Let me start by saying I liked Karim, our “travel companion.” he seemed like an earnest young man, he let us know that he had several side hustles, helping to put him through college and get his sisters out of Afghanistan, so they could come to Japan to study. However, we only took this tour because our original tour was canceled last minute, and we were not made aware that he was a “travel companion, “ and not a tour guide. When I asked what the difference was, I was told that he is literally just a person who takes us from place to place. This was not very useful since we had already been in Japan a week and had no problems navigating subways and buses. Additionally, even though I sent several emails to confirm that we actually had a tour, no one reached out to me, until almost midnight the night before the trip, so we didn’t even know if we had a guide or what their name might be. Very unprofessional, and definitely caused us some anxiety. At any rate, Karim seemed annoyed to be leading us during the tour, spent a lot of time on his cell phone texting, and at one point, just walked away and left us in the middle of a crowd at Kiyomizu-dera temple. We had difficulty finding him as he had run so far ahead of us. He also had zero knowledge about anything we saw. I am a practicing Buddhist, and literally every single fact he told us about the Buddhist temples we visited was incorrect. When I questioned him about it, he even doubled down on the wrong answers. I don’t think he is the primary problem, but whoever he works with or for did not make it clear that we were not getting any sort of tour guide, pretty shady in my opinion, and for that reason, I’m giving this tour one star. I’m very disappointed that we were unable to learn anything about the places we visited, our guide seemed annoyed, and it was certainly not worth the $328 we paid for it. I asked the company for a refund of half the amount , because I feel as though he did get us from place to place and should be paid for his time, but the trip was not as advertised, and certainly not worth that kind of money (we have taken several tours with Viator that have all been great), and since we only had a couple days in Kyoto, we were really cheated out of the cultural experience we had been looking forward to. I’m also disappointing to in Viator, since they were very unhelpful and didn’t even even work to negotiate with this company on our behalf. All I can say about this whole experience is buyer beware, and after looking at the other tours offered in Kyoto that advertise “travel companions,” I would not recommend taking one, but if you have to (the way we did), that you try one of the less expensive ones. That way if all you’re getting is a third person that you have to pay all expenses for on that day, (in addition to the tour price)that you’re not paying more than necessary.

Saw a good mix of Temples, Shrines and then local interests. We wanted to experience the culture as well as see the history.

The guide did not have any knowledge of Japan, Kyoto or the sights we visited. It was a waste of money!

Hello It was the worst tour ever. Total ripoff. The guide did not know her way around, always taking us in wrong direction, had no clue not prepared at all. She didnt know anything about japan as she had come 4 months back from Nepal . We had to tell her directions from google. No idea about any tourist spot. No (zero) explanations about sites. Could not even explain what was each place. No clue of directions. She was going against google directions. Kept saying site was closed when it was open. Utter waste of time wasted half day then we used google. How can you keep such guides who have no adea about a single tourist spot. She is in kyoto for 4 months!! How can you guys not check competence of guides. We wasted our day and money . We came from osaka and kept a day for kyoto . We had to take taxi and help of someone to finish our itenary. Your guide was just a tag along. Even after sharing sites that we wanted to visit 2 weeks ago, she was totally unprepared, resulting us missing half the spots. Really disappointed with your service. We trusted you by your name . Regards Rishi

Dalivanh was amazing! Knowledgeable, informative, flexible with our list of things to see and do. She met us at our AirBnB and navigated the bus and train transportation for us. Thanks again for a great time!