We truly enjoyed our Japan trip
Japan | Jul 1 - Jul 10, 2025

Erik B.

Boston, MA | Reviewed on Jul 11, 2025

We truly enjoyed our Japan trip that was a graduation gift from my son’s grandmother. I stumbled across KimKim reviews looking for help trying to plan a memorable experience. All the hotels we stayed at were very good and they offered free breakfast. I would say that having private drivers transferring us to different destinations like to train stations and hotels was great since we didn’t have to worry about those kinds of logistics and could enjoy the experience. All the drivers were attentive and notified me of all the meeting points. The WhatsApp texting application is required but I already use it so at was not a big deal. Our favorite experience was the “Sumo Experience”, this is a must if you go to Tokyo. Our guide Charlie was fantastic. He was born in California and speaks English perfectly. He was knowledgeable, fun and friendly. The sumo wrestlers were charming themselves and put on a fun and interactive show.

Visiting Tokyo landmarks with our guide Chieko was informative and we learned about Shinto and Buddhism. We even learned the correct way to pray for each. We think we got some Shinto luck from the temples too!

Kyoto was fun visiting all the temples. We had a guide Jun to visit some temples which included a train ride following the Oigawa river. We waved to the boaters in the river. We then went into the bamboo grove. It was astounding.

We then went back to Osaka. Here we enjoyed taking a Sushi class where we learned how to make Sushi and rolled eggs. This was our second favorite experience. Osaka is very busy and much more confusing trying to use their subways. We gave up trying to figure out how to navigate the system and walked to the foodie tour. We liked our guide from the magical tour but the food we had was not very inspiring and could’ve been something I did on my own. I wouldn’t have chosen this experience if I knew it was not more unique.

The Japanese people are very friendly and helped make this vacation so great. I recommend using KimKim since all the complications about transferring luggage and ourselves to different locations is taken care of. Some people’s review complain that the trip cost is not itemized but I didn’t find this disconcerting. The trip was designed to be able to enjoy where we were at a given time and not have to worry how we would get to the next point. I would use KimKim again in the future if my plans coincided with their trip destinations.