Kanazawa "At Home at Ryokan Service"
New Q&A: How can I be guided for my visits in Japan?
December 14th, 2009
You can visit the various places in Japan in two main ways: alone or accompanied by a guide.
For “alone” I mean “you and the group of people who made the journey with you”.
If you came from your country really alone then it is really good that at least half the days of your stay include a companion.
If you are at least two parties, the advice to you is to travel without any guide for at least 2 / 3 of the vacancy and the remaining 1 / 3 to choose to visit the various places with a guide.
The choice of the number of days with a guide should be evaluated carefully, considering that:
- Traveling alone you have more time to “taste” details of places to visit
- Traveling with a guide we can see locations maybe difficult to find but we are distracted by the guide itself
- Is usually best to choose the days to spend with a travel guide for visiting places of difficult access, or perhaps less known and leave instead the most famous and easily accessible places to a visit “in solitude”
It’s interesting to note that in Japan there are many volunteers that offer a free guide service to visit the sites of various towns. Typically, to get the free service is enough to make a reservation via the Internet by filling a form or sending an email; also if you use the means of transport or if you go to eat when you are with the guide, you must bear transportation costs (train tickets, bus, subway, etc …) of the guide and his meals (and I think that this is obvious).
Usually these people spend their days off from work to accompany the tourists and are somehow affiliated with the government of the place of visit. So to choose the days with their guidance you have to consider that is more difficult to find one available on working days.
Every major city in Japan usually has one or more associations. You can search with Google the name of the city that you have to visit followed by the phrase “free guides” to find well-known associations, alternatively a list of organizations that provide free guides can be found in the JNTO website at this address: http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/arrange/essential/guideservice.html
Note that in many cases you can also find guides who speak your language and to have a better chance of obtaining it is best to ask the service a few months before departure.
The alternative to free guide is to use a professional guide service.
You can find information and prices here: http://www.jfg.to/green/jfg_eng.html