Japan Private Tour Guides

“Terrific Hiroshima Area Guide!”

Wow, what a wonderful day on the World Heritage Site Miyajima Island with our guide, Kahori! Kahori met us at our cruise ship berth in Hiroshima and immediately whisked us to Miyajima Island via a short and very scenic ferry ride. She timed our arrival on Miyajima to coincide with the morning high tide so we could witness the world-famous Itsukushima Shrine's "floating" torii (gateway). Later, during low tide, Kahori escorted us onto the sand to view this famous Shinto torii up close. What a beautiful awe-inspiring sight! We spent the entire day with Kahori on Miyajima, and she escorted us to and explained the historical background and significance of each sight on this beautiful and historic Japanese island. In addition to the Itsukushima Shinto Shrine, these include the famous Daisho-in Buddhist Temple where Kahori showed us a "secret" underground passage used in Buddhist training exercise. It was a bit "spooky, " but very fun and extremely enlightening! The many "jizo" bodhisattva in the temple grounds were both extraordinarily cute and very peaceful. We later took a beautiful nature walk on Mount Miso where we observed numerous camphor, Japanese cherry trees (the famous blooming sakura), and lovely Japanese maple trees which turn a beautiful golden red in autumn. For lunch, Kahori introduced us to one of Miyajima's famous oyster restaurants, where we lunched on world-famous Hiroshima Bay oysters on the half-shell with some local tea and sake. Delicious! After lunch, Kahori escorted us to the Itsukushima Shrine's museum, which has centuries' worth of items gifted to this famous shrine. Some of my favorite exhibits include samurai weapons and armor-- including some fabulously-ornamented helmets--along with many beautiful gilded calligraphic manuscripts. If you are seeking a kind, intelligent, knowledgeable, and very well organized guide who is a Hiroshima native and knows this region, its history, and people well, I highly recommend Kahori-san!

“Shizuko is the best”

Shizuko-san gave us the best tour of Tokyo. Her knowledge of the area gave us the ability to see many places all in one day. She has a deep knowledge of the history and provided insights of even small details such as pointing out the meaning of the guardians of temples facial expressions. She was very accommodating to our last minute change of plans. There is no way we could have seen all we saw or learned the history by ourselves. My wife and I highly recommend her to anyone looking for a tour of Tokyo.

“Disappointing tour with not much value. Do not recommend. ”

Yoshi was a nice person; however it was a very disappointing tour for the high price we paid for a private tour. We have done other tours with GoWithGuide and we would not recommend this tour at all. It is better you go without guide than this tour. The guide was not very prepared nor knowledgeable of the area, or Himeji castle, and did not provide much explanation. He seemed to be there mainly to chaperone us through public transport, which we’re able to do without a guide and even then he did not seem knowledgeable. Perhaps he is not experienced with tours in Himeji. Mainly pointed to the signs to read and even then was reading them with us as if it were his first time going. We felt this was completely overpriced and did not get much out of it.