Private and Custom Tour of Japan | Kamikochi

Aug 11 | Evan | No Comments |

After short stay in Tokyo, the private (hiking) tour of Japan would continue onto one of my favorite places in Japan, Kamikochi.  Kamikochi is located in Nagano Prefecture and is only open from April through October and can only be accessed by bus or taxi, not private car.  It’s a great place to escape the crowds of Japan and get in touch with nature.  Though nature is about all that there is in Kamikochi and they intend to keep it that way with their five rules, or as I like to say, the Kamikochi Five (nice ring to it).

Basically, you aren’t allowed to feed the wild animals, you cannot take anything away from or bring any foreign species into Kamikochi, you cannot litter and keep on the paths.  Speaking of the paths, they are mostly flat either raised wood, dirt or gravel.  Easy to walk for all ages.

Kamikochi really is a photographer’s and perhaps hiker’s dream.  For this private tour of Japan, we stayed in Kamikochi for 2 nights, but easily could have stayed longer to take more photos of the mountains, lakes and streams as well as exploring by foot the natural surroundings.  While we stayed on the flat terrain, as that was enough hiking for us, there are more challenging paths up the mountains.

And did I mention there are monkeys?  Monkeys always make for some interesting observing and photographic opportunities!  A few more monkey photos from our private tour in Kamikochi and then a gallery of more monkeys and a few photos of Kamikochi.