Japan private tour insights, personal & professional: new perspectives

This blog post attempts to provide a smart view on how to interpret all the things you have read and continue to read about Japan travel in the media (social media and traditional magazine and newspaper media). Things like etiquette, dress codes, communications with the Japanese (not famous for speaking English well yet) and where to go to really "experience" Japan. Where to go, naturally, has a lot to do with what the Japanese domestic travelers, 90% of the Japanese tourism market, are doing when you go. Low season in any country is particularly valuable as the crowds are absent, and you basically have the place to yourself so to speak. In Japan, January, February, June and September are definitely offseason. All the kids are in school, and all the parents are working (outside the home and inside).

When it comes to super-peak Japan travel seasons (March 20-May 07 and Oct 20 to early December) the discerning foreign traveler should be well read and well ready to get out a dawn in Kyoto and a siesta between say 15:00 and 19:00. In super peak season, Kyoto receives about 300,000 Japanese domestic tourists on weekdays and up to half a million on weekends. Kyoto gets 53 million visitors a year and 50 million are Japanese domestic tourists. Problem is that everyone is going to same key zones: the east side, the west side, the Gion geisha district. And this is what leads to bottlenecks and car gridlock (so many Japanese families visit Kyoto by car!).

The following personal Japan travel insights are based on my decades of living in Japan and also taking care of private travel clients all over Japan (all five islands since 1990!).

I was a gaijin (foreigner) in Japan, married to a Swedish woman, from 1984 to 1992. Then I was a single gaijin until 1999, when I married my Japanese wife. My daughter was born in 2003. So, you can say that I deeply understand how the Japanese treat gaijin, what it feels like to be a foreigner in Japan, and what it's like to be part of a Japanese family.

In the early 80s Japan was trending as a really cool place to live and work teaching English. The previous major gaijin period was from the late 1950s Beat Generation interest in Japan (Gary Snyder, Zen ) combined with a growing fascination with Japanese handicrafts (i.e., learning them from Japanese masters; things like ceramics, woodwork, textile dyeing, aesthetics in so many ways, woodblock prints, tea ceremony and the list goes on).

The Beatles made Japan famous again for musical fans and modern pop culture. And this just became amplified with the end of the Vietnam war as countless veterans chose to work and live in Japan (as English teachers, on military bases, and for American corporations).

And yet in all these periods the Japanese were seen as enigmas and even presented that way in the Western media (even in films!). And the Japanese, wisely so, picked up on how they were viewed by outsiders and made sure to repeatedly emphasize how different they were from foreigners.

You can argue that the most exotic country on the planet is Japan. It cut itself off from foreigners of all kinds in the late Heian period (794-1185) and then again from say 1600 to 1868 (the Edo period, when only a couple of trading islands existed on Kyushu for foreign traders).

The samurai culture of Japan gave samurai, and many powerful or bold or violent men, license to kill under a wide range of circumstances. This lasted for hundreds of years and created the docile, unopinionated and "herd like" Japanese we have all read about. This is because to stand up against the samurai and by extension society often resulted in death or ostracization from society. So, in Japan it has always been better and safer to not attract attention. Think of the Japanese saying, "the protruding nail gets hammered down!"

So, when it comes to interacting with the Japanese, etiquette is actually everything. If you follow the basics of accepted international etiquette in Japan you will "fit right in." I was so impressed when I was travelling across Southeast Asian in the 1980s and 1990s that Scandinavians and Germans knew the key phrases in the local language. It showed understanding. It is important that foreign travelers try to as unobtrusive as the Japanese themselves are. You are not in South Korea, where individualistic opportunities are everywhere (China too!). In Japan, it is risky to share your thoughts with others. Literally! So, it is better to be vague, a little indirect, and the less said the better. Handshaking and hugging are to be considered but carefully considered. For many Japanese these are rarely used forms of body language.

Did you know that in Japanese society, generally speaking, children are not praised by their parents nor do their parents boast about their children like Westerners tend to. As such, birthdays in Japan are something that only gained a little currency after Word War II. But just a little. Generally, the are uncelebrated or not mentioned at all.

The Japanese are also unique in that society is more important than the family. So, Japanese parents generally don’t protect their children from social judgements that are in many ways inflexible. Japanese parents “toe the line”. The school line. The company lines. The lines drawn by authority.

Believe it or not, the Japanese do not discuss what they read or hear in the official news. You can discuss or express your opinions on economics if you have a PhD in economics. Otherwise, you don’t share your opinions on this topic with friends or family. And friends avoid telling their best friends personal confessional information as such knowledge can completely destroy the friendship.

The worst thing you can do in Japan is openly display anger. The Japanese literally freeze when exposed to anger and that is usually the end of any kind of useful communication! So, if you are trying to achieve something that isn't easy or straight forward you must be calm and patient. Not angry and impatient and selfish. Learn more!

The rest of this post covers:

• Important tips for Japan travel going forward

Japan private travel content by Your Japan Private Tours' (established in 1990) founder Japan travel expert Ian Martin Ropke. I have been planning, designing, and making custom Japan private tours on all five Japanese islands since the early 1990s. Your Japan Private Tours specializes in bespoke travel for private clients (I do not work with agents) including exclusive excursions, personalized experiences, and unique adventures. I am 100% client-centric and total individual attention. Consider my Japan travel services for your next trip. And thank you for reading my content. Learn more!

Key smart insights for Japan travel going forward (2025 - )

Japan is definitely trending as a top international travel destination. In the year 2000 Japan attracted less than seven million foreign tourists. In 2019, nearly 34 million foreigner tourists visited Japan. In 2030, the Japanese government is literally hoping to get to 60 million. It's quite possible but also a little unlikely. Either way the numbers will go up for a year or two more and then settle. But that's not important for private travel! What is important is knowing what you the traveler wants to experience!

Though every traveler is different you can also say that travelers come in flavors or themes.

Southeast Asian visitors to Japan are looking for contemporary things and traditional things in the same setting. Therefore, they focus on Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Fukuoka where old things abound (in the city and beyond the city) right next to the latest trends and shopping opportunities. Don't forget that shopping is a big thing for Southeast Asians (and mainland Chinese tourists basically vacuum up Japanese beauty products, pharmaceuticals, clothing and food products!). And the big cities of Japan are in no way scary or strange for Southeast Asians, as they themselves mostly live in teaming cities.

North Americans and Europeans are generally looking for old, serene, exotic Japan, which they have read about for decades. Japan travel media has been pumping out "stories" about Japan in huge numbers since 2012. Instagram's impact on travel was just getting started then! So, North Americans and Europeans travel across Japan on the so-called Golden Route that connects Tokyo with Kyoto. The standard variations of the Golden Route include Kanazawa and the Yamanaka Onsen hot spring nature area, the Japanese Alps centers of Kamikochi (Nagano), Takayama & the fairytale village of Shirakawago, and also side paths from the main route to the Ise Shrine or Toba area (subtropical), the Izu Peninsula (subtropical and just an hour west of Tokyo; great basecamp zone!), and branches that extend west of Kyoto-Osaka or Kansai to Kurashiki and Naoshima Art Island and also Hiroshima. North Americans and Europeans are less interested in manga and anime and shopping. They like the old and want to experience the essence of still-living traditional Japan! And most North Americans and Europeans are comfortable with big cities because big cities are very much alike in what they offer tourists.

South Americans tend to favor interests that include a balance of the new with the best of the old. South Americans, like the Southeast Asians, tend to shop a lot when in Japan (for clothing, jewelry, crafts, and souvenirs of all kinds). And they also understand cities and like to spend more time in urban worlds than rural ones (weekend houses aside).

Unfortunately, most foreign travel in Japan is concentrated in the biggest centers: Tokyo, Mount Fuji, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka and Sapporo. This is largely because these cities are international and have learned to service foreign travelers in sophisticated ways (i.e., a much more mature travel ecosystem; built for Japanese domestic travelers and then tweaked to attract foreigners too).

Off the beaten track in Japan or Africa or California is always filled with unknowns and also additional expenses. In Japan the further you go from the big cities the further back in time you go. And the further back in time you go the slower the pace, the better the flow, and the more relaxing the travel experience. Really old, rural Japan is a threatened world because Japan's birthrate is the lowest in the world! This means that huge areas of Japan are barely populated, full of nature, and sort of frozen in time. But getting there and finding accommodation that suits your personal travel preferences isn't easy.

Ultimately, great travel choices are also given their due amount of time. The slower you travel across Japan the deeper the memories and the richer the overall experience. Great travel means doing less to experience more. If you only have a week then maybe pick 2 or at most 3 basecamps. If you have two weeks then maybe 5 basecamps at most. Sinking into Japan's off-the-beaten-track worlds is easy if you have the time to relax into it. And yes a lot of research is required. More than city travel for sure. However, using Google Maps in smart ways gives you all the info you need to book accommodation, find great restaurants, and discover everything of high tourism value nearby.

Where to go in Japan & where not to go & why

I have seen so many articles in the press since the late 1980s that try to tell foreigners more about the best of Japan. Not a season goes by that a new series of articles come out about Japanese travel gems in the cities, near key cities, and further afield to the off-the-beaten-track choices (like Yakushima Island, Kyushu or the Tango Peninsula in northwestern Kyoto Prefecture, or the charms of the Edo-period Nakasendo and Kiso Valley post town hiking.

These articles are well written, true and commendable. But only some travelers have the time and thus the budget to focus on just the latest out of the way discovery. Japan is covered in amazing locations, and you don't have to go far to be in areas that breathe hundreds of years of history and existence. Kyoto was founded in 794. Nara was the capital a hundred years earlier. And Tokyo has stood the test of time since the mid 16th century. This accounts for the fame of Japan's street level patina and authenticity. The American firebombings at the end of WWII only wiped out a few major cities. The countryside was basically untouched and since the war the countryside of Japan has consistently had dropping populations. The Japanese birthrate is the lowest in the world and they have the oldest and fastest aging population!

So logic dictates that the Japanese countryside will become more and more part of the international travelers landscape. All these rural places are full of sleeping options, restaurants and much evidence of ancient Japanese culture (materials, ruins, local traditions). This has already happened with Japan travelers from Singapore. They have been visited Japan more than a few times and each time they venture further from the madding crowds of city life, And this is because Japan is such a breathtaking place when you stay away from the megalopolis that joins Tokyo with Nagoya and Osaka (and Kyoto).

All you have to do is read a lot, dream or design a lot, and soon everything falls into place. This is the wise way to travel. Imagine the menu and then select for your needs and limitations. The Japanese may not speak English well but with a smartphone and a text translator you can say almost anything these days. Travel with confidence wherever you go. For Japan this requires a bit of extra planning and "thinking." And that can be a fun process all by itself. Travel is like dreaming: the possibilities are infinite! Learn more!

Japan private travel content by Your Japan Private Tours' (established in 1990) founder Japan travel expert Ian Martin Ropke. I have been planning, designing, and making custom Japan private tours on all five Japanese islands since the early 1990s. Your Japan Private Tours specializes in bespoke travel for private clients (I do not work with agents) including exclusive excursions, personalized experiences, and unique adventures. I am 100% client-centric and total individual attention. Consider my Japan travel services for your next trip. And thank you for reading my content. Learn more!