Japan Travel Agents & Reviews

This Japan travel company planned a great tour of the Kansai Region of Japan for my wife and me. Jeff, our travel agent, planned an interesting and reasonably stress free, six day vacation featuring Osaka, Kyoto, and Koyasan. He designed the trip to focus on the culture and beauty of the region and provided ample instructions and written guides prior to our arrival.  The highlight of the trip was our tour guide/in country contact who not only showed us around Osaka and Kyoto, but also ensured we had a clear understanding of the sometimes confusing public transportation system. She even went out of her way to make last minute adjustments to our train tickets to best accommodate our preferences. Japan can be an intimidating country in which to travel, and I highly recommend this tour company for your Japan travel needs if you want to make the most of your vacation.

Alex and the travel agency were an absolute pleasure to work with! Extremely responsive both in terms of responding quickly, but (perhaps more importantly) being flexible and customizing trip to our unique requests. For our trip we had 4 adults in our 30s traveling for 2 weeks. The hotels we stayed in throughout the trip were all very nice. We requested a busy trip to see as much as we can, and that was absolutely delivered. We've traveled fairly broadly and would definitely put Japan at the top of the list to return to. Nicest people we've ever experienced!The history and beauty of Japan cannot be oversold. My only regret is not having more time to enjoy a longer trip! 

This past month, my wife and I planned a trip to central Japan for about 2 weeks with Zicasso. Our main goal was to visit our daughter who was spending a semester studying in Tokyo. That said, we also took the opportunity to travel a bit in central Japan. We went to Tokyo, Hakone/Gora, Kyoto, Nara, Kanazawa and back to Tokyo. We had an incredible trip on all levels and we couldn’t have done it without our rep from this travel company. We were assigned a single travel assistant who helped us craft an itinerary that not only matched our needs and interests, but in a way that we received the best value in terms of hotel and in country travel. Our rep arranged bullet train travel, personal tour guides, hotels, and hands on experiences that were all top notch. My wife had some very particular hotel and touring interests and our travel rep worked very closely with her to accommodate her interests. All of which was accomplished within our intended budget.The tour guides that this travel company arranged were very knowledgeable, spoke English very well, and arranged some excellent dining experiences that we would have never found on our own. Our travel rep chose hotels for us that balanced location, price, and quality, for the amount of money we wanted to spend. Zicasso also has the ability to arrange air travel, however, we chose not to use them for that aspect of our travel.I could go on all day about all the specific experiences we had, but you’ll have to go there yourself, and experience it all for yourself. An aspect that I haven’t mentioned, is that having traveled all over the world, its really helpful to have support when you’re in country, especially a country like Japan, where English speakers are not as available as you might need.  Our travel company had a travel office in Tokyo that was available to us, should the need arise. It didn’t arise, but it was nice to know they were there for us.If you’re contemplating a trip like this, working with this travel company is a must! Thanks travel team for an excellent trip!

Our family enjoyed our trip to Japan immensely!  The trip planner did a wonderful job of getting our trip together and after a couple of times of tweaking the schedule, it was so much fun and enjoyable.  We had a few days of rain, expected during late fall, and a minor earthquake in Tokyo, which is common...so much to experience in all different ways!!  We travelled through Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto and Hiroshima in about 2 weeks.  Upon arrival, our guide directed us to purchase our Suica card at the airport, to avoid the fee if purchased elsewhere.  Tokyo, the first days, we explored on our own.  Hakone, Akiko, was a knowledgeable and entertaining guide!  Though it was foggy and rainy, we had a nice time in Hakone!  Kyoto, with our guide was a lot of fun.  We spent 4 days there and covered a lot of areas.  Shigaraki, was an experience to see so many pottery and raccoon pottery! Uji, very scenic and pretty along the Hozu River cruise and fall colors with temples.  Tea ceremony was educational and an experience!! Kiyomizu Temple area, my favorite!!  Hiroshima, on our own & the hotel was great!!  Stayed at the hotel at the station - very convenient next to the station and loads of food and restaurants. Really appreciated The planner putting the tour together, hotels and trains, along with the wonderful guides we had!Thank you!!  Doo mo arigato!!  Thank you, Zicasso!!

I thought the logistical planning of the trip was excellent. I was met at each airport gate, taken through customs quickly and met upon exit from the airport. This part of the experience was exceptional. I traveled to Thailand and Cambodia where the hotels selected for me were good, not great but am not quite sure what were the alternatives. The only negative I would say is that the explanation of the tours that were selected were a bit misleading and in some cases just not necessary. The amount of walking required was very understated as well as the amount of time we spent in traffic after completing a tour which terribly frustrated me. Honestly, if I had been told up front, I may have decided not to do the tour but in any case, it would have been my decision. But that is the reason I gave a rating of 4 vs 5 as the trip was fairly expensive and I should have been told about the extensive walking and traffic delays. Suzie was good and responsive in the planning again I would have appreciated more info up front on the tours.

I wanted to take my wife on a trip to Japan to celebrate her 50th birthday. She had lived in Japan previously and had traveled around the country some, but my goal was to find places she (and I) had never been to and explore some off-the-beaten path destinations. I explained this to Carl at our travel agency. We had a pretty in-depth conversation about what we were looking to do, the type of trip we wanted to take and other various likes/dislikes. He immediately went to work on an initial draft itinerary. Over the course of the next few months, we continued to hone the itinerary. At each iteration, Carl was a great listener in terms of what I wanted and the things I liked and wanted in the trip and was also great at proactively providing suggestions and ideas for both locations and tours/activities. It was clear all along that he had both an intimate knowledge of Japan, its culture and its unique features, as well as contacts around the country that could provide detail and helpful feedback on locations, hotels, restaurants, activities, etc. Combined with his experience serving other traveling clients, I felt confident in the itinerary we ultimately selected. Unfortunately, our trip was scheduled for January, 2022 and Japan's borders remained closed. As a result, we had to put the trip on hold for another year. Carl was very professional and understanding about it and honored our deposit during the delay. Thankfully, we were finally able to take the trip in January, 2023. It did not disappoint! Our travel took us to six distinct locations over a two-week period, so there was a lot of logistics around getting from place-to-place. While my wife speaks conversational Japanese, we realized that having English-speaking guides and drivers would be helpful, especially during transit. Carl's team handled all of these logistics perfectly - everything literally ran like clockwork. We even had to make some last-minute changes to our travel itinerary due to some unexpected snowy weather on the day we were traveling from Kyushu (in southern Japan) to Hokkaido (in northern Japan). Carl quickly responded to the changes and, again, everything came together perfectly. The hotels, the ryokans, the restaurants, the tours, the guides were all exceptional. We could not have asked for more and it exceeded our expectations. Japan is a beautiful country, with gracious, generous and welcoming people. The culture and food are unique and beautiful. We have been blessed to have traveled many places throughout the world and can honestly say this trip stands out as being truly exceptional. Huge thanks to Carl and his team for their wonderful work and caring, thoughtful approach to organizing our trip.

Our travel company was wonderful. This is the second time we have started with Zicasso and on both occasions, we have been 100 percent pleased. Charlotte (owner of this travel agency) wrote a very comprehensive itinerary and provided private guides at each location per our request. She worked in conjunction with a Japan travel agency which, at the time we started our planning, the integration of a US agency and a Japan agency was required. We found that the two agencies meshed extremely well. The hotel selection was great. We requested hotels with a Japanese flavor rather than the standard commercial hotels common world-wide and we were very happy. Our guides met us each morning at the hotel and stayed with us the entire day. Each of them was totally versed on the area and went way above and beyond just touring us. For example, they would help us with restaurant selection and then take pictures of the restaurant and help us with the menu since we are unable to speak Japanese. They had pertinent pictures and maps for us and stayed right by our side. We rated each of our guides as a 12/10. They not only were concerned with what we saw but how we were doing and asked if we needed to eat, to stop for a bit, etc. Their human compassion blended with their knowledge of the area was beyond amazing. Both our agent from the Japan agency and Charlotte from this travel company stayed in close contact with us throughout the trip also. We never felt alone.  Japan has been on our important list of must see places. We spent 14 days in this fabulous country and now have lifelong positive memories that were made possible by this travel team. Janet J.  

We had a phenomenal trip. Our honeymoon was a dream trip, and we were so happy for it to be planned by this travel company. Laura was so helpful and worked with us through multiple changes including flight changes.