The operator’s representative meets you at Narita or Haneda Airport and arranges the transfer to your Tokyo hotel (complimentary for arrivals between 8 am and 10 pm; there may be a short wait while the group is assembled). Check-in starts at 3 pm and you will need your passport; if you arrive early, leave your luggage with the hotel and start exploring Tokyo on your own.
After breakfast, Senso-ji Temple, Tokyo’s oldest, and the Nakamise-dori market street leading up to it; a view of Tokyo Skytree; Nijubashi Bridge at the Imperial Palace; and Shinjuku Kabukicho, the neon entertainment district. In the afternoon the coach leaves the city for the Mt Fuji lakes area, where you stay at a Japanese hot-spring hotel: a traditional dinner, then the onsen bath. Seasonal additions in Tokyo, weather permitting: cherry blossoms at Chidorigafuchi and Shinjuku Gyoen (March 22 – April 12); autumn colours at Yoyogi Park and Rikugien Garden (October 18 – November 15).
Drive up to Mt Fuji’s 5th Station, roughly halfway up the mountain, for the views (when the road is closed by weather the Mt Fuji World Heritage Center museum is visited instead). Then Oshino Hakkai, a village of eight clear spring pools fed by Fuji snowmelt, with old thatched houses and water wheels, and Bussharito Heiwa Park, a peace park with a white stupa and Japanese gardens. Continue to Nagoya. The evening is free: the Osu shopping district, a covered arcade of small shops and food stalls around Osu Kannon temple, is the place to go. Dinner on your own.
After breakfast, Nagoya Castle, the seat of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa clan, with its golden shachihoko on the keep. Then the drive to Kyoto and Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, its upper floors covered in gold leaf above the mirror pond. The afternoon is in Gion, the historic geisha district: Yasaka Shrine, a walk along Hanamachi, the Edo-period geisha quarter, and a quiet stretch of the Kamo River. Dinner on your own. Seasonal additions in Kyoto, weather permitting: cherry trees at Maruyama Park (March 22 – April 12); autumn colours in Arashiyama around Togetsukyo Bridge (October 18 – November 15).
The morning starts at the Kyoto Imperial Palace, home of the emperors until 1868, then Fushimi Inari Taisha and its tunnels of vermilion torii gates up the hillside. On to Nara, Japan’s first permanent capital: Nara Park, where more than a thousand deer roam freely, and the lantern-lined Kasuga Taisha shrine next to it. Then the drive to Osaka for Osaka Castle Park. The evening is free in Shinsaibashi, the covered shopping arcade, and Dotonbori, the canal-side food street under the Glico sign. Dinner on your own — takoyaki, okonomiyaki and kushikatsu are the local dishes.
After breakfast and check-out, a short drive to Kobe: Harborland, the waterfront district by Kobe Port Tower, and Nankinmachi, Kobe’s Chinatown, with its street-food stalls. In the afternoon, Himeji Castle, the White Heron Castle — Japan’s finest surviving feudal castle and a UNESCO World Heritage site, with its white-plastered keep and maze of walls and gates. At dusk you board the Shinkansen with your guide for the ride to Hiroshima. Lunch and dinner are on your own today.
The morning is given to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum and the Atomic Bomb Dome, the skeleton of the exhibition hall left standing after August 6, 1945, and now a World Heritage site and a memorial to peace. Then the boat to Miyajima Island, counted among Japan’s three most scenic views, for Itsukushima Shrine: a Heian-period shrine built out over the water, with its great vermilion torii standing in the sea at high tide. Deer wander the island’s streets, and the local oysters and momiji manju cakes are worth trying. In the late afternoon the Shinkansen takes you back to Osaka. Lunch and dinner on your own.
After a final breakfast the tour ends. Your guide will give you directions for the journey to Kansai International Airport (KIX) by public transport, which is at your own expense — the Nankai or JR trains from central Osaka take about 50 minutes, the airport limousine bus about an hour.
🧾 Prices shown are the land package. Service fee $160 per person is mandatory and is added at checkout.
✈ International flights not included — quoted from your city.
⚠ Peak dates (public holidays, summer): est. +CAD $300 per person, confirmed before you pay.
