Get an authentic introduction to Kyoto with your local host on a private, fully personalized walking tour. Your route is tailored to your interests and pace, giving you a true insider’s perspective on the city’s history, culture, and daily life. Here are some highlights you might explore:
Explore the Sanjo area, filled with historic family-run shops and specialty stores. Stroll along the Kamogawa River as your host shares stories of Kyoto’s heritage and local traditions that make this vibrant area unique.
Walk through Kyoto’s iconic traditional entertainment district. Your host will highlight atmospheric lanes lined with wooden townhouses, teahouses, and refined restaurants. Cross Tatsumi Bridge to reach the scenic Shimbashi area for a true taste of old Kyoto charm.
Visit Yasaka Shrine, Kyoto’s guardian shrine for over 1,350 years. Enjoy its striking architecture and learn about its famous summer festival, the Gion Matsuri, one of Japan’s most celebrated cultural events.
Marvel at the grand Torii gate and broad approach to this relatively modern but important shrine, built in 1895. Your host will explain its connection to Kyoto’s founding and the spirits of the emperors it enshrines, offering rich historical context.
Discover this impressive Edo-period fortress, built to showcase the power of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Wander its beautiful grounds as your host shares lively stories of samurai, shoguns, and Kyoto’s dramatic history.
Nissa was an excellent guide. She was extremely informative, loves the city and is an excellent teacher of history and past and current culture. She planned the tour around our interests and answered all of our questions. It was a delightful your and gave us a clear idea of the city, what we wanted to see and places we wanted to explore more deeply.
Great day out exploring Kyoto. Nisa was awesome, effortlessly chatted with each of us about Kyoto - we were a group of 8, 4 young adults and their parents. A perfect day seeing Kyoto.
Excellent walking tour of Kyoto, visiting many historical and popular sites. Our guide Pam was wonderful. She designed a tour based on our wishes and adjusted along the way. We learned so much thanks to our knowledgeable guide. I highly recommend a tour with Pam!
It’s was quite cold and we did not prepare properly for the weather in Kyoto. Papa Ninja was our tour guide. He was very knowledgeable and took us to some beautiful Buddhist temples.
Easy walking tour visiting three temples ( Fushimi Inari or 1000 gates, Yasaka temple, Kiyomizu dera (sacred waters) and the Geisha district (Gion Kobu)
Woohee was an excellent guide. She asked what we were interested in and then tailored the tour around us. We visited lots of the main attractions around Kyoto - which we would never have found on our own. This included temples, shrines, markets and the various geisha areas within the City. Would definitely recommend this tour and especially Woohee.
Mai was a wonderful guide who very efficiently shepherded us through the crowds in the train stations to the wonderful destinations of our choosing. She was amazingly accommodating and helped take photos for us. Even after our tour, she continued to assist us with recommendations. There is so much to see, so her guidance was so important.
Andy did a great job with the tour and showed us some of the less crowded places in Kyoto, which was what we were looking for
Masaya was our guide for an 8 hour tour of Kyoto. He met us at our hotel. Masaya was very knowledgeable and enjoyable. We were able to see quite a lot of Kyoto in our 8 hours, much more than we would have been able to on our own. I cannot recommend the experience more. He also gave us recommendations for our remaining days in Kyoto which was very helpful.
Ada was an excellent guide. She coordinated with us in advance to personalize the tour to our priorities. She was on time and gracious throughout the tour. She went above and beyond by helping us make a few phone calls in Japanese.
Our day with super guide Jose David meeting us at the McDonald's in Kyoto Station close to our lodging, then to Kinkakuji (The Golden Pavilion) and onto Higashi Hongan-ji Temple near the station and onto the magnificent Kiyomizu Dera through the most impressive cemetery on a hill ever and with views of Kyoto unmatched! Then Jose David was kind enough to get us to our pottery workshop set in an area that we never would have found, and reservations at a great Japanese bar-b-que. A perfect day. Thank you Jose David!!!
Made it so easy to navigate around Kyoto! Our guide was flexible and made adjustments to fit our needs (young children and grandparents).
Our guide Emi is excellent. She planned our itinerary well and recommended places to eat and shop. She is also very patient and kind to advise us on transportation for our onward destinations by train. Even helped us to buy tickets. We had a wonderful and enjoyable day with her. Highly recommended guide.
Nehal showed me some hidden and popular places as well in the beautiful city of Kyoto. and explained the stories about it. Unfortunately time was too short to discovereverything
Talking to our guide and sharing life experiences made our excursion enjoyable. Kenya was very kind and polite.
The platform Booking.com, offers a lost of services, mostly of them are good and very good, but as always, some do not offer serosity! We used the platform to book a city tour in Kyoto of 8 hours, using City Unscripted. We pay over 150 pounds for the service. This platform has a very complicated site, that bring user to confusion. In fact, we did 3 times several mistakes at the booking, and where obliged to cance twice. Confusing is the fact of number of persons to book, and is not clear if you book a group of 2 persons or 4 and there is the error made, we cancel twice as I said, but we have been charged 2 times, as one of the cancelations did nor arrived on time. So the surprise, was when we had 2 guides, for 2 persons paying for 4, with no change to cancel or cancel at time. Beside to the conclusion that you can made the tour by your own, you can visit the Bamboo forest by your own, you can visit the town yourself, the guide we finally had, and with no offence ( Moroccan ), we had the feeling that we were in the souk of Marrakesh, as we had to visit every shop, and taste or use a service. As I said, No city tour is needed everywhere in Japan, ther is no need, and unfortunately some guides do fulfil the real service.
Justin was an awesome guide! We had a group of 7 - 5 of them kids including some teens - and Justin was a favorite. He was incredibly responsive before the tour to understand what we wanted to see and where to focus. He showed us some amazing places and was very accommodating whenever we wanted to stop somewhere or stay somewhere longer, he was flexible. He was even there for us after the tour to help us in the days that followed (reservations, recommendations, etc.)
Cici was friendly, very knowledgeable, and set just the right pace for us. The sakura in the Imperial Palace gardens were spectacular!
A very nice gentleman but we were disappointed as his English wasn’t great and it was difficult for us to communicate, we heard other tour guides during our stay here and they were much better communicators. We tried to ask him if he could start our tour earlier but he didn’t understand us so we lost 2 hours in the morning waiting for him
Very fun accelerated tour of Kyoto on a tight timeframe! Taiga did a great job of showing us around and explaining things.
Had a fantastic time with Taibi, who took me though some of the key areas of central Kyoto. I got there a little late but Taibi was also able to accommodate his time to make up for it. This tour was great to do at the start of your visit to help then navigate your way round for the remainder of your visit too.
I book this tour and the guide did not eaven show up…. There is nr you should call but you cant as its answering masine , it’s completely disaster as we made our schedule accordingly and waisted 1 day in our travel…
We were very fortunate to have Hisano guide us around from Nishiki Market to Fushimi Inari shrine and Gion. Hisano is very friendly and cheerful and we have learnt so much about Kyoto from her. Thanks to Hisano for showing us the beautiful Kyoto!
Good Investment of time and money. Kokoro knows a lot about places, history and culture. I would suggest to book two half day tours. There is a lot to see and you do not want to spent to much time on research of bus connections.
Had an amazing tour! Went to many different hobby and anime stores as requested and even got recommendations on some great food to try in the area! Would recommend to anyone!
We were delighted to have Saki as our guide and host in Kyoto. She really gave us a wonderful itinerary and tour which she had carefully considered in advance in order to make the most of our time and to give us a rounded view of so much of what Kyoto has to offer. We loved every minute. Saki was great company and exceptionally attentive, great thanks for all the wonderful memories.
This wonderful tour showed me the highlights of the city of Kyoto in 4 hours. My guide Fauzi created a custom made itinerary to suit my taste and even made an on the spot revisions due to the bad weather that day. Since Kyoto was almost hit by the typhoon, he was such a trooper that he left it up to me to decide whether to proceed or not. Fauzi tried to feel his guest’s needs, so respectful and was so flexible in terms of the pace of the tour. I’m glad I went ahead and experienced this amazing half day tour that gave me beautiful memories of Kyoto. I can’t wait to come back!!
Aira was a fantastic host who met us at our apartment and took us to Kyoto destinations that everyone visiting this City should do. She spoke great English and knew Kyoto inside out. Would thoroughly recommend.
Our half-day with Alexi Tsubasa could not have been better. We had asked her to help us get acquainted with just walking about in Kyoto as well as taking us to shops where we would see the work of some of Kyoto's best artisans. (Great preparation - she emailed us a map in advance of our arrival, pinpointing potential places to visit.) We had a great time, bought several precious items, and had Kyoto's best sukiyaki. But the best part of the entire experience was just meeting Alexi and spending time with her. It immediately felt like we had just arrived in Kyoto and met an old friend who wanted to show us around her hometown. She was a perfect. (She has friends in New York - we're hoping to see her again if she ever comes to visit.!)
My tour guide Justus, took his time with me to make sure we got to visit the places in town that mattered to me. As a solo traveler, it was nice to have someone around to help take pics of you instead of asking strangers.
Thanks Taibi for showing me around on our 3-hour mini-tour! It was a real help to get orientated in a city that otherwise would have been really confusing. And the conversation was as good. Highly recommended!
Emi presented us with very nice sites with very interesting explanations and anecdotes in perfect English. Tennis recommended
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