CTS Tours Features
CTS Tours offer the following unique features:
Authentic Japan Travel Experiences
CTS owner, Mariko Watanabe-Harumi, is a native Japanese raised in her own cultural traditions. After long years of residence in the United States, she brings an insider's view into Japanese traditions and can make her culture accessible to Americans.
From beginning to end, CTS tours are lovingly crafted by Mariko in a spirit of joy and pride in her homeland. She herself makes regular scouting trips to many regions of Japan, always on the lookout for the best venues for sharing the Japanese experience with you.
CTS tours take participants along the backroads of Japan to fascinating places that are not widely known in either Japan or America. These include unspoiled country villages, old regional castle towns, remote islands that retain ancient traditions, and pottery making hamlets nestled deep in the mountains.
Mariko personally builds relationships with the residents so that you can be assured genuinely warm and meaningful encounters wherever she leads you. CTS tours are created on the premise that travel should provide enjoyment and cross-cultural learning experiences for visitors and hosts alike.
Small Groups
CTS limits the size of its tour groups to 10 to 12 individuals. We strongly believe that small group size is necessary to ensure the quality of your travel experience. Travel with small groups makes possible the following features:
A relaxed pace and greater comfort and ease in movement and accommodations
The time required for movement from place to place increases in proportion to group size. CTS tour members can expect to enjoy their time in Japan at a more sensible pace and with more physical comfort and freedom than is possible with large groups.
Enjoyment of travel on public transportation such as trains and buses
CTS tour participants can enjoy the Japanese landscape while mingling with local people on trains and buses, and get intimate views of Japanese life. They can get intimate views of Japanese life: children going to school, elders on their way to clinics and housewives running errands. Such personal encounters are difficult for those seeing Japan from the confines of a chartered sightseeing bus.
Dining in cozy, family-owned restaurants
Small tour groups have access to small inexpensive shops with truly delicious food, friendly people and abundant local color. CTS takes care to ensure that your meals will be among your fondest memories of travel in Japan.
Meaningful encounters with local people
Participants in previous CTS tours have invariably cited their interactions with local residents at destinations as being one of the most memorable experiences. Getting to know the staff of small family-run hotels, enjoying tea and sweets with farm families and hearing about ceramic traditions firsthand from potters deep in the mountains: these are the kind of experiences that only the small group tour can provide.
Companionship and a sense of belonging
CTS group size is designed to maintain a balance of individual privacy with intimate and lively group participation and sharing. Just about every tour Mariko has conducted has culminated in a true bonding of all participants. When you sign on for a CTS tour, you will find yourself naturally drawn into a circle of friendship with persons who likewise seek something greater than a routine sightseeing tour.
The Ryokan inn experience
Guests at a traditional Ryokan can look forward to strolling in exquisitely tended gardens and sitting on fresh tatami mats while appreciating the flower arrangement and hanging scroll in the toko-no-ma alcove. A full-course dinner of Kaiseki cuisine is followed by a moonlight soak in open-air hotspring waters. As you lay down for a good night's rest, you will know that you have enjoyed the consummate Japan experience.
Cost Saving
The Cost of a CTS tour is 25 - 30% less than other similar tours. Our intimate knowledge of the places on your itinerary enables us prudent cost-saving choices in transportation, lodging and meals. In our experience, significant savings can be realized without sacrificing comfort and quality in your travel experience.
Nightly accommodations at the base rate are as a rule in shared rooms, but single travelers can secure individual quarters for the reasonable additional cost of just $150. (Please note that the one or two nights at traditional ryokan inns or in Japanese-style rooms will still be two to three persons per room for all participants).
