Our trip to Japan was amazing and we owe it a...

Japan | Oct 15 - Oct 28, 2026

Our trip to Japan was amazing and we owe it all to Jonathan at kimkim and our local specialist Ellen and operator Mako at Oshinobi Travel. Kimkim's vast array of sample itineraries gave my wife and I a great start for figuring out what we wanted to visit and do in Japan. kimkim then handed it off to Ellen to work with us to create our final itinerary after several emails and phone calls. What I really appreciated was Ellen's patience toin listening to us to find the kind of travel experiences that would fit our personalities and to be flexible with our own needs to go off the Oshinobi itinerary for a few days to visit old friends on our own. The guides Oshinobi Travel hired for us in Tokyo, Kamakura, Hakone, Kyoto, and Hiroshima -- Ayako, Yuichi, Naomi, Peco, and Ryoma -- were amazing! They were very knowledgeable, pleasant to spend the day with, and included visits to their favorite, less and not touristy, hidden gem sites and restaurants. And most importantly, the guides were very attentive to our preferences and interests, exchanging that information with the other guides, and very flexible with the itinerary to adjust it to meet our interests and weather conditions. For example, Ayako took us to a baseball glove repair shop in Tokyo that was featured in a documentary I saw on the flight to Japan, Yuichi took us to a karaoke place after the his bar hopping tour, Peco had the cab driver take us to the roof of a Costco to peek inside a pro Japanese baseball stadium to see the field, Naomi had a cafe send a happy anniversary dessert to our table, and Ryoma introduced us to the 84-year old carpenter who builds the torii gates at a shrine and to his 81-year old brother who runs a shop. We could have planned and taken the trip completely on our own, but kimkim and Oshinobi Travel gave us the the experiences that we would have never known for been able to do on our own.