Amazing trip. Accommodation was great as was the meals ( but I'm not a fan of Japanese food which made breakfasts restrictive). However the walking (challenging at times) and scenery was spectacular and culture was fascinating. Rob was a terrific guide. Would highly recommend this tour.
Japan is an amazing country with so much to experience. However, the tour experience from Topdeck was not what I imagined it to be. The tour guide did their role in guiding us from location to location, however, they did not really provide us with any historical insight or learnings into the locations or areas we explored. I don't really feel like I learned a lot about Japan's history - which was something I wanted to get out of this tour. There was a lot of "free time" on the tour, so, when asked of what "must do recommendations" should we do with the time we had, we didn't really get a straight up answer, or any excitement over what was recommended. For example, an area/experience we heard about in Kyoto was something we really wanted to do, but when asked about it, we were told that it's not recommended as there was a hike. We decided to do it anyway, the hike was only 10 minutes, and it was an amazing experience as we got to see the whole city from a vantage point, but also got to see monkeys! The free day in Tokyo meant that we could have done many things, but there were no suggested recommendations of what we "could do". It was up to us to decide what we wanted to do and to really just do our own research, which I found very disappointing as I've been on other tours where they give you a tonne of options/must do's and we at least had an idea of what we could have done to maximise the time. To summarise, the small group I had was amazing, however, I felt like I could have just booked accomodation and travel in the cities we explored and maybe had a better experience.
World Expeditions curated a fantastic introductory trip to Japan for us. In addition to exploring past/present historical/cultural highlights at some major cities (Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka), where we stayed in good hotels, we also hiked at Mount Fuji, along the old Nakasendo post road, and around the original capitals of Asuka and Nara, where we stayed in wonderful traditional Ryokens. Our Japanese guide smoothly managed in English a group with various ages, interests and fitness. The tour gave us broad exposure to Japanese food and traditions. We highly recommend the company, and plan to return soon.