Review

Radu Marinescu

Best of Japan

September 7, 2025 - September 21, 2025

In contrast with the usual escorted tours based on bus transport, the Samurai Tours is providing a tour based on the public transport of Japan in most part, which functions very well, and it is probably the best in class at world scale. This ensures significantly more visiting time and full immersion in the local culture. It also comes with significant physical effort and mental challenges due to its complexity, especially for foreigners completely unused with the Japanese way of life. When compounded with harsh weather (in our case the whole tour period coincided day for day with a wave of extreme heat over the entire country), this way of touring becomes less enjoyable, to say the least. This being said, there is no doubt that Samurai Tours team delivered fully as per the voucher and itinerary and the experience I had was absolutely unique. After two weeks, exhilarating and consumptive at the same time, I feel now highly familiar with Japan, its culture and history, its people and the way they are living. By underestimating the effort required by this type of escorted touring, it can be said for sure that I got more than I bargained for, but, once exhaustion, jetlag and emotional sequels passed, the extraordinary memories and experience will stay with me for the rest of my days. When rating this tour and its aspects, I shall try to stay objective and take out of the picture the problems caused by my own lack of preparedness or by factors out of Samurai’s control. Few recommendations for people willing to take up this tour: 1. Mental and physical endurance are of the essence to enjoy the tour. Come healthy, well rested, fit (BMI under 30, even 28 will help a lot) and trained to stand and walk for many hours in a row, even in hot and humid weather if necessary. 2. Do your homework and read in full the documentation accessible on the Samurai website regarding Japan and its culture and history. Few hours spent in reading a bit about Shinto and Buddhist religions prior to the tour also helps a lot. Only in this way will you understand in full what you see and what is being presented to you.Few recommendations for Samurai Tours, specifically regarding the itinerary: 1. Amend the Kyoto – Nara segment as per the specifics presented in the Itinerary section of this review (basically add one more day to the tour in order to give more time to that segment). 2. Do something to make the Hakone day easier (see again the itinerary section for specific suggestions), there are simply too many transfers. I ended up exhausted, and my wife ended up sick and had to stop and go back home. By the way, our full appreciation to Samurai Tours for the way they handled the situation and expedited her fast return to Montreal.

Itinerary

The tour did allow for some minimal shopping time in the main cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto) and also did show few very scenic areas (Hakone, Japan Alps – Takayama and Seto Inland Sea – Miyajima), but the first and utmost goal of the tour was to immerse its participants in the Japanese history, culture, religion and way of life. None of the main Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples of the country is missed and the most representative castle (Himeji) is visited in depth. Also in depth are the visits in old very important official buildings (Takayama Jinya and Kyoto Imperial Palace) and very well-preserved urban districts built in traditional Japanese style with hundreds of years of history (Sanmachi Suji in Takayama and, most important, Gion in Kyoto with its temples and geisha quarters), all these being worldwide known landmarks. Modern downtowns areas in Tokyo and Osaka, full of life, lights and luxurious stores are also parts of the tour. Finally, the tour allocates the proper time to visit the commemorative area of Hiroshima and make its participants see the horrors of war and shed a tear for its victims. All in all, I believe this itinerary beats by far everything else offered on the guided 2-week tour world market when it comes to depth of knowledge acquired, diversity of experience lived and immersion in the way of life of the visited country. Details of the suggestions for Samurai Tours: 1. Lengthen the Kyoto – Nara segment by dedicating one full, not optional day in Nara (where at very least Kasuga Taisha Shrine should be part of the itinerary) and then during the morning of the last day of the segment offer an optional excursion at Kiyomizu-dera temple and Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. You want people to know Japanese history and culture in greatest of the depths, then put additional focus on the places where everything started 1800 years ago and the capital of Japan was located for over 1600 of those years. 2. Reduce the number of transfers during the Hakone day by chartering a bus in the Hakone station and touring the mountain and the lake using it. The caldera stop and the Ayashi pirate ship cruise can stay, but the ropeway, the funicular and the mountain train should go, they are nice, but too much, I believe.

Lodging

The lodging covered all types from a highly luxurious hotel in Tokyo to rooms in a austere Buddhist temple in Koyasan. The ryokans in Takayama and Miyajima were particularly nice and special Japanese – style residencies, while Osaka and Kyoto gave the flavor of Western lodging with Japanese twist. As for Hakone and its onsen (that I personally was too tired to experience), all I can say is that it was the place where I had my best and longest sleep after what I consider having been the most difficult day of the tour. In conclusion, like everything else on this tour, lodging was an experience by itself, diverse and complete.

Food

Oh my God! As a happy owner of a perfectly working digestive system and a BMI of 34, I greatly enjoyed the Japanese cuisine in its homeland. The Yakatabune dinner in Tokyo (with its sushi, sashimi and many others dishes from the same family, served while cruising Tokyo by night) and the okonomiyaki (a layered thick savory pancake with a large variety of ingredients inside) dinner in Osaka were the highlights, as well as specialty ryokan dinners in Takayama and Miyajima, but in the end all breakfasts and dinner buffets at different hotels were outstanding. As for Koyasan, the breakfast and dinner were as austere as the lodging with their no-salt-no-sugar-no-meat feature, but again they added up to the experience in the way they were supposed to. In conclusion, the food experience was delicious in my view, the cherry at the top of the cake built by the entire cultural experience.

Guides

The guides of the tour did have a difficult task due to the complexity of the transportation logistics, but, when it came to that, their mission was accomplished perfectly. It was a certain differentiation in their English skills and that played a role in their ability of communicating with the group and presenting the different places we were visiting. William in Takayama stood out due to his perfect English (he was a native American). Ken in Kyoto - Nara as well as Kaori in Koyasan were the ones with the most complex task in terms of communicating cultural and historical information and they did it in relatively good measure. A good communicator was also Masa in Miyajima/Hiroshima. All in all however, I do believe that the barrier language on one side put together with the cultural/historical depth of the information to be communicated were significant challenges for the guides and this is where the participants of the tour can help by making themselves a bit familiar with the Japanese history and culture prior to the tour.

Pre-Tour Handbook

There is only one word to say: OUTSTANDING!

Tour Organization

Nothing more Japanese that the organization of the tour: clockwork precision to the minute, clearly each step was thoughtfully planned. The local guides were the ones to keep everything on track, and they delivered. Again, OUTSTANDING!

Tour Transportation

This one fully relied on the clockwork functioning of the Japanese railway / subway / bus system, which delivered flawlessly 15 days in a row. I secretly hoped all the time for something somewhere to go wrong, but it didn’t, the whole thing and the people operating it are all superhuman. Like food, this is an experience by itself, including all the train stations (the one in Kyoto and its surroundings are absolutely spectacular, especially at night) and the trains, starting of course with the extraordinary Shinkansen (the bullet train, which was boarded seven times) as well as local trains (the Kyoto – Nara one pops up in my mind first).

Would you go on another tour operating by Samurai Tours: Yes!

Would you recommend Samurai Tours to friends or family: Yes!