Inside Travel Group Traveller Reviews

An excellent trip to Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, & Osaka) in Jan 2023. Wonderful planning and organization by my trip adviser Amy---lovely time all around!

Just a big thank you to Amy for putting everything together and helping me enjoy the trip of a lifetime!

It was honestly the most incredible two weeks in Japan we ever had!

Every little detail was immaculately planned and executed!

I did a solo self guided trip to Japan from Tokyo, Kanazawa, Takayama (via Shirakawago) and Kyoto.

Inside Japan travel were amazing from the get go. They answered all my questions, helped me craft my itinerary, arranged some fantastic guides, were immediately responsive to any questions whilst I was travelling and basically held my hand whilst we waited for the borders to open. I will use them again.

My family of 5 travelled to Japan for the first time, and had a superb cultural experience in this pristine, respectful and incredibly well organised country. The sights, people, food and superbly organised railway system made our trip action packed and extremely memorable.

Our tour operator (Inside Japan Tours) were both efficient and very professional in helping to create the ideal itinerary for our trip. Our selected cities and hotels were all very well located, making it simple to explore each location. In addition, having them prepare all of the rail ticketing for our trip made moving both intra and inter city very easy.

We wanted to go to Japan to enjoy the food. Inside Japan really listened to what we wanted to do and planned a great trip for us.

Inside Japan planned a great food centric trip for us in Japan.

I had booked both a group tour and a custom package element of the holiday. The tour itself was great, the guide was amazing and was really good value for money, especially for solo travlers. However, my custom package was not. I was only given a fixed fee for the package, my requests for more of a breakdown were ignored on multiple occasions. The package included hotel, rail extension and a airport pickup. Whilst in Japan I was given both an invoice from the hotel and the rail company and was able to calculate that after these deductions I was charged nearly £200 for the airport transfer. Even if we take into consideration some currency fluxuation, there is no way the airport transfer was this much, and a high arrangement fee of something like 20 per cent appears to have been included. I wouldn't have minded, if this would have been honestly presented to me, but I feel "done over", particularly as I had no option but to use Inside Japan for these arrangements due to the Visa requirements at the time. Furthermore, when the Visa requirements became scrapped I tried to email Inside Japan on multiple occasions to cancel at least the airport transfer, excepting that I would have to pay some part of it under the cancellation terms, but no one responded to me.

Once again I am conflicted on my score as the operator put a lot of effort into the information packs, these were excellent and really were great at pulling my proposals together at a bust time. However, I felt a shift in communication once I had paid the holiday balance. I had to chase for visa information, and when my agent was on holiday, no one responded to my emails at the generic address. Furthermore, my agent did not respond to my request to cancel the airport transfer element of the package. The holiday booking outlined that I would receive my packs in the post 2 weeks before my holiday. I had not received anything 1 week before, and when I chased my agent they initially blamed the post office until it then became apparent it hadn't been sent at all. I wonder if I hadn't of chased, would I ever have received my pack, including the necessary train voucher? Furthermore, the welcome letter outlined that someone would reach out to me before, during and after my tour to check in with me, no one did. I appreciate Inside Japan are busy, but they should prioritise those travelling on tours within 2 weeks and manage expectations better.

Inside Japan arranged a wonderful diverse group of hotels, locations, guides and experiences for us. The information provided ahead of time, along with the tickets and IC card were all helpful and we did not experience any logistical problems. Any questions along the way were answered promptly. All in all a great trip!!

We would use this tour operator again. Their recommendations and suggestions really helped shape our trip.

Japan is a special destination. Beautiful and clean. Amazing sites. Friendly and generous people. We loved everything from the modern skyscrapers of Tokyo; the beautiful gardens and natural environment; Mt Fuji!; the bullet train!; the food and fun times shopping; and the incredible historic temples, shrines and castles. We also took a super fun Taiko drumming lesson, soaked in hot springs, and experienced tea with a Maiko Geisha. All wonderful. Thank you Japan!

Inside Japan Tours was fabulous from start to finish. From the booking experience to traveling throughout Japan with our personal guide. Absolutely perfect!

We couldn't find a Japan trip that included everything we wanted, so we reached our to Inside Japan and they tailor made a trip for us. Adding in a good mix of pre-booked activities such as a calligraphy class or roketsu indigo dyeing with days where we could "fend for ourselves", we had what we thought was the perfect trip.

Inside Japan took the vague ideas we had & put them together to really personalise our trip and made it feel individual to us. The travel advisor kept us completely informed of developments for the trip & once covid restrictions hit (we should have initially travelled in September '20), we were kept up to date on any changes that would be needed each time we postponed. Once we knew the borders would be open to us if we applied for a visa, the team were fantastic in making sure we had all the documentation we needed to get us to Japan as soon as we could (only 963 days after making the booking!). We couldn't fault the service we received & wouldn't hesitate to recommend then to others and I'd definitely use them when I return to Japan in the future.

a 16 night holiday in Japan, with a focus on Railway museums, with time spent in Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Osaka, Nagoya & back to Tokyo, took place soon after the country reopened to tourism whilst visas were still mandatory, included a nu,ber of guided tours and food tours, this was my first time traveling abroad

the tour operator assembled the itinerary booked flights and accomodations, and provided assistance with the paper work side of preparation, during the holiday they also provided assistance when a typhoon hit during the trip leading to travel disruption