Three ways to travel

Choose what you hand over.
We’ll shape the journey.

Every Japan Ikigai Trip is handcrafted and kept off the record. The difference is where you want us to take the lead.

Explore the three shapes See Omakase departures

A private open-air bath at an inn we have stayed in — A private bath at an inn we have usedLate autumn

Pricing

How much does a mystery trip to Japan cost?

Every trip is designed from scratch, so there is no shelf price. What changes the number is how long you travel, how much of the trip is yours to shape, and the budget you give us. There are three shapes, and this is what each one starts at.

01Complete trust

Omakase

We choose everything. You pick from the dates we open.

A fixed price per person

Two people sharing

	with Taste-Local 2+ dinners a week booked	with Taste-Local Every Night every dinner booked
5 nights / 6 days	$2,500 USDsolo: $2,950	$2,750 USDsolo: $3,200
7 nights / 8 days	$3,300 USDsolo: $3,930	$3,700 USDsolo: $4,330
13 nights / 14 days	$6,200 USDsolo: $7,370	$6,950 USDsolo: $8,120

What these two mean is just below.

Taste-Local = at least two dinners a week chosen and booked for you, with three recommendations for every other meal. When we pick an inn for its kitchen, one of those dinners may be at the inn. Every Night = every dinner chosen and booked, priced as a blended average across the places we choose from rather than a fixed amount per restaurant. Drinks are not included.

The price is fixed. The trip inside it is not. Your dietary needs, places you have already been, no-go list, and the season all shape a journey designed from scratch inside that number.

You hand over the choosing. We read your answers closely and design the journey we believe you will enjoy most—private, self-guided, and never shared with another group.

See the next departures

02Your dates, our design

Signature

Your dates, your budget, your no-go list. We design the rest.

From $3,000 USD per person

5 nights / 6 days, two people sharing

7 nightsFrom $4,000 USD
10 nightsFrom $5,800 USD
21 nightsFrom $12,200 USD

You tell us when you want to travel, what you love, and what to avoid. We design and book every day of it, then send you a personal proposal with a voice message before you decide anything.

Start the questionnaire

03A journey for the occasion

Milestone

For the occasions that deserve a proper journey.

From $4,000 USD per person

No ceiling; shaped around the occasion

A honeymoon. An anniversary. A retirement. A graduation trip. A birthday that deserves a real journey rather than a dinner reservation.

One day is designed entirely around what you are marking, using places and people we cannot reach on an ordinary week. If someone wants to arrange a piece without you knowing, we will hold the secret and build it in.

If you are traveling alone, we will be the ones celebrating you. Marking it is our job, and we take it seriously.

Start the questionnaire

Side by side

	Omakase	Signature	Milestone
Before you book	You pick a date. No call, no back and forth. That is the whole point.	You tell us your dates and your limits, and we talk it through.	A video call about the occasion, before we design anything.
What you hand over	The choosing, and the dates.	The design.	The design, and one day built around what you are marking.
Price	$2,500 to $8,120 USD	from $3,000 USD	from $4,000 USD

Omakase means there is nothing to decide after you book. It does not mean you cannot reach us: questions about safety, access or anything you need are answered at any point, on any trip.

How the evenings work

Every trip comes with a choice about dinner. It changes nothing else.

Taste-Local — at least two dinners a week are chosen and booked for you, for the region you are actually in. For every other meal you get three specific recommendations near where you will be that evening.

Taste-Local Every Night — every dinner is chosen and booked for you.

Yuriko chooses either way. She was born in Tokyo and has eaten at more than 5,000 restaurants across Japan. Breakfast and lunch are three recommendations each, whichever you pick.

Neither is the better trip. Handing over every dinner gets you into places that are hard to reach on your own. Keeping most evenings open gets you the pleasure of walking into somewhere yourself.

Meals are priced as a blended average across the places we choose from—some less expensive, some more so—rather than a fixed amount per meal. Drinks are not included.

Trip length: 5 nights / 6 days minimum, up to four weeks. The average is about 10 days.

The stays

Where you will sleep

Every stay is graded against a written standard before it can enter an itinerary, and someone on our team has stayed at, eaten at, or verified each one.

Chosen for position

Within a ten-minute walk of a major station or airport, or part of a hotel group whose standards we know. These are the nights that make the next day work.

Chosen for character

Fifty rooms or fewer, with real regional value. Often fifty years old or more, or housed in a building the region itself considers worth keeping.

Chosen because there is nothing else quite like it

Twenty rooms or fewer. A century or more of history. Registered cultural properties, or a place we have judged their equal after staying there ourselves.

Which of these you will stay in

	A chosen for position	S chosen for character	SS nothing else quite like it
Omakase	●	●
Signature	●	●	●
Milestone		●	●

Signature can draw on all three, because your route decides what makes sense on any given night. Milestone leaves out the position grade deliberately: on a trip that marks something, we would rather move you further than put you next to a station.

What your price covers

Accommodations, your long-distance transport inside Japan, booked experiences and Taste-Local meals, 24/7 support in English, and your printed Travel Bible.

International flights to and from Japan are the one big thing you book yourself.

See what’s included

How payment works

30% when you confirm, and the balance 60 days before your trip starts. The 30% secures your trip and lets us start arranging it; it is non-refundable from that point.

You can pay in full at the start instead. The price is the same either way. We arrange each trip as one complete design rather than itemizing it.

When to book

At least 3 months before you travel, and up to 12 months ahead. The hosts, makers, and small inns worth building a journey around often take only one group at a time.

The more notice we have, the more of Japan is genuinely open to you.

How long we hold your proposal

14 days, for all three shapes. The two weeks are room to think, look at flights, and talk it through while the price and trip we quoted stand still.

For Omakase, your proposal holds for 14 days; the departure place does not. Once a length is taken, it closes. We will tell you immediately if it goes while you are deciding.

Keep the secret

Planning this as a gift?

A mystery trip makes an unusually good gift, and it is one of the few we can wrap without spoiling. We have arranged wedding gifts, retirement gifts, and one surprise a daughter spent a year saving for.

Because gifting changes how everything is worded, timed, and delivered, we handle these one at a time.

Message us on WhatsApp

Ready when you are

A journey no one else could take.

Tell us what matters. We’ll take it from there.

Design my mystery trip—free See the next departures