I am recommending this Japan trip if you like small groups and walking

Thanks for the info Lola. We’re looking to visit Japan in 2025 and just received their brochure in the mail. Going to look more closely at their tours. I was researching InsideJapan and SamuraiTours for possible trips also.

Bookmarked! Thanks so much for the recommendation. Hoping to go to Japan in 2024. Have seen some online 2- and 3-week do-it-yourself tours that look pretty daunting in terms of moving from place to place.

The trip we did with MT Sobek in 2019 was not my first time in Japan. My son and I went in 1998 to visit and stay with friends for 2 weeks over Christmas and New Years. That trip was fun and interesting, but I did not not get nearly as much out of it as I did the MT a Sobek trip. The latter was much more of a cultural and educational immersion, as we stayed in small inns that we would never have found or considered 20 years before. And we had unique experiences arranged by our guide, including a special sake tasting one day, and a Shinto travelers’’ blessing ceremony on the penultimate day of our tour.

My sister and her family did the same pilgrimage path (Kumano Kodo) as an independent trip organized by one of the Japanese tourism websites, and they felt there was much they did not not understand because of language/communication problems with the inn hosts. There we nice moments but sometimes they floundered.

The big cities are easier, because the signage in the train stations and elsewhere is in English as well as Japanese,Mandy city hotels anre well set up to welcome visitors and provide excellent accommodation. And people are very kind and helpful. But to get out of the cities to experience the beauty, serenity, and wonderful small moments Japan has to offer, I recommend a mix of a small group immersive experience like this, followed by more time in Kyoto or other location on one’s own, bolstered by what you have learned on the tour in terms of getting around. I would recommend this approach over a standard group tour of the country with 24 others, where you are shuttled from place to place to see the major attractions with the crowds, maybe stopping for an arranged tea ceremony or other “experience”.

a somewhat related adventure -
88 Temples, 750 Miles, Untold Gifts: Japan’s Shikoku Pilgrimage -
A famed route on the smallest of Japan’s four main islands offers breathtaking views and an array of lessons on history, culture and generosity.

Thank you so much for gifting that NYT article! I saw it in my news feed, but I cannot open NYT articles on my own.

For anyone interested in the Shikoku pilgrimage path, a small company we livery much guides that in sections ( 3 trips total) in small groups ( up to 12 or 14).

https://www.mountainhikingholidays.com/

We hiked in the Dolomites with them last September, and were very happy with the trip, the guides, and everything else. They did not list their trip for November until recently, well after we committed to the MTS trip, but I look forward to doing a section of the Shinkoku with them in 2024.

Those trips are horrendously expensive. I'm doing two weeks in Japan in October and my whole budget, airfare included, is only $3400. Japan is so easy to travel on your own, you really don't need a tour company.

Astorienne, some people can afford more expensive tours and also like to have the decisions made for them, rather than doing a lot of research. I understand that - it does get tiring, especially the older you get. :) I've been doing independent travel for most of my life, but am getting ready to book a tour to Egypt in 18 months, as I do not feel comfortable maneuvering my way over there on my own, and to be honest, I really don't want to do it. I would like to have others do the work and I don't mind paying extra. :)

That said, Japan is on my list and I will probably go the independent route for that. But I've been to Japan - in fact I was there for 2 years in the late 70's so I'm more familiar with it than some.

Different strokes... :)

A guided trip is always going to be more expensive than an independent one. You paying for the service, the expertise, the knowledge and help of the guides, and more. We happily travel independently in Switzerland, Italy, New Zealand, and other places at considerably less than half the cost of a guided trip. But for a meaningful experience in this part of Japan, well off the normal westerner tourist path, we prefer the benefits of a guide.

This is an inn to inn walking tour in a remote area where few people speak English and the signage may be only in Japanese. My sister and her family did the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage path on their own, with inns booked through the Japanese tourist agency, and detailed walking instructions. They felt they missed a lot in terms of the cultural experience, and wasted a lot of time trying to figure out some things that were not clear. So she said she wished they had done a guided trip, and advised us to go that route.

After seeing a number of posts asking for recommendations on guided tours for Japan, I thought I should mention an alternative to the standard RS-style group tour.

On our last guided trip in Japan, we enjoyed some special experiences arranged by our guide which would not have been possible on our own. One was a special travelers’ blessing ceremony at the Shinto shrine we were visiting in Tokyo. Another was an impromptu singing performance by the elderly proprietor of a small soba noodle shop were we stopped for lunch. Our guide explained that he was nationally recognized for his singing of traditional Japanese woodcutter’s songs. After lunch she asked him he would sing for us, and he responded right away with a big smile and a beautiful song.

I agree that for the standard tourist path, Japan is easy to plan independently. We will be combining the 8 guided days with 10 more on our own, in Kyoto, Naoshima, and one other spot as yet to be determined. We are totally comfortable with that, and I enjoy doing the research on where to stay, where to eat, what to see, and how to get around.

We (3 couples) visited Egypt, Jordan, and Israel this past March with a private guide booked through a tour company. There is no way we would have been able to do that trip on our own, and I’ve planned all our trips the past 5 years.
What was an advantage, besides the obvious, was that we were able to change some day’s activities in the morning with no problem. One exampke was in Israel late one afternoon, the guide told us that Bethlehem was open for visitors but we had to be there before 5pm. We said let’s go, the driver turned around, and we were on our way. If we were alone we would not have gotten there, heck, we wouldn’t have even heard it was open to vusitors.
So, yes, you can travel Independently anywhere in the world, but for some of us it’s not practical.