10-Day Classic Private Tour of Japan from Tokyo, 4-star Hotels

Everything worked out beautifully. It was a perfect mix of personal guides and free time. Guides were on time everyday. We were able to have some fun experiences such as sushi making, samurai class, tea ceremony, bike riding, and on river adventure. I was a little hesitant with the payment to be a bank transfer but did use a credit card and this worked fine.

Great company to deal with, responded to any queries overnight. Good value for Money all hotels were well located and of a good standard. Have used this company before and would not hesitate to use again

we booked a private tour with Agate, the travel agent Wendy is very organized and responsive, answered all my questions, made suggestions for our itinerary and adjusted with our preference. it was very pleasant experience to plan the trip. once we arrived the airport, our guide and the car were waiting for us. we shared a van with 2 more families, all 3 hotels are very close and we are the third stop, detour was like 15 minutes. very smooth. we had a guide in Tokyo, she is very knowledgeable and good to tour around, she lived in Canada for about 2 years, served as translator for special Olympics and her English is awesome. She knows all the short cut and fun spots to check out. out bullet train tickets were delivered to our hotel front desk, and our guide walked us all way to the train cart. super nice. the guide in Kyoto showed us in Kyoto and Osaka. He is super knowledgeable too, and both guide came prepared with binder that has introductions of all sorts Japanese history and cultures. my kids even learned a lot from all the visit. He also knows all the best picture spot. The intermarry was slightly adjusted with the sunset time, so we got a chance seeing the beautiful sunset view in the Kinkaku-ji temple, which become one of the highlights of the trip. all of my family are very happy with the tour, we don't have to worry about the logistics and be able to bypass the crowds, truly enjoy our trip. we will definitely contact them for the future trips

We visited a number of cities in China, Japan and South Korea during 24 days. Emily planned the perfect trip for us: all selected hotels were of good quality, the guides in each city were knowledgeable and courteous, always willing to help, cars were clean and of adequate size. Coordination of so meny different resources across various countries is a logistics challenge, however, everything worked to near perfection. This was a wonderful one on one experience so different from mass tourism.

Perfect organization of train and bus reservations. Hotels of good standard corresponding to the expected one. Private guides in generally good English. Itinerary and program visits followed completely.

This was once in a lifetime experience. We enjoyed our tour of China and Japan very much, visited fascinating and impressive places and took a lot of beautiful pictures. Our guides were patient and knowledgeable. We would like to thank you our guides, Colin in Beijing, Tracy in Xi'an, Johnny in Shanghai, Akie in Tokyo, Toshiba in Kyoto. And above all we would like to thank you and show our appreciation to Emily, who has done excellent work to organize and made all so easy and possible to it.

Agate Travel planned an absolutely wonderful trip for us to Japan! It was a great experience working with Emily through the planning stages. She answered all my questions well within 1 business day and gave clear and helpful instructions and advice including everything from making payments to how to navigate travel within each city. I admired how organized she was through it all. For example, I found it useful that she would number the emails in the subject line each time a new topic was covered. It was really helpful when checking back on things. As for the trip itself, the hotel accommodations they arranged for us were very good indeed and the tour guides were outstanding, especially Heidi in Tokyo and Minnie in Kyoto. Agate's approach to travel with tour guides the first 1-2 days in a city followed by a day on your own was fit well for our family and allowed us to get the lay of the land and then explore on our own (relying heavily on helpful great tips and helpful recommendations from the local tour guides). I knew very little about Japan before this trip and now I feel like I have a wonderful appreciation of and understanding of Japan and its wonderful history and culture thanks to Agate and their perfectly planned and executed itineraries.

Wendy Lee at Agate travel was wonderful to work with from start to finish. The tour was the most affordable than any other quote I received, and she worked with me to personalize a 10 day Japan trip to meet our family’s needs/requests. She handles all the big and small details that really takes the stress out of planning a trip to a foreign country, including suggestions for sights we didn’t know to include. I made many changes before finalizing our itinerary and she worked with me until all my questions were answered. She was also available to answer any questions I had during the trip. Tickets for bullet train reservations arrived at our hotel seamlessly and hotels she selected were all very close to local transportation. Our tour guides were also great (thanks Heidi and Haru!). We had a wonderful time, thanks Wendy!

Wonderful and enjoyable stress-free experience, not only getting to know the amazing attractions but thanks to the conversations with the guides, you get to immerse in the culture and nuances of this distinctive nation. We had a personalized private tour by Agate Travel and it was flawless!

We recently took a 12 day trip to Japan which was totally planned for us by Agate Travel and Wendy Lee at this travel agency. There were 5 of us in my family. We corresponded exclusively by email. I was introduced to her and Agate by a friend who also went to Japan in September of 2023 and has since taken another trip planned by Agate and Wendy Lee. Our Japan trip was absolutely excellent!!! Every single detail that was given to us took place without a single problem. The guides that were selected for us were superb! and such nice, caring, and thoughtful people. They were always there to greet us at the train stations and ready for us in the hotel lobbies each morning for the day's excursion. We saw many amazing and absolutely beautiful sights with good explanations of what we were seeing. In addition, we experienced a nice variety of events- a wonderful dinner with a Maiko in Kyoto, a river boat trip, a visit to the Nara deer park with wild/tame deer, and amazing botanical sights (which was very important to us) including Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa and also visited the incredible Bamboo Forest in Kyoto. Visiting Hiroshima was very important and our guide was outstanding in bringing understanding of what happened there in 1945 so that we could more fully appreciate the impact and the importance of never forgetting and therefore never repeating this tragic event in human history. In addition, we were able to do some very nice shopping in a variety of shopping streets and also in Takayama, which we especially enjoyed and wished we could have had another day there. Every detail of our transportation on the bullet trains, local trains, buses was planned to perfection. Hotels were all ready and waiting for us. We had a special train/bus pass provided by Agate and it was invaluable in making transportation very easy! I don't know how we could have had a better first trip to Japan. I am very impressed with Agate Travel and Wendy Lee. She answered all of my questions promptly! (usually within 24 hours) and gave me clear directions, both during our planning, right before departure, and in a packet when we arrived at our first hotel. She even seemed intuitive as to the reasoning behind my questions and took her answers a step further to give me additional information that was very helpful and appreciated. We loved our trip to Japan, had such a happy time experiencing it together as a family, and were very grateful to be in such competent and organized hands. I would highly recommend this travel agency and Wendy Lee. I will definitely use them again for future trips.