Shiki Japan
Bespoke Journeys · Est. 2009
Every Shiki Japan itinerary begins as a conversation and ends as a hand-bound book on your hotel desk. There is no template, no online configurator, no off-the-shelf route — only a named specialist in Tokyo and the three unhurried chapters we walk through below.
What follows is the actual rhythm of how a trip is built with us: a first call where we listen more than we speak, a proposal shaped over weeks by a designer who lives in the regions your trip will pass through, and a presence on the ground throughout your journey that you can reach any hour of any day. If you have ever worried that a "custom" trip is really just a dressed-up group departure, this page is for you.
A sixty-to-ninety-minute conversation with a named specialist — not a sales agent — held over Zoom, WhatsApp, or telephone, at a time that suits your timezone. The purpose is for us to listen, and for you to be heard.
Within twenty-four hours of your enquiry, your specialist — introduced by name and photograph — sends a short personal note and three open-ended questions. Nothing about room categories or budgets yet. We want to know how you travel, what you read on a long flight, and what a previous favourite trip looked like.
Your specialist guides the call with care — pacing, pace, and rhythm. We discuss regions, prior Japan visits, your travel party, pace preferences, dietary needs, mobility considerations, and the moments from past trips that still stay with you. We will not pitch; we will ask. By the end, a rough shape begins to form: three regions, two ryokan nights, a quiet day mid-journey.
Within five working days, you receive a written summary of the conversation — a single page you can share with a partner or family member — and a transparent brief of indicative costs, lead times, and what would be confirmed first. No deposit is taken at this stage. You decide whether to proceed to Chapter Two with the same specialist, or not at all.
A research window of ten to twenty-one days, during which your specialist shapes the day-by-day, holds proposed ryokans and restaurants against their own calendars, and drafts the proposal you will hold in your hands — or on your screen.
Your specialist cross-checks every suggested stay, tea ceremony, and dinner against the calendars of the people and properties themselves — not a global booking system. The 99.2% first-attempt confirmation rate we hold internally is the result of this rhythm: a property in Hakone is phoned, not queried; a kaiseki chef's seasonal menu is read in Japanese, not translated by a third party.
You receive a beautifully designed PDF: a fourteen- or eighteen-day journey, written in long-form prose rather than bullet lists, with hand-selected photography, an honest budget breakdown, alternative ryokan options at two price points, and a single page of logistical notes — JR Pass logistics, IC cards, pocket Wi-Fi — already arranged. We include the names of the staff you will meet.
Most journeys settle within two revision rounds. We slow down here without apology: swapping a Hakone ryokan for a Hoshinoya in the Southern Alps, adding a private after-hours temple visit in Nara, replacing a group dinner with a ten-seat counter in Pontocho. The proposal belongs to you before it belongs to us.
Shiki Japan was founded in 2009 by Aiko Tanaka, formerly of the Park Hyatt Tokyo concierge desk, and Kenji Mori, a licensed mountain guide and regional specialist. Today the team is twenty-two — eleven full-time trip designers and six regional specialists based in Kyoto, Kanazawa, and Okinawa.
Whoever designs your itinerary remains your single point of contact from the first enquiry through to your return flight. If a reservation moves, they move it. If a question surfaces at midnight from a ryokan in Koyasan, they answer it. The 24/7 in-country support line is staffed by Shiki staff in Tokyo — never outsourced, never routed through a call centre abroad.
— Aiko & Kenji, and the eleven trip designers who build every Shiki Japan journey.
Meet the full team of specialists →