Japan: a glimpse of the future and a window into the past. It’s held special allure to travelers for centuries, and after a multi-year closure, it fully reopens to travelers on October 11(!) This is your chance to be amongst the first travelers to visit Japan after the pandemic– without the confusion and hassle of organizing your own fully immersive tour.

You could hop on an airplane and hope for the best (we’ve done that with many countries over the years, and it worked out great!). But Japan is a different kind of beast. The culture is founded on careful social norms, precise ways of interacting in public, and the highest standards for their crafts, food and artisanship. Elevated standards of excellence is an incredible experience, but showing up without a plan is much trickier than other locations:

--You land in Tokyo, hop into the first taxi you see, and accidentally spend $250 just to get to your hotel. 

--You head out to dinner and leave your shoes in the wrong place and sense the waiter getting impatient (who knew there was a clear system?!). 

--You get to the station to take the subway home, the map looks like a brick of dry ramen: a confusing squiggle of train lines that criss-cross countless neighborhoods, different train companies, and thousands of people at every station.

Tokyo is the biggest city in the world, and it can often feel like showing up to an incredible party in the wrong clothes. But feeling out of place in a country like Japan doesn’t have to be the way you do it!