ENJYU JAPAN runs thirteen seven-day tours as of August 2026. All of them are private. You travel with your own party and nobody else joins, so once you have chosen a tour, the dates are usually yours to set.
Seven days can be the whole trip, or one piece of a longer one. Take a tour as it stands, or drop it into the middle of a two- or three-week trip you are arranging yourself.
The thirteen tours. If one of these already sounds like your week, go straight to it.
- The 7-Day Japan Tour for First Timers · Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Himeji, Osaka
- The 7-Day Golden Route Tour · Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka
- The 7 Days Tokyo & Old Japan Tour · Tokyo, Takayama, Shirakawa-go, Kanazawa
- The 7-Day Kintsugi Philosophy Tour · Osaka, Kyoto, Kanazawa
- The 7-Day Ukiyo-e Scenic Rail Tour · Tokyo, Matsumoto, Kiso Valley, Nagano, Karuizawa
- The 7-Day Noh and Kabuki Theatre Tour · Tokyo, Kyoto · five departures, October to December
- The 7-Day Hakone Luxury Onsen Retreat Tour · Tokyo, Hakone, Mt Fuji
- The 7-Day Japan Cycling Tour · Osaka, Onomichi, Shimanami Kaido, Imabari
- The 7-Day Rural Nagano Tour · Tokyo, Kiso Valley, Azumino
- The 7-Day Yamagata Winter Wonderland Tour · Tokyo, Zao Onsen, Ginzan Onsen · January to March only
- The 7-Day Takayama Autumn Festival Tour · Tokyo, Takayama, Gero Onsen · 7–13 October 2026 only
- The 7-Day Autumn Leaves Japan Tour · Nagoya, Korankei, Hakone, Lake Kawaguchiko · October to late November
- The 7-Day Japan in December Tour · Tokyo, Sendai, Ginzan Onsen, Yamadera · December only
The 7-Day Japan Tour for First Timers
The famous places, done properly rather than at a jog. A kimono walk through Higashiyama and a tea ceremony in Arashiyama are built into the Kyoto days.
Highlights
- Senso-ji and Nakamise, Asakusa. Tokyo’s oldest temple, reached down a narrow lane of small stalls selling rice crackers, sweets and paper goods.
- teamLab Planets, Toyosu. A digital art museum you walk through barefoot, part of it ankle-deep in water.
- A Lake Ashi cruise, Hakone. A crater lake in the mountains west of Tokyo, with Mt Fuji across the water on a clear day.
- Fushimi Inari, Kyoto. A shrine whose paths climb a wooded hillside under thousands of vermilion gates, each one paid for by a business.
- Himeji Castle. The largest castle in Japan still standing in its original form, white-plastered and never lost to war or fire.
- Dotonbori, Osaka. The canal-side street of neon and food stalls that Osaka eats in.
When: any dates you choose. Much of this route is full of blossom in April. In early March it is not, and the week is no worse for it.
Where: Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Himeji, Osaka
Best for: a first visit where you want the headline sights and would rather not assemble them yourself.
Travel planner’s note: If you’d like to explore Japan’s classic must-see spots, this tour is a great choice.
See the 7-Day Japan Tour for First Timers
The 7-Day Golden Route Tour
Guided days alternate with free ones, and the third day is chosen by you from Kawaguchiko, Hakone, Kamakura or Nikko. The Shinkansen leg is timed for Mt Fuji views.
Highlights
- Asakusa and Nakamise Street. The approach to Tokyo’s oldest temple, lined with stalls that have sold the same snacks for generations.
- Meiji Jingu, Tokyo. A Shinto shrine inside a forest of roughly 100,000 trees, donated from across the country and planted in the 1920s.
- Fushimi Inari, Kyoto. Thousands of vermilion gates standing end to end along paths up a hillside.
- Nara Park. Wild deer wander through it freely and have learned to bow for the crackers sold at the stalls.
- Todaiji, Nara. A vast wooden hall built to house a bronze Buddha about fifteen metres tall, cast in the eighth century.
- Osaka Castle. A reconstructed keep on the original stone base, at the centre of the city’s largest park.
When: any dates you choose.
Where: Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka
Best for: the well-known version of Japan, without making a hundred small decisions.
Travel planner’s note: On Day 3, you can choose a day trip to Nikko, Kawaguchiko, Hakone, or Kamakura based on your interests. This flexibility is one of the key differences from The 7-Day Japan Tour for First Timers.
See the 7-Day Golden Route Tour
The 7 Days Tokyo & Old Japan Tour
Out from Tokyo into the mountains and back. It is also the way to walk Takayama’s old streets without the festival crowds, which is a real choice rather than a consolation.
Highlights
- Asakusa and Nakamise Street. Tokyo’s oldest temple and the shopping lane that leads to it.
- The Imperial Palace grounds. The gardens of what was the shogun’s castle, now the emperor’s residence in the middle of Tokyo.
- Meiji Jingu, Tokyo. A shrine in a planted forest that has been left to grow wild for a century.
- Sanmachi, Takayama. Three streets of dark wooden merchant houses and sake breweries, largely unchanged since the Edo period.
- Shirakawa-go. A valley of farmhouses whose thatched roofs are pitched steeply to shed several metres of winter snow.
- Kenrokuen, Kanazawa. One of the three gardens Japan regards as its finest, laid out by the ruling family over about two centuries.
When: any dates you choose. Shirakawa-go under snow and Shirakawa-go in June are two quite different places.
Where: Tokyo, Takayama, Shirakawa-go, Kanazawa
Best for: historic towns and craft cities, at any time of year.
Travel planner’s note: Takayama and Shirakawa-go offer a glimpse of Japan’s traditional rural landscapes and are especially recommended for photography lovers.
See the 7 Days Tokyo & Old Japan Tour
The 7-Day Kintsugi Philosophy Tour
The week where you make things instead of photographing them. Three crafts across three cities, and because most of the work happens under a roof, a wet afternoon changes nothing.
Highlights
- Osaka Museum of Housing and Living. A full-scale Edo-period street rebuilt indoors, with the light shifting from dawn to night as you walk it.
- Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto. A temple on a wooded slope above the city, its main hall standing on a wooden stage assembled without nails.
- A tea ceremony in a Gion machiya. A wooden townhouse in Kyoto’s old geisha district, where you whisk the matcha yourself rather than watch someone do it.
- Kyo-Yuzen dyeing. The hand-painted silk dyeing developed in Kyoto in the seventeenth century and still used for kimono.
- Kenrokuen, Kanazawa. One of Japan’s three most celebrated gardens, at its best under snow ropes in winter.
- Kintsugi with a Kanazawa artisan. The repair method that mends broken pottery with lacquer and gold so the crack is emphasised instead of hidden. Kanazawa produces almost all of Japan’s gold leaf.
When: any dates you choose, and the tour here least affected by weather.
Where: Osaka, Kyoto, Kanazawa
Best for: travellers who want to come home with something they made and can explain.
Travel planner’s note: Kintsugi is one of the most popular experiences among our guests. This tour is especially recommended for those who want to experience Japanese culture through a hands-on activity.
See the 7-Day Kintsugi Philosophy Tour
The 7-Day Ukiyo-e Scenic Rail Tour
Built for people who want to see the prints and then stand where they were drawn.
Highlights
- Matsumoto Castle. One of only twelve Japanese castles whose keep survives from before 1868, black-walled and standing in its own moat.
- Narai-juku. A post town on the old highway between Kyoto and Edo, a kilometre of inns and merchant houses still lived in.
- The Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto. A woodblock print collection built by a single local family over generations, said to run to around 100,000 works.
- The Hokusai-kan, Obuse. A museum in the small town where Hokusai worked in his eighties, holding festival float ceilings he painted there.
- The Rokumon train to Karuizawa. A sightseeing train named for the six-coin crest of the Sanada clan, with a meal served at your seat.
- Kabuki at the Kabukiza, Ginza. Japan’s principal theatre for kabuki, the four-hundred-year-old stage form of painted faces and stylised movement.
When: any dates you choose (subject to availability; some dates may not be available due to Kabuki performance schedules or other circumstances).
Where: Tokyo, Matsumoto, Kiso Valley, Nagano, Karuizawa
Six nights in four-star hotels, the highest standard among the tours in this range.
Best for: art and rail, and summer weeks that need to stay comfortable.
Travel planner’s note: This tour is recommended for travelers seeking exclusive and unique experiences in Japan.
See the 7-Day Ukiyo-e Scenic Rail Tour
The 7-Day Noh and Kabuki Theatre Tour
The tour here whose dates are set by other people’s programmes.
Highlights
- Senso-ji, Tokyo. The city’s oldest temple, founded long before Tokyo was the capital.
- Kabuki at the Kabukiza, Ginza. Elaborate costume, painted faces and an all-male cast, with an English earphone guide translating as the play runs.
- The statue of Izumo no Okuni and the Minamiza. Okuni was the woman who began kabuki as dance on the dry bed of the Kamo River around 1603. The Minamiza across the street is Kyoto’s oldest theatre.
- Gion Shirakawa and Hanamikoji. Lanes of wooden teahouses where geiko and maiko still work.
- Noh and Kyogen at the Kongo Noh Theatre. Noh is older, slower and masked; kyogen are the short comic pieces played between the noh plays. Commentary comes first so you know what you are watching.
- Kinkakuji, Kyoto. The gold-leafed pavilion built by Yoshimitsu, the shogun whose patronage created noh in the first place.
When: five departures in 2026, on 7–13 October, 4–10 and 18–24 November, and 9–15 and 16–22 December. Seats per departure are limited.
Where: Tokyo, Kyoto
Best for: anyone who wants live classical theatre with enough context to follow it.
Travel planner’s note: Recommended for those who want to experience and connect with Japan’s traditional culture.
See the 7-Day Noh and Kabuki Theatre Tour
The 7-Day Hakone Luxury Onsen Retreat Tour
The week where you stay put. Three nights in a Hakone ryokan and a private car throughout instead of trains. Fewer places, more hours in each.
Highlights
- Hamarikyu Gardens, Tokyo. A former shogunal duck-hunting estate on Tokyo Bay, with a tidal pond that rises and falls with the sea.
- A tea ceremony. The full form, in a teahouse rather than a demonstration room.
- Hakone Shrine and the Peace Torii. A vermilion gate standing in the water of Lake Ashi, approached through old cedar forest.
- Oshino Hakkai. Eight ponds fed by snowmelt filtered down through Mt Fuji, clear enough to read the bottom.
- The Itchiku Kubota Art Museum. One artist’s kimono, dyed as separate panels that form a single continuous landscape when hung in sequence.
- Hakone yosegi marquetry. Patterns built from the natural colours of different woods, with no stain or dye used, and a coaster you make yourself.
When: any dates you choose, though winter is when a ryokan and an outdoor bath make the most sense, and when Mt Fuji is most reliably visible.
Where: Tokyo, Hakone, Mt Fuji
Best for: travellers who would rather go deep in one place than cover ground.
Travel planner’s note: As this is a relaxing, wellness-focused experience, we recommend adding it toward the end of your trip.
See the 7-Day Hakone Luxury Onsen Retreat Tour
The 7-Day Japan Cycling Tour
The Shimanami Kaido crosses six islands of the Seto Inland Sea on seven bridges, about 70 kilometres end to end, and this tour spreads three riding days of 60 to 80 kilometres across it. The terrain is gentle apart from the spiral approaches onto the bridges.
Highlights
- Senkoji Temple Park, Onomichi. A hilltop with the whole island chain and its bridges laid out below.
- Innoshima Suigun Castle. A museum of the Murakami, the sea clans who controlled these straits and taxed everything that passed through them.
- Kosanji Temple and Miraishin no Oka, Ikuchijima. A temple complex one businessman built for his mother, with a hill of white Italian marble above it.
- Oyamazumi Shrine. Holds a large share of Japan’s surviving medieval armour and weapons, dedicated by warriors before they went to fight.
- Kurushima Kaikyo Bridge. Three suspension bridges in a row, four kilometres in all, over one of the fastest tidal currents in Japan.
- Imabari Castle. One of the few Japanese castles with a moat fed by the sea, so the water level moves with the tide.
When: any dates you choose, but April and October are the months worth riding. August on a bike in the Seto Inland Sea is a different experience.
Where: Osaka, Onomichi, Shimanami Kaido, Imabari
Best for: anyone comfortable on a bike who wants a week of riding without arranging a single logistics detail.
Travel planner’s note: three days at 60 to 80 kilometres is more than most people ride at home. If you are unsure, take the e-bike. It changes the bridge climbs more than the flat.
See the 7-Day Japan Cycling Tour
The 7-Day Rural Nagano Tour
A week spent almost entirely in towns of a few thousand people, in two valleys that stay cooler than anywhere on the Golden Route. Lacquerware painting in Kiso-Hirasawa and soba made by hand fill the indoor hours.
Highlights
- Tsumago-juku. A post town that banned cars, power lines and modern signs from its main street to keep the Edo streetscape intact.
- Magome-juku. The next town along, a stone-paved slope with the Kiso mountains standing behind it.
- Nezame-no-Toko. A stretch of river where the current has cut the granite into flat blocks and green pools.
- Narai-juku. The longest of the post towns, a kilometre of inns that grew rich on travellers waiting to cross the pass beyond.
- Daio Wasabi Farm. The largest wasabi farm in Japan, grown in long beds of running spring water off the Northern Alps.
- The Obasute rice terraces. Paddies stacked in narrow steps above the valley, worked this way for centuries.
When: any dates you choose, and the best answer here for August.
Where: Tokyo, Kiso Valley, Azumino
Best for: countryside and post towns, or anyone who has already done the cities.
Travel planner’s note: this is the tour where party size changes the price most. If there are only two of you, ask us before you assume it is out of reach.
See the 7-Day Rural Nagano Tour
The 7-Day Yamagata Winter Wonderland Tour
The demanding one, and the only tour here built around a sport. A guide comes along on the first ski day; after that you are on the mountain at your own pace.
Highlights
- Yamadera, or Risshaku-ji. Small halls scattered up a cliff, reached by about a thousand stone steps through cedar. Bashō wrote his best-known haiku here in 1689.
- Two days at Zao Onsen. One of Tohoku’s largest ski areas, known for the frost-encased firs that form on the upper slopes each winter.
- The Zao hot springs. Strongly acidic sulphur water that has been used far longer than the ski lifts have existed.
- Ginzan Onsen. Wooden inns from the 1920s facing each other across a narrow river, lit by gas lamps at dusk.
- A ryokan night with kaiseki. A traditional inn, and a dinner of many small seasonal courses served in sequence.
When: January through March 2027.
Where: Tokyo, Zao Onsen, Ginzan Onsen
Best for: people who already ski and want the snow itself, not the look of it.
Travel planner’s note: the two ski days sit in the middle of the week, so anyone in the party who does not ski has two days to fill. Tell us early and we will plan around them.
See the 7-Day Yamagata Winter Wonderland Tour
The 7-Day Takayama Autumn Festival Tour
The Hachiman Matsuri, the annual festival of Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine, falls on 9 and 10 October every year without exception, so the whole trip is built outward from those two days.
Highlights
- Sanmachi, Takayama. Three streets of dark wooden merchant houses, sake breweries among them, in a town that was rich on timber and carpentry.
- A sake brewery tasting. Takayama’s cold mountain water suits brewing; a ball of cedar hangs outside each brewery when the new sake is ready.
- The Miyagawa morning market. Riverside stalls of vegetables, pickles and crafts, held every morning since the Edo period.
- The festival itself. Eleven ornate yatai floats drawn through the streets, some carrying karakuri, mechanical puppets worked on strings from inside the float.
- Takayama Jinya. The only surviving building of its kind, from which the shogunate governed this district directly rather than through a local lord.
- Gero Onsen Gassho Village. Thatched farmhouses moved here from the Shirakawa-go area when a dam flooded their valley.
When: one departure only, 7 to 13 October 2026.
Where: Tokyo, Takayama, Gero Onsen
The festival days are followed by a night at Gero Onsen, which is the best piece of design in the itinerary: a quiet evening in hot water after two days in a crowd. Bad weather can cancel festival events, the evening procession included, and nothing is postponed to another day.
Best for: seeing one of Japan’s genuinely large festivals.
Travel planner’s note: With only one departure per year, we recommend contacting us early to secure your spot.
See the 7-Day Takayama Autumn Festival Tour
The 7-Day Autumn Leaves Japan Tour
Deliberately slow, with two of the six nights in onsen ryokan and unhurried mornings written into the schedule rather than hoped for.
Highlights
- Tokugawaen, Nagoya. The garden of the Tokugawa lords of this province, built around ponds and a narrow gorge, with tea and seasonal wagashi at the teahouse.
- Korankei Gorge. A priest began planting maples along the path here in the 1600s. There are around 4,000 now, along the Tomoe River below Kojakuji temple.
- Mt Iimori. The slope above Korankei, lit after dark through November so the maples read against the black.
- The Hakone Open-Air Museum. Sculpture set outdoors across a hillside, including a tower of stained glass you climb inside.
- Oshino Hakkai. Eight spring-fed ponds among thatched houses at the foot of Mt Fuji.
- Oishi Park and the Momiji Corridor. A lakeside park and an avenue of maples, with Mt Fuji across the water.
When: October into late November 2026. Peak colour at these places generally lands between mid-November and early December and shifts with the weather, so it runs as a window rather than on a date.
Where: Nagoya, Korankei, Hakone, Lake Kawaguchiko
Best for: foliage without the pace that usually comes with chasing it.
Travel planner’s note: the colour peaks later than most people expect. If you can only come once, take the later half of the window rather than the earlier.
See the 7-Day Autumn Leaves Japan Tour
The 7-Day Japan in December Tour
City lights at one end and snow country at the other, with sushi-making alongside a local chef built into the Tokyo days.
Highlights
- Senso-ji and the Kaminarimon, Asakusa. The outer gate of Tokyo’s oldest temple, with the giant red paper lantern hanging in it.
- A tea ceremony in Asakusa. Matcha prepared and drunk in the older part of the city.
- teamLab Planets, Toyosu. A digital art museum walked barefoot, some rooms flooded ankle-deep.
- The Sendai Pageant of Starlight. The avenue of zelkova trees on Jozenji-dori, hung with hundreds of thousands of lights every December.
- Ginzan Onsen. A single row of Taisho-era wooden inns along a river, gas lamps lit at dusk, in a town that grew up around a silver mine worked from the sixteenth century.
- Yamadera. A cliffside temple among snow-covered cedar, a long climb in any season and a quiet one in winter.
When: December only.
Where: Tokyo, Sendai, Ginzan Onsen, Yamadera
Best for: a December week that gets both the illuminations and real snow.
Travel planner’s note: Sendai and Ginzan are properly cold and the illuminations are outdoors. Pack for standing still in it, not for walking.
See the 7-Day Japan in December Tour
What the Calendar Does to a Week in Japan
Eight of these tours will run on whatever dates you give us. That does not make every date equal.
- Cherry blossom is the one thing worth not betting on. Long-term averages put Tokyo’s first blooms in the last days of March, Yamagata around 13 April and Sapporo at the start of May, and within a single year the real dates swing a week either way. Book six months out and stake the trip on standing in one place at peak bloom, and you are making a bet rather than a plan. A week that stands on its own, with blossom as a bonus, is the calmer approach.
- Golden Week, late April into the first week of May, is when the whole country travels at once. Rooms and seats get scarce and prices climb.
- The rainy season sets in around 7 June in the Kantō and Kōshin regions and lifts around 19 July, though both ends move year to year. A June week is not a write-off. It wants more time indoors and less riding on clear skies.
- Summer in the lowland cities is hot and heavy with humidity, and there is no honest way around that. What you can do is go up.
- Obon, mid-August, is when much of the country travels home to family. It is not a public holiday, but the roads, trains and inns behave as though it were.
- New Year is a busy stretch for domestic travel. Mid to late January tends to be one of the quietest periods of the year.
- Snow is not everywhere in winter. On the Pacific side, in Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka, you are far more likely to get cold, dry, bright days and very little of it. Snow is something you travel toward.
Using Seven Days as Part of a Longer Trip
Plenty of people planning ten nights or more assume they have to choose between a guided tour and doing all of it themselves. A seven-day tour also works as a component.
Start with a familiar week, First Timers or the Golden Route, and follow it with a regional one, so the country gets easier to read as you go. Or reverse it: handle Tokyo and Kyoto independently, then hand over the leg that is genuinely fiddly to arrange from abroad, like the Kiso Valley by van or the Shimanami Kaido with bikes fitted and bridge tolls paid. Or, if you want the Takayama festival or a particular Kabuki programme, lock that week first, since it is the piece that cannot move, and build the rest around it.
There is a jet lag argument for putting the guided week first. The days when you are least capable of making decisions are the days when someone else making them is worth the most.
Every tour here can be extended, combined with another, or booked as accommodation only without a guide, which is what makes this practical rather than theoretical.
Tell Us Which One
If one of these is close to what you want, say so by name when you get in touch. Something like “I’m interested in the Kintsugi Philosophy Tour, but in November, and with two extra nights in Kyoto” is a far faster start than a blank page, and it is enough for us to price.
If the shape you want does not match any single tour here, that is the territory a Tailor-Made Tour is designed for. Either way the two things worth telling us first are when you are travelling and what you would like the week to be about. The rest is arrangeable.
