[Josh Grisdale]

Hi!

The only tours I have been on are individual tours – so, a tour, but only with me. They have tended to be more expensive.

I think transportation is the biggest “extra” expense. I have traveled around Japan a lot and when going to smaller cities/towns I need to hire a car/taxi and they charge so much – even more than a regular taxi. For example, I used a taxi for only about 3 hours in a small city for an airport transfer and to one tourist site and they charged nearly the same as the airfare to get to the city!

So, while the hotel/guide would be equivalent, the transport really adds to the cost. If a tour provider is offering enough accessible tours, than they can likely bring down their cost to the same as others. But some places don’t get enough business so they try to make up for it by charging more I think…