Go a little deeper into Japan.
Beyond the famous cities and the well-worn routes, there's another Japan, stranger, deeper, more beautiful. The kind of trip you come home changed by.
The trip you didn't know to ask for.
A jazz club down an alley with ten seats and a record collection older than you are. A famous temple at the one hour of the day it belongs to you alone. A long lunch in a town you'd never have thought to stop in, that somehow becomes the day you remember most.
None of it announces itself. The parts of a trip that stay with you tend to sit just past the edge of what you'd have known to ask for. And you can only choose from what you can see.
A friend on the inside.
I came to Japan at twenty-two, planning to stay a year. I learned the language, married into the country, and got to know it as intimately as an outsider can. These days Shizue and I split our time between the States and a home in the northern countryside, a long way from the small southern island where I started.
For years, I wrote about Japan and helped promote it as a destination. Now I help people experience the country for themselves, one traveler at a time.
You won't get a template. You'll get a Japan shaped around you, by two people who know it the way you only can after a lifetime.
I’ve written about Japan for . . .
Let’s work together.
Every trip I plan starts with a conversation. You tell me what you're imagining, even if it's only half-formed, and I'll tell you honestly what I think. It's free, it takes about fifteen minutes, and there's no obligation in it. Just a useful talk with someone who knows the country.
From there, most people have me design the itinerary. I take what you're hoping for and build the trip around it. The right regions for the season. A route that doesn't waste your days. The inns, meals, and detours that make a trip worth talking about. You get a complete plan, ready to book yourself. Planning starts at $75 per trip day, so a ten-day itinerary runs about $750.
And if you'd rather not plan or book a thing, I do that too. As an advisor with Fora, I can book everything, the hotels, the trains, the experiences. You'll have real support while you travel, too. Between me and my wife, who's a native speaker, everything from a tricky reservation to a last-minute change gets handled in Japanese, directly with the inns and people on the other end.
Get my latest fieldnotes.
There's a deeper Japan waiting.
You don't need to have it figured out. You don't even need a plan. Just a feeling that this trip should be something more than the standard route. Bring me that, and we'll find the rest together.