Highlights & Hidden Gems With Locals: Best of Kyoto Private Tour

Our guide took us to several sites and quickly rattled off a fact or two about each one - usually the date that it was built. There was no narrative, context, or storytelling. At one point he told us that a particular alley was named after a shogunate’s wife, but not why that was significant or even what a shogunate is! The tour description states that you will “learn how samurais used to rule Japan” and “discover a folk faith linked to monkeys” - neither of these were ever mentioned on our tour. At first we tried to ask questions but after a few vague and unhelpful answers, we gave up and just went along for the ride. We skipped the tea portion of the tour because we were ready for it to be over. The one aspect we enjoyed was not having to navigate ourselves from site to site, so the tour was not a total waste of time. It was however a waste of money, and I would suggest anyone else just buy a map and a guidebook if they actually want to learn about the city.