Kyoto One Day Sightseeing Tour from Osaka or Kyoto

Great tour especially if you have limited time to see the sights. Guide was fabulous!

Anson: Guide. Driver: retired police officer. The maneuvering through the tight corners of the Kyoto streets was performed by our skilled driver. Anson provided an upbeat and factual description of the four attractions visited on this tour. According to Anson, typically two attractions are offered, however, for this trip, four attractions will be visited. Anson did a good job of keeping the schedule, despite the ambitious itinerary. One of the highlights of the tour was the interior walk through of the Ninomaru Palace, and hearing the “nightingale floors” following our footsteps. Anson guided the group through the various meeting rooms through the palace. You are not allowed any photos inside the Palace. Apart from the Palace, we had some free time to roam around the Nijo Castle grounds. There were several other tour groups in the Palace progressing at different paces so there were times where congestion along the nightingale floor path was heavy. There is an additional cost of 1300Y for entry into the Nijo Castle grounds and Ninomaru Palace. The next attraction was the Kinkaku-ji, which is a temple covered with a gold leaf décor. You cannot go inside but just walk around the perimeter of the moat which served as protection. There was a school group tour during our visit so the area was pretty crowded. The gravel path was of average width so that it was quite congested. Most pictures were included strangers from other groups. This attraction required an additional 500Y. There are a handful of attractions in Arashiyama, each requiring minimal time to visit. The bamboo forest is the most time consuming since you have to walk into the forest to immerse yourself. A brisk 10 minute walk into to the area where there are less people for photo ops. There were some rickshaw services on a private path but I did not look into it. Walking through the kimono forest should take less than 5 minutes, but the trek across the bridge and back would take around 20 minutes. There is an additional 10 to 15 minute walk between these attractions. Anson recommended to eat at the food court to save time but I managed to sneak into one of the empty ramen shops for a bowl. Note that the local ramen shops only take cash. Despite the ambitious schedule we arrived back to the meeting point on schedule.

Excellent tour guide, Anson💕 He offered a comprehensive description and historical overview with added sense of humor creating a team spirit, and consistently engaged his audience. He delivered!

This tour was very comprehensive. We saw a lot. We learned a lot. The kids were also really excited about it.

The visit was well planned. Frederick was great at providing meeting times and providing suggestions on what to see at each location. I recommend this Kyoto tour to anybody who has limited time in Kyoto and who wants to see several sites in one day. Awesome job thanks so much

This was a great way to see some of the highlights of Kyoto while staying in Osaka. The tour guide was friendly.

Fun way to see Kyoto in a short period of time. Our guide Theodore Chan was great! He was super professional, organized and very knowledgeable. Highly recommend.

To be honest our flight was delayed due to the adverse weather conditions at Taiwan. We could not able to land after four attempts and our flights were diverted to Philippines after six hours we flew back again to Taiwan, the weather was slightly improved we managed to landed after second attempt, but unfortunately we missed our one day sightseeing tour, I was able contract our tour guide, he put me through online customer service with Emma, she was very helpful and understanding and she managed to booked our tour next day, our tour guide Laura was so good she organised very smoothly our tour,

A great day trip to see the many sights in Kyoto. Tour was well organised and efficient. Jay was such an amazing guide. He was very friendly and informative and kept things running smoothly.  I would recommend this tour and guide.

We were really excited for this tour because we thought we would learn a lot about each specific location. As it turned out, this tour was mostly unguided. Our tour guide told us a little bit about each location while we were on the bus driving, but upon our arrival at each location, we were given a set amount of "free time" to explore on our own. We wandered around without direction, not really knowing what we were looking at. Additionally, we visited the sites in a different order & for different amounts of time than scheduled for the tour so it was a bit confusing. We were supposed to see the Kimono Forest because it looked interesting but our tour guide didn't plan to show it to us. When I asked about the Kimono Forest, our tour guide offered to take us but it was obvious he wasn't interested in it. In the end, it wasn't very exciting but I didn't know that until we saw it. Also, I don't think we ever saw the final destination on the tour (I think it was supposed to be a bridge), unless we saw it & didn't even know it. It was nice to be on a smaller tour (we had 21 people in our group) & our "tour guide" was pleasantly friendly but not overly personable. He really didn't give us much information about any of the sites so we didn't learn very much. Overall, this tour was very disappointing & our family would not recommend it.