What‘s Included

Meeting and Pickup

What To Expect

Reviews

• Highly recommend contacting Hosokawa-san to guide you to all the major sites.

  rufc4s,

  Jul 11, 2025

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  4.00

  I arranged a private city tour or Wakayama with Hosokawa-san. She is flexible with the times and meeting point to start the tour. She is also fluent in English and Japanese. She is well versed in all the details and history of the attractions in the areas we visited. We toured the city via public buses. As this was my first visit to Wakayama I would not have been able to view the attractions without her assistance. I would highly recommend contacting her if you want a private guided tour of this city.

• Very informative

  Demetrios W,

  Apr 17, 2025

  - Review from Viator

  5.00

  Our guide was very friendly and knowledgeable about the area and quite patient with us. It was a great time and would highly recommend.

• Personal Wakayama Tour

  roz,

  Mar 21, 2025

  - Review from Viator

  4.00

  Our tour guide was flexible and very accommodating. She was very knowledgeable about the sites we saw as well as history of the area and Japan. She took us to a grocery and prepared foods store in the basement of a department store. It was very enjoyable.

• Memorable and fun experience

  O5096EFchrisf,

  Mar 13, 2025

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  5.00

  Noriko was very friendly and knowledgeable about the area. I was able to experience many things that I would not have been able to without her expertise. Wakayama was well worth the trip. It was very beautiful, rich in history, and a nice change of pace compared to the bigger cities.

  

  

  

  

  

• Best Wakayama area tour guide

  Justin b,

  Nov 10, 2024

  - Review from Viator

  5.00

  Noriko is the best! If you are going to the Wakayama region I don’t think you will find a better tour guide. She went out of her way to help us have a great experience!

• Enjoyable city tour.

  Goldie M,

  Oct 29, 2024

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  5.00

  Noriko was an excellent guide. Very knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. An enjoyable tour as she was able to tailor make the tour to suit my interest. She knew the best places to take a photo. She even took pictures and forwarded to me. Highly recommend this guide.

• Quiet and tranquil Wakayama

  Lindsey Y,

  Oct 12, 2024

  - Review from Viator

  5.00

  It was a very relaxing tour. Our guide, Noriko was very friendly and explained very clearly the history of the places we visited. 👍. Noriko also recommended very good tuna sushi when we visited Kuroshio Fish Market. Overall we had an enjoyable time.

• An amazing day.! Thanks to Noriko!

  dawnmarieu2018,

  Jul 26, 2024

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  5.00

  We cannot recommend Noriko enough. We would give 10 stars if we could! We had an amazing experience due to her dedication and helpfulness. Here is our incredible story of how one tour guide, in a single day, can create an experience that changes your life. We booked a tour of Wakayama with the hope that we would see some of the area in which my husbands family came from, nearly 100 years ago. At the time of booking all we knew was the Wakayama area. As the tour time grew nearer we realized that his family came from an area that was 1 hour away from Wakayama. Noriko kindly investigated the address where the family came from and found that the address no longer existed but suggested that we go to the area and see if anyone remembers the family. As we started our day, armed with just the knowledge of the general area, Noriko interviewed the local inhabitants we came across, every person providing a new clue. One person had a book with the family name in it, another person told us that they bought the family land and combined two lots to build their home, and another told us of a ceremony today at the temple to celebrate the dead, where they throw rice cakes and asked if we would like to join them. As we arrive to the temple for the ceremony the monk was in the middle of his dissertation and we are encouraged to sit with the congregation. After the ceremony Noriko asks if we could speak to the congregation where she tells our story and why we are there. At that point a woman speaks up and tells us that she is the person that tends our family’s grave! WOW!!! We immediately go and find the grave to our immense joy. We met the family who lives on the land my husbands family lived on. We met the son of the monk who held our grandfather’s internment service. We met the woman who has been tending the gravesite. To say our experience was anything less than magical would be understating it and Noriko made it all happen. I cannot express our gratitude fully for all she did and would recommend her services to anyone.

  

  

• A wonderful day with an excellent guide

  Linda C,

  Jun 9, 2024

  - Review from Viator

  5.00

  I booked this private city tour with Noriko, who is a national licensed guide, and it turned out to be one of the highlights of my several weeks in Japan. I didn’t really know much about Wakayama City before I arrived, and the research I had done seemed to indicate there was not that much to do in and around the city (other than hiking the Kumano Kodo or going to Koyasan). Well, Noriko soon turned that perception on its head. As others have said, she is a top notch guide, and she has a wealth of knowledge about Wakayama City and the greater Wakayama area. If she had her way, everyone would come to visit Wakayama City to discover its charms! Some weeks in advance of our tour, Noriko contacted me to find out what specifically I might be interested in, so that she could tailor our 6-hour walking tour to that. I will say that she couldn’t have chosen a more perfect itinerary than the one she created for me. It covered all the things we had discussed and then some, as well as including some of Wakayama’s "regular" sightseeing spots. We saw Wakayama Castle, where she filled me in on its footprint plus many historical and little-known facts about the various castle structures themselves and the historical personages who built and lived in it. We went to several beautiful gardens, including Momiji-dani and Yosui-en, and to a number of shrines, both large and small, including the amazing Kishu Toshogu Shrine with its 108 very steep steps. I won’t name all the places we saw and things we did (because this review would then be twice as long!). Noriko was very generous with her time (both on and off tour). I’m certain she allowed our tour to go significantly longer than its scheduled 6 hours, and I enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I ended up booking another day tour with her to go to Koyasan a couple of days later. It turned out Noriko is also a foodie - she appreciates delicious eats and knows great spots to get them. The restaurant she chose for our lunch break during this tour was a retro gem with the most delicious fresh fish you could ask for. Do take her suggestions if you plan to stop for a meal. Noriko is friendly, lively, immensely well-informed about the places she takes her customers, helpful in all kinds of situations, and fluent in English. You can’t go wrong with her tours. Highly recommended.

• Wakayama private tour with Noriko and car service

  JennyY329,

  Mar 28, 2024

  - Review from Tripadvisor

  5.00

  Noriko is an amazing guide. She was very communicative from the day I made reservations for the tour. We took a private day tour in Wakayama for 4 adults and a 4-years old child. We were picked up by Noriko and her driver at the Princess Diamond embankment port. Our itinerary was revised several times as I received updates from the cruise line regarding the timing of embarkment. Noriko was patient throughout the process. During the tour, she was well prepared as she gave us insights into the building of Wakayama Castle, the fish market, and the Tama station master and their trains. The tour was wonderfully planned and Noriko is very knowledgeable. She is a local resident of Wakayama and very passionate about her city. She is also very quick to help solve a shoe accident I had while on the tour. We needed to detour to purchase a replacement and she was able to once again work out an updated itinerary on the spot.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
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