Japan
The Cultural Highlights of Japan
Program No. 19725RJ
Take the adventure of a lifetime as you dive deep into the ancient culture of Japan, discovering iconic monuments, ancient traditions and world-renowned cuisine.
Enroll with Confidence
We want your Road Scholar learning adventure to be something to look forward to—not worry about. Learn more
Protecting the Environment
We offset a portion of the emissions created by your travel. Learn more
Prefer to enroll or inquire by phone?
800-454-5768
Select your type of room
Price will update based on selection
Prices displayed below are based on per person,doubleoccupancy.
Activity Level:
Keep the Pace (11)
DATES
& starting prices
PRICES
Oct 14 - Oct 29, 2024
Starting at
8,299Nov 4 - Nov 19, 2024
Starting at
8,399Activity Level:
Keep the Pace (11)
DATES
& starting prices
PRICES
Sep 16 - Oct 1, 2024
Starting at
9,099Oct 14 - Oct 29, 2024
Starting at
9,099Nov 4 - Nov 19, 2024
Starting at
9,199Activity Level:
On Your Feet (4)
DATES
& starting prices
PRICES
Sep 30 - Oct 15, 2024
Starting at
8,299Activity Level:
On Your Feet (4)
DATES
& starting prices
PRICES
Sep 30 - Oct 15, 2024
Starting at
9,099Not seeing the date you're looking for?
To be notified if dates of this program become available, click the button below.
16 days
15 nights
35 meals
14B 11L 10D
1
In Transit to Program
In Flight
6
The Nakasendo Way, Narai Post-town
Matsumoto
9
The Samurai & Their Domains
Kanazawa
16
Program Concludes
In Flight
At a Glance
Gain unique insight into the fascinating culture of Japan on this journey that explores the country’s national identity from samurai traditions to ultramodern cities. Experience energetic Tokyo, iconic Kyoto, the soaring Japanese Alps and more. Appreciate Japan’s engaging, friendly people and savor its cuisine, a delight for the eyes and the stomach.
Activity Level
Varies by date
Participants must handle their own luggage at all times. Walking and standing for up to three miles, four hours per day. Some longer walks are optional.
Small Group
Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.
What You'll Learn
- Explore Tokyo’s remaining links to historic Edo, seat of power of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
- Learn about traditional Japanese arts including the intricacies of the tea ceremony, which you learn with a Tea Master in Kyoto.
- Experience the delights of Japan’s culinary traditions from the freshest sushi obtainable through temple vegetarian cuisine to popular izakaya restaurants.
Featured Expert
All trip experts
Kazui Yabe
Native-born Japanese Kazui Yabe graduated from Meiji University in Tokyo, then spent four months at Southern Illinois University in Illinois to hone her English skills before returning to Japan. Kazui is passionate about the distinctly Japanese theater of kabuki, known for the stylization of its drama and the elaborate makeup worn by its performers. She is friend with many of the actors and provides an insider’s look at life behind the scenes.
Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.
Kazui Yabe
View biography
Native-born Japanese Kazui Yabe graduated from Meiji University in Tokyo, then spent four months at Southern Illinois University in Illinois to hone her English skills before returning to Japan. Kazui is passionate about the distinctly Japanese theater of kabuki, known for the stylization of its drama and the elaborate makeup worn by its performers. She is friend with many of the actors and provides an insider’s look at life behind the scenes.
Yukiko Kawahara
View biography
Yukiko Kawahara spent her childhood in Hiroshima and studied English and American literature at a local collage before traveling to the United States to perfect her English and further her education. In academia, Yukiko decided she wanted to see Japan from a non-Japanese perspective and chose Japanese history as her field of study. Before retiring in 2016, Yukiko was a professor of Japanese Studies with her principal areas of expertise being Japan’s language, popular culture, society, and history.
Kathleen Aoki
View biography
Kathleen Aoki majored in Latin American Studies, but an opportunity to teach English in Japan led her to discover her second home — Nagasaki. A twenty-five career at a major Japanese electronics manufacturer in Tokyo followed, where Kathleen learned the business culture of corporate Japan. During this time she married, raised a family and did her stint of PTA duty. With her kids almost grown, Kathleen decided to begin a career as an instructor making the most of her interest in travel and knowledge of Japan.
Michael Drzmisek Sozui
View biography
Michael was born in Switzerland and first came in contact with Japanese culture came through the martial arts Aikido and Iaido. He originally started to study Japanese calligraphy and later chanoyu to complement martial arts studies but became increasingly interested in tea over the years. After more than twenty years of experience, Michael sees chanoyu as a way of communication between people and ideas. The focus of his tea studies is not only to be a tea master, but to become a true tea person.
Kaho Shoji
View biography
Kaho Shoji was born in Kyoto but raised in the Noto Peninsula on the Sea of Japan. Following her grandmother’s influence, Kaho is a practitioner of chado — the Japanese tea ceremony. Under her influence, Kaho also grew up with a broad interest in Japan’s traditional culture and is known to enjoy wearing a kimono, and visiting temples and shrines. In 2015, she moved from Ishikawa to her grandparents’ old home in Kyoto to further her cultural interests and begin training to be a travel group leader.
Junko Kawamura
View biography
Junko Kawamura is the director of the Association for Spreading Noh Gaku and a professor at the Ikenobo Bunka University. Junko moved to Kyoto on her marriage to the late Nobushige Kawamura; the lead actor of the Kanze school of Noh drama. She has been involved with the management of the Kawamura Noh Theatre and of the Ladies’ Association for the Appreciation of Noh. As a passionate denizen of Kyoto, Junko has taken an important role in promoting traditional culture in the city.
Jamie Dwyer
View biography
Jamie graduated from Macalester College in 2002 with a BA in Asian studies. The following year, he returned to work in west Japan to teach English and international relations. After four years working in Hyogo and Okayama Prefectures, he joined the Peace Boat as volunteer staff, teaching English and leading groups in the ports of call. He then received a master's degree in agriculture from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in 2012. Jamie and his wife live in the Kyoto countryside.
Theodore Cook
View biography
Theodore F. Cook, Ph.D is professor emeritus at William Paterson University. Ted has lived in many parts of Japan conducting research in Japanese social and cultural history, and been a senior research fellow at Tokyo University, Japan’s National Museum of History and Ethnography, and Kyoto’s International Research Center for Japanese Studies, as well as a visiting professor at Sophia University. His focus has been on war and society in early and modern Japan in comparative perspective.
Yuta Arai
View biography
Yuta Arai, born in Yokohama, moved with his family to San Francisco at the age of two, and lived in California up to early adulthood. In 2013, Yuta returned to Japan, and in 2017, he entered Tokyo’s Temple University to gain a qualification in the teaching of English. When not studying, he explored Japan by train, bicycle, and on foot. Yuta now works part-time as a translator specializing in the automotive industry, and as a mechanic for a professional Japanese auto racing team.
Suggested Reading List
(28 books)
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
The Cultural Highlights of Japan
Program Number: 19725
Super Sushi Ramen Express
Using keen insight and sarcastic wit, Booth describes the cuisine and culture of Japan as he recaps the nearly three months-long foodie road trip he and his family took through the island nation. A fun journey, sure to both entertain and inform.
The Samurai
This historical novel by one of Japan's best-known modern writers is set in the world of the 17th-century Samurai. A Roman Catholic, Endo explored Christianity and morals in his many novels and stories.
Thousand Cranes
This novella by the great Kawabata may be Japan's best-known literary work, a story of love, grief and redemption. Kawabata's prose is as economical as the tea ceremony itself and very beautiful.
Eyewitness Guide Japan
Dazzling illustrations, architectural cutaways and color photographs, along with useful local maps, give this guide to Japan's many attractions a distinct edge.
Bending Adversity, Japan and the Art of Survival
Financial Times Asia editor Pilling captures the dynamism and diversity of Japan after the 2011 tsunami. He interviews, among many, novelist Haruki Murakami, former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, industrialists, bankers, activists and artists, teenagers and octogenarians.
The Inland Sea
Richie's masterpiece, more than a travel account, is a beautiful reflection on all things Japanese by one of its most acute observers.
Culture Smart! Japan
A concise, no-nonsense guide to local customs, etiquette and culture, this is a helpful travel tool for visitors to Japan.
Kaempfer's Japan: Tokugawa Culture Observed
A good account of what it was like to travel in the Tokugawa period.
The Book of Tea
A graceful, witty meditation on Japanese aesthetics and culture as reflected through the tea ceremony. A celebrity and cultural ambassador, Okakura was a curator at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
Seeing Kyoto
In this oversized visual celebration of Kyoto and neighboring Nara, long-time resident Carpenter presents the cobblestone streets, temples, gardens, history and traditions of the ancient capital.
The Old Capital
Kawabata captures perfectly the tension between tradition and new ways in postwar Japan in this lyrical novel set in Kyoto.
Hiroshima
This classic book, first published in 1946, has been hailed as the greatest piece of journalism in the 20th century. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Hersey puts a human face on the Hiroshima tragedy through interviews with survivors.
Tokyo, A Biography
In his 500-year history of Tokyo, Mansfield presents the Japanese capital as an "indestructible organism" that has survived bombs, earthquakes and radiation and continues to thrive. An easy introduction to a fascinating city.
A Traveller's History of Japan
A lively and concise narrative history of Japan and its transformation from Shinto, Shogun and Samurai traditions to 20th-century powerhouse.
The Dog Shogun
Arguably one of the most notorious figures in Japanese history, Tsunayoshi (1646 to 1709) was viewed as a tyrant with eccentric policies, including the Laws of Compassion, which made maltreatment of dogs an illegal offense, punishable by death. Bodart-Bailey delves deep into the shogun’s life, offering an engaging and brilliantly researched biography of the fifth Tokygawa shogun.
In Praise of Shadows
This extended essay by the great Japanese novelist, first published in 1933, offers tremendous insight into traditional Japanese art, architecture and design.
Memoirs of a Geisha, A Novel
The runaway best-selling novel about a geisha in the celebrated Gion district of Kyoto. A major feat of literary impersonation, the novel is rich in period detail and ceremony.
The Little Book of Japan
Veteran Japanophiles Vilhar and Anderson produced this illuminating collection of 44 essays on Japanese life and culture, which, even in the 21st century remains elusive and poorly understood.
Kyoto, A Cultural History
A rich portrait and guide to the gardens, monasteries, art, history and culture of Kyoto, once Japan's capital, founded 1,200-years ago.
Learning to Bow, Inside the Heart of Japan
As surprising, helpful and informative as it is funny, this is an insightful account of travels and teaching in Japan. Feiler presents anecdotes on the rituals, personality traits and cultural peccadilloes of the Japanese.
Walking the Kiso Road: A Modern-Day Exploration of Old Japan
William Scott Wilson travels along the ancient Kiso Road, historically used by samurai and warlords and relatively unchanged today. As he makes his way, Wilson engagingly ruminates on Japanese history, culture and folklore.
A Year in Japan
Williamson records her extended stay in Kyoto, its architecture, gardens, culture and traditions in 350 watercolor illustrations.
The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction
This anthology of contemporary Japanese short stories was edited with the traveler in mind. The ten pieces of literature, mystery, science fiction and horror form an imaginary tour of the city of Tokyo.
Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye
When her American father passes away, Mockett seeks consolation in her mother’s home country of Japan. She visits a radiation zone, a Buddhist school, temples and festivals in an effort to understand the Japanese way of grieving, to bury her dead and find healing.
The Art of Setting Stones & Other Writings from the Japanese Garden
In these lyrical essays, Kyoto resident and landscape architect Marc Peter Keane uses eight Japanese gardens as bases for essays on nature, religion and aesthetics. His rich, meditative excursions find beauty in garden composition - every element gaining importance and interconnectedness.
Japan's Cuisines
This illustrated overview charts the transformation of Japanese cuisine over the ages, revealing the influences of private and public institutions, exploring the rise of tea and showing how lunch became a gourmet meal.
Japan Adventure Map
Printed on waterproof and tear-resistant paper, this double-sided map shows all the islands of Japan at a scale of 1:1,300,000.
Lonely Planet Japanese Phrasebook
A handy palm-sized guide to pronunciation, basic grammar and essential vocabulary for the traveler.