
Ages, dates, and the part you're most worried about. That last one matters more than the first two.
Which cities, in which order, for how many nights. Almost every failed itinerary failed here, before a single restaurant was chosen.
Times, walking distances, a rain plan for each day, and Japanese scripts for anything that needs a call.
On planning tiers you book it yourself with direct links. On Fully Arranged, my company handles it here and you have one contact for everything.
I live in Tokyo and run a licensed travel arrangement company here — 旅行サービス手配業 — with a partner office in Kumamoto. Most of what I do is put together trips for families coming to Japan with children.
The work that actually matters happens on the telephone. Which inn will take a four-year-old. Which experience isn't bookable online and never will be. Which station has a lift on the side you'll be arriving from. None of that is written down anywhere in English, and none of it can be searched for. It has to be asked, in Japanese, by someone the person on the other end will talk to.
That's the job. Everything else on this site is downstream of it.
Tell me who's coming, how old they are, and roughly when. I'll tell you whether your dates are realistic, what the trip would cost, and whether you need me at all.
Email meReady to buy a review now? The Second Opinion, $250 →