Client Stories
Curious what’s possible when you travel Japan the immersive, intentional way?
Hear directly from my clients about their real journeys and how working together helped turn their trip into something truly unforgettable.
Save a ton of time and stress and do the program!
My favorite was working with Miyuki to create an itinerary because I couldn’t even start and we did so much so fast! It was exciting to plan and it ended up being perfect!
Miyuki was so organized and had really good points that totally made sense. She didn’t try to make me want to do stuff and really listened to what I was interested in.
I was able to put together an amazing first ever trip for me and my family that everyone loved! The joy we all had (including our 2 year old) is something I realize that not everyone experiences, it takes proper planning to get the most from things.
This program will get you excited and prepared to have your best trip in Japan! You don’t want a cookie cutter experience, you want something special and unique to you!
Tori from Hawaii
I have no regrets, it gave me confidence and allowed me to see and experience so much more in Japan than I thought I ever could.
A really great itinerary that was at a good pace, but kept us seeing all sorts of different things each day.
Claire from
Seattle
We're not necessarily people who are really used to just being in big crowds all the time, and so I was really excited about the idea of getting off of the beaten track. But I was also unsure of how that would work without knowing better Japanese.
Miyuki helped me come up with a really great itinerary that was at a good pace, but kept us seeing all sorts of different things each day. I'm glad that we didn't only go to the big cities. I'm glad that we mixed it up. Miyuki really did make the trip just super memorable and a lot of fun for all of us.
I felt really supported by the spreadsheet. It was so organized and was really helpful to have it all listed out.
A true adventure and a cultural immersion!
I was so intimidated by planning a trip to Japan – it seemed daunting, and I didn’t want to limit myself to just one or two cities. I decided to join this program because Miyuki’s approach to dive into interests versus simply using a canned approach intrigued me.
Had I not worked with Miyuki, I'm sure we would have ended up going to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, because that's the easiest thing to plan – just hit the major cities.
But if you work with Miyuki, you start to shift your mind and think about what you like to do. It was thanks to her that our planning went to a whole new level. We visited parts of Japan I never thought we would – cities, towns, villages, and the countryside. It was a real adventure.
The next time I travel overseas, I'm going to approach my planning differently, thanks to Miyuki. I'm going to think more about, rather than just visiting places, experiencing the country. And I'll never approach a trip the same way again, thanks to the Japan trip.
Gene from
North Carolina
Let Miyuki relieve some of the pressure of planning the journey by helping focus your trip on what you will remember the most!
Hear it straight from them!
In these episodes of The Japan Experts Podcast, I chat with my clients about their travel experience—what made it special, what they learned, and how it all came together.
🎧 Exploring Japan Off the Beaten Path with a Toddler – with Tori Sanford
🎧 5 Tips for Cultural Immersion in Japan with Gene Gaskill
🎧 How to Plan the Japan Trip of a Lifetime with Hilary and Max Buxton
🎧 How to Find a Good Balance for Multigenerational Japan Travel with Claire Plehal
🎧 How to Create A Memorable Family Trip to Japan with Lorie Clements
Miyuki gave us options I wouldn't have been able to find on my own.
Ron and Jan from the Netherlands
What really struck me was what Miyuki said about how to plan a trip to Japan: we should think about what we want to experience instead of what places we want to visit.
Miyuki gave us options I wouldn't have been able to find on my own, such as good traditional Japanese hotels with hot springs, local festivals and sights that are lesser known but well worth seeing.
Her service is really professional and well organised. Miyuki really helped us make progress with our itinerary and supplied us with lots of ideas and helpful links. This process really confirmed the things that interest us. I feel very happy and the trip is more prepared than ever!
Extra information about the habits of Japanese people was really useful too. A lesson about the way of the Japanese (日本人道) gave us a lot of the value.
Miyuki’s itinerary planning services are above and beyond.
I’ve used a few similar services to plan trips in the past. Miyuki is the most helpful by far.
After some emails and an initial meeting, she developed a detailed itinerary which we reviewed and adjusted together. She then helped advise us on route, accommodations and activities based on our preferences. We were given guidelines and roadmap to follow and it was immensely helpful. I especially appreciated the care she took with recommending traditional accommodations and locations to stay.
We were able to create an itinerary we are excited about and are comfortable with our navigation from place to place. There are four of us planning this trip and I think it helped everyone get what they wanted out of it.
Morgan and Nick from New York
Miyuki really gave personal recommendations that catered to our priorities and steered us towards the most authentic experiences.
We loved working with Miyuki!
Zach and Kelly from New York
The format of the program was easy to follow and having a file to build out our trip and ask questions allowed for a seamless planning experience.
We loved working with Miyuki and all of the suggestions she provided based on our interests.
We are confident the itinerary we have planned for our upcoming trip will provide us with an adventurous and balanced experience. We are excited to visit the big cities but really looking forward to experiencing some of the quieter towns along the coast and in the mountains.
We had such an amazing time in Japan. I'm so glad we got to try the different hot spring onsens and stay in a traditional ryokan. We had so many memorable experiences and hope to visit again soon!
Miyuki’s recommendations were great and we really enjoyed our time in Japan.
Miyuki's advice and input was solid, meaningful and helped us make important changes to our itinerary.
Even though her specialty is central Japan and arranging special experiences in this area, and our vacation objectives were a far cry from this type of adventure for our first visit, she is so well-travelled and knowledgeable about travelling across Japan that her advice and input was solid, meaningful and helped us make important changes to our itinerary to accomodate for our limited time and travel between cities, and to make good choices on options.
Marjorie from the United States
Miyuki has your best interests at heart and is dedicated to ensuring your trip to Japan fully considers all Japan has to offer, and to make your time in her country as memorable and enriching as possible.
Lori and Alan
from New Jersey
Miyuki has made great recommendations, which made our journey much much better!
My challenge was to trim down the itinerary for a convenient travel time and an efficient visit. She has made great recommendations not to travel from town to town, from hotel to hotel, but to stay in one location and travel from that location, which made our journey much much better without having carried things around and we were able to see so many wonderful places. I highly recommend her!
Through working with Miyuki, I’ve learned about the local train system and ease of visit between cities.
A really good balance of city time, and places that were off the beaten track!
What stole my heart in working with Miyuki was an amazing spreadsheet with very detailed questions about priorities. It was a way of travel planning I had never seen before. The way Miyuki framed things and helped us prioritise was amazing.
We were trying to design an itinerary with plenty of time outside of the big cities, but we were overwhelmed with choices. We also wanted insights from someone who actually lives and works in Japan, rather than simply getting lost in an ocean of internet reviews.
There’s only so much English-language material about some of the more off-the-beaten-path locations. There are accommodations, workshops, and artisans you’d never have access to unless you spoke or read Japanese.
We wouldn’t have trusted ourselves to pick some of these places without a recommendation, so thank you so much for making a great recommendation and providing such a magical experience.
Bria from California
We loved Miyuki’s enthusiasm, ideas, and honesty, and we appreciated her emphasis on seasonal considerations for different locations.
This was the most valuable thing we ever did.
Miyuki has considerable experience with travel planning and understands how to pull together an amazing trip itinerary that aligns with travel time available and our family's needs and goals!
She shaped the trip really well for us in a way that I know we wouldn't have had. Her recommendations gave us a picture of Japan that wasn't a big city. We got to take the train into the country and navigate things on our own, which is exciting in itself.
It definitely felt like we were still making our own choices and had a lot of flexibility to do what we wanted. But, having a good framework definitely helped a lot. As well, getting a real understanding of how much time it would take to experience an area was crucial!
Hilary, Max and Sam from Boston
Think about the experiences that you would like to have and work with someone who can help you reach those goals, as opposed to just recommending a place where everybody goes.
I would never have had the confidence to plan everything on my own without Miyuki’s help.
Kirsty from Scotland
I would probably have ended up with a trip to Tokyo and would have missed all the experience that I achieved along the way.
Being able to talk to Miyuki face to face at the start, which gives more confidence that the advice you are getting is tailor made to you and not just something that has been copied and pasted from the Internet. Miyuki has also been patient with me changing my itinerary, providing me with the benefits of adding in an extra city and swapping around the order of my visits.
I am thankful for Miyuki's suggestion of Hikone as I was unaware of the location before, and it was one of the highlights of my trip. I would advise anybody doing a multi city tour to build in some down time in local areas.
The travel app Miyuki has recommended was invaluable on the trip itself.
Miyuki really listened to what our individual interests were.
Made it much more meaningful for us!
It was very helpful to talk with someone from Japan who understands the distances between places and can help you figure out what is best for your priorities.
Miyuki really listened to what our individual interests were: food, crafts, cultural experiences like the tea. It's really, really special and made it much more meaningful for us.
It really helped organize my thoughts and where I wanted to go. It’s a big country with tons to see and do!
Durant Family
from California
I liked speaking to and meeting Miyuki and getting my questions answered. She gave me new ideas about where to go.
Dane
from Australia
Miyuki’s experience and guidance can transform the way you see Japan!
We were looking for local knowledge and expert guidance to help us plan our trip and to avoid the usual tourist trail. Thanks to Miyuki, we discovered hidden local wonders we would have missed otherwise.
I especially loved the spreadsheet layout, the insights into events away from the crowds, and access to different pockets of rural Japan that you wouldn’t easily find on your own.
I’d recommend this platform to anyone visiting Japan who wants to get the most out of their time in this culturally rich country.
We've decided to make Japan our annual holiday destination and we'll most definitely be reaching out to Miyuki again during the planning stage!
I really appreciate how special Miyuki made our family's trip to Japan.
Japan was one of, if not the most difficult places, to plan a trip to. I started to plan some things. Miyuki redirected me kindly because little did I know, I was going to end up spending half my trip on a train. She saved me from myself.
Miyuki was very thoughtful about helping me craft the right itinerary for my family of five. I was able to ask her so many detailed questions, a lot more detailed questions than one would usually ask a travel agent because she was really intimately involved in what my family would like.
We covered a lot of ground in our 10 or so days and really loved it. We couldn't have covered as much ground if I had to plan this on my own.
Lorie from
California
Miyuki made my planning experience a lot more stress free.
We had an amazing, once in a lifetime trip!
Kaitlyn from the United States
I was looking for an authentic, cultural experience for my first time in Japan. My challenge was finding travel information from native Japanese people. I did not want a travel itinerary based on foreigner's blogs, of which there are many.
I loved Miyuki's travel itinerary. It also relieved the stress of endless research on my own.
We had an amazing, once in a lifetime trip! We especially loved Koyasan, the minshuku stay in Shirakawa-go, everything related to food, the art museum near Mt Fuji and the autumn colors.
I thank her so much for all of her help - it made it a most memorable experience.
Miyuki is very organized, helpful, informative, and professional.
Before joining this program, we were facing challenges of knowing where to go, narrowing down the choices, making a route and assessing whether a location was worth visiting.
It was so nice to have a partner in planning! Miyuki really took time to understand what we wanted to do and make recommendations accordingly. Review of our itinerary was invaluable. We also appreciated the very tailored advice. It saved us a lot of time in planning.
Now we are confident in our trip and feel much more prepared!
Amanda and Graeme from Texas
We highly recommend the program to other people interested in traveling to Japan!
