Your first trip to Japan.
Everything you need to know
fits into these 13 topics.

At major stations, hotels and visitor sites, yes. Small independent places are often Japanese-only, but between a translation app and pointing at things, you will rarely be stuck. The situations that do get hard, like phoning a ryokan, booking a sought-after restaurant, or negotiating when something goes wrong, are exactly the ones we take over in Japanese while you deal with us in English.

It is one of the safest destinations in the world. Late-night trains and children travelling on their own are everyday sights. Most of the guardedness you have built up in North American cities is simply not needed. Worry less about pickpockets and more about summer heat and knowing the basics for a natural disaster.

For a first trip, seven days covers the Tokyo plus Kyoto and Nara skeleton. With 10 to 14 days you can add Hiroshima, Kanazawa or a Hakone onsen and turn it into the once-in-a-lifetime version. With five days or fewer, pick one city and stay there.

Excluding flights, ¥25,000–35,000 per person per day (lodging, food, transport and admissions) is the mid-range guideline. That is roughly CA$1,700–2,400 for seven days. Business hotels and set meals bring it down by about 30 per cent; ryokan and sushi push it up by about 50 per cent.

Japan suits family travel very well. It is safe, it is clean, and the trains run on time. Major stations have elevators for strollers. One caveat: ryokan dinners run long, so for small children an in-room meal plan is much easier.

We can arrange all of it, or any part of it: flights, hotels, ryokan, JR Pass, tours, restaurant bookings, luggage forwarding. The most common request we get is something like: I have built my own two weeks, but I want you to handle the onsen ryokan and the three days on the Kumano Kodo.