Japan

Japan's imperial capital for over a thousand years, Kyoto contains 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites — including Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion), Fushimi Inari's 10,000 vermilion torii gates, and Arashiyama's bamboo grove — along with 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines. A private itinerary guided by a scholar of Japanese religion and art transforms these places from sights into a living civilisation.

The world's largest metropolis and one of its most fascinating cities, Tokyo is a place of extraordinary contrasts — ancient Senso-ji temple and the neon-lit Shibuya crossing, a 200-year-old sake brewery and the world's most advanced cuisine. Exploring its distinct neighbourhoods — Yanaka's Edo-era streetscape, Shimokitazawa's vintage culture, Tsukiji's fish market at dawn — requires guidance and curiosity in equal measure.

Japan's iconic dormant volcano and national symbol, Fuji-san at 3,776 metres is the country's highest peak and one of the most photographed mountains in the world. Hakone, the classic viewpoint in the national park to the east, offers ryokan retreats, open-air museums, and the Owakudani volcanic valley where Fuji's reflection appears in Lake Ashi on clear mornings.

The A-Bomb Dome — the skeletal iron frame of the Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the only structure left standing near the epicentre of the world's first atomic bomb attack in August 1945 — is a UNESCO World Heritage site of profound significance. The Peace Memorial Museum and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park create a space of reflection and commitment to nuclear abolition that no visitor to Japan should miss.

Japan's first permanent capital and home to some of the country's oldest Buddhist temples, Nara is famous above all for its population of over 1,200 freely roaming sika deer, considered sacred messengers of the gods, which bow to receive biscuits from visitors throughout the vast Nara Park. Todai-ji — the world's largest wooden structure, housing a 15-metre bronze Buddha — is one of Japan's most impressive buildings.

The island of Kyushu produces more hot spring water than anywhere in the world outside Iceland, and Beppu's 'Hells' — brightly coloured boiling pools of azure blue, blood red, and grey mud — are among Japan's most extraordinary geological phenomena. The nearby village of Yufuin, where traditional ryokan inns sit among rice fields beneath the volcanic peak of Yufu-dake, offers one of Japan's finest onsen-town experiences.