We’ve had the distinct pleasure of scheduling two tours with Arigato Travel during our stay in Tokyo. When working with a tour company, especially when booking online, you may expect a bit of a disconnected experience - this is not the case with Arigato Travel. Arigato Travel offers bespoke tour experiences that offer guests unforgettable moments - their tour guides are welcoming, knowledgeable, kind, and gracious. (They even make sure to take photos of you and your group while on the tour, so you can really just disconnect and enjoy!) The review that follows is a bit long, but I think it offers a look at what you can expect when booking with Arigato Travel. Thank you, Arigato Travel!

Our most recent tour, the Shimbashi Hidden Gem Food Tour, which was led by Lucas, was one of the absolute best parts of our trip. Lucas expertly handled the ins-and-outs of Shimbashi and started the tour out strong with some very yummy bites. I don’t want to spoil the fun so I won’t get into too much detail about the food, but my husband and I talked about it all the way back to the hotel - we were able to try a number of different and very delicious foods at places that were only frequented by the “salarymen” of Shinbashi.

Lucas really made the tour for us. He was engaging, knowledgeable, kind, prepared, friendly, and took the time to explain things and answer my questions. He explained everything we ate and drank and made sure we tried the very best at every restaurant we visited. He was so, so lovely - it really felt like an old friend was showing us his favorite hidden gems in Shimbashi. Lucas made us feel welcomed, comfortable, and at ease the entire length of the tour. We enjoyed his expertise so much that we considered booking a THIRD tour with Arigato Travel while in Tokyo! (Unfortunately, we ended up not having the time, but we will definitely be searching out another tour with Lucas when we return to Japan again soon!)

We also had the pleasure of embarking on the Best of Shibuya tour with Melissa earlier in the week. Melissa took us to so many delicious and yummy restaurants all over Shibuya - we were able to sample a ton of different foods, from sushi to ramen to some other unexpected surprises along the way! Melissa was very informative and provided a lot of incredible context for the foods we sampled. I can’t believe we tried so many different things in such a short period of time!

I also need to give a big, big shout out to Nikka on the Bookings Team. We had originally planned to go on both the Best of Shibuya and the Shinjuku Golden Gai Tours. Nikka noticed that the tours had similar offerings, and to make sure that we had a diversity of experience, she recommended that we try the Shimbashi Hidden Gem Food Tour instead. She went above and beyond to make sure to stay in communication with me about our bookings and made everything hassle free. (I also have to say THANK YOU to Nikka for helping us communicate with Lucas when we were going to be late! Both Nikka and Lucas were so very kind and gracious about the situation, and they really helped ease the anxiety about the situation. Very, very thankful that they made what could have been a very stressful experience something incredibly manageable - it put our minds at ease!)