ShiZen Japan Tours — Local services in Kyoto

We recently had an incredible one-day tour in Kyoto with Noa! Traveling as a family of four with two kids, we really appreciated Noa's flexibility and attention to detail. She curated a perfect balance of activities, including sightseeing at Kyoto’s beautiful temples and serene gardens, all while sharing fascinating insights into Japanese culture and history that enriched our experience.

Noa was attentive to our requests, ensuring there was enough time for a fantastic food tour through Nishi Market. Her knowledge of the best local treats made the market come alive for us. Additionally, when my son began feeling unwell, she accompanied us to a drugstore to help find suitable medicine, going above and beyond to ensure he was comfortable. She even recommended some excellent Japanese cosmetics and OTC items, a thoughtful bonus we appreciated. Noa remained available to us for the rest of our trip and I felt very comfortable asking her for recommendations in other parts of our trip to Japan,

With Noa’s expert guidance, we felt we saw the best of Kyoto in a single day—beautiful sights, delicious food, and a wealth of cultural knowledge. Thank you, Noa, for making our day in Kyoto...

Noa guided us, two Israeli couples with diverse interests, in Kyoto for two days in May 2024. Truly unique: informative, professional, and at the same time personal and enjoyable. Extremely knowledgeable about history, culture, food, plants and more, excellent selection of sites and flow between them. Also, sensitive, responsive to our interests and adjusted on the fly. Finally, openly shared her perspective as a (veteran) Israeli on Japan. Felt like a two-way translator in the broad sense. Bottom line: very highly recommended. Remark: I waited several weeks before writing this review in order to make sure that this is my long lasting opinion rather than merely a short...

We had a great full-day tour of the east side of Kyoto with Noa. We were a family of 5. Noa put together a tour that was a great fit for us, we were able to see a lot of the sites on that day in a good pace. Noa had excellent knowledge of background and history related to the sites and unique knowledge to point out some less-known places. She found some shops specific to our tastes and gave us recommendations for shops and areas for the rest of our stay. It was a very good first day intro to Kyoto, we would definitely recommend Noa's tours for a professional and...