KimKim Oshinobi gave us a fantastic introduction to Japan

Japan | Jul 5 - Jul 18, 2025

This was our first trip with KimKim — who was recommended to us by friends who recently had a great experience — and we’d have to say it was a pretty flawless ride. Completely easy and enjoyable start to finish, and ultimately unforgettable.

We are a family of four (including two college-age sons) and none of us had ever been to Japan. KimKim connected us with a regional specialist (Jasmine Z) who took time to get to know us a bit online and figure out what we liked / didn’t like, what specific anchor places/events would need to be worked in, and what our budget would be. After that we were working with a Tokyo-based travel company, Hiroshi T., and his colleague Emi M., (Oshinobi Travel) who could not have been more pleasant, efficient, and accommodating. We did essentially 5 cities/hotels in 14 days, including Tokyo on the entry and exit, plus about three day-long excursions. All main island (Honshu) this time. Our itinerary was documented day by day on a shared Google doc, and tweaked a bit through Q&A up to about a month ahead of departure. Pre-trip, KimKim hosted a phone call with Hiroshi at a mutually convenient time to walk through the whole itinerary and answer questions. Result: Amazing trip.

Hiroshi’s hotel choices were all Japanese-owned hotels, superbly located, and nicely varied, all very high quality and all with epic breakfasts, which made getting out of bed an event to look forward to. Hiroshi made a point of meeting us in person and spending essentially half of his day making sure we were able to find and attend a particular site that was difficult for non-Japanese visitors to negotiate. In every city, transfers/drivers as needed were available and on-time. They lined up superb guides in (Ms. Kyoko in Tokyo, and Mr. Shohei in Kyoto, and Ms. Miyuki in Kawaguchiko); we felt that the guides not only provided key history and cultural insights, but gave us a leg up on a hundred different travel basics & hacks, which gave us the confidence to make our way around on the days (most of them) when we didn’t have a guide. Our time was dramatically more efficient given the foundation they gave us. Hiroshi provided train tickets and explicit use instructions in a nicely organized portfolio, so it was easy to track chronologically through our itinerary, and saved us tons of time figuring out the amazing but rather complex transportation systems. As English (and non-Japanese) speakers, we appreciated their command of both languages. We’ll also note that communication was super easy — they were seemingly available all the time (including weekends) when needed, via WhatsApp, and copious itinerary, contact, and basic travel information was shared through Google docs. That info, coupled with our own use of Apple Maps (for transit and walking navigation) and Google Translate (totally useful in the clutch more than a few times) made for a surprisingly smooth journey through even the largest city on the planet.

Kudos and thanks to the KimKim team and Oshinobi (Hiroshi and Emi) for getting it right at every turn and for helping our family make some great memories.