Tablet Trips combine expert-led, artisanal travel adventures with elevated stays at some of our most soul-stirring hotels. Here are the places you’ll enjoy on our trip to Japan.
Tablet Trips are here. These once-in-a-lifetime journeys immerse you in a destination through excursions and activities rarely available to visitors, while setting aside time so you can relax and enjoy a selection of experiences at unforgettable hotels — all curated through Tablet’s singular lens.
We’re starting with five trips:
Puglia
Provence
Patagonia
Japan
Morocco
What makes our trips special — other than the unique daily itineraries and small groups — are the hotel stays. Tablet Trips features smaller, more exceptional hotels not usually found on these types of travels. These thought-provoking properties are as much a part of the overall story as anything else on the itinerary. Best of all, the trip schedule is never overstuffed. You’ll be busy, but we’ve built in free time at the hotels so you can take a moment to detach, unwind, and explore.
THE JAPAN TRIP:
In pursuit of perfection: craftsmanship, art, design, and delightful small hotels
On this journey through Tokyo, the Hokuriku region, and Kyoto, explore Japan’s cultural pursuit of perfection with the chefs and artists who practice it—all while staying in small, distinctively Japanese hotels. Then, during an optional excursion to Naoshima, stay at a hotel that doubles as a world-class museum while exploring Kagawa’s spectacular “art islands.”
In Tokyo, we’ll go behind the scenes of the studios, galleries, and hidden shops that sustain the city’s creative culture. From there, a bullet train carries us into the Hokuriku region, where traditional crafts remain deeply embedded in daily life. For some, the journey concludes in Kyoto, where centuries-old hospitality traditions reveal another dimension of Japanese artistry. For those joining the optional post-trip extension, Naoshima’s Benesse House is an art-lover’s fantasy brought to life.
Learn more about the Tablet Trip to Japan. Learn more about the featured hotels below.
Think of Shibuya and you probably imagine one of the busiest intersections in the world, but Trunk Hotel stands at the edge of the verdant Yoyogi Park, affording its rooftop pool and lounge — and many of its rooms and suites — views of urban forest rather than city streets. Then again the interiors are spectacular in their own right, a thoughtful mix of Japanese and Danish influences and a tour de force of exacting craftsmanship. The rooms and suites are all impressive, many with balconies, and the Owner’s Suite, with its indoor-outdoor bathroom, is one of the finest rooms in all of Tokyo. Don’t miss the restaurant, the painstakingly authentic Pizzeria e Trattoria L’Ombelico.
The Beniya Mukayu experience is exactly what you’d expect from a good ryokan, while the clean lines and simple materials of modernist architecture, as well as some thoughtful, contemporary site-specific artworks, seem more like a natural evolution of traditional Japanese design than any kind of break with the past. That classic experience means a serene immersion in a tranquil natural setting, along with a more literal immersion in the onsen baths — there’s a private outdoor hot spring bath attached to every room — as well as a lavish multi-course kaiseki dinner. This place is tranquil to an almost comical degree; a library features volumes cataloging the property’s varieties of vegetation and mosses.
Just a short trip from Nijō Castle and the Imperial Palace, THE HIRAMATSU Kyoto embodies the city’s sense of living tradition in every detail. It’s a faithfully restored kyo-michaya — two-story wooden townhomes renowned for their exquisite joinery — that blends time-honored structural technique with contemporary amenities and furnishings. Dark wood and Edo-style wallpaper share the stage with refined Danish seating and smart lighting treatments. Lead highlight walls acquire graceful patinas as they age, transformed with every visit, and the garden arrangements (in some rooms, plus the building’s main interior garden) lend a sophisticated air to even a simple breakfast.
Located on a tiny, isolated island in the Inland Sea, Benesse House is essentially a collaboration between the billionaire art collector Soichiro Fukutake and the Pritzker prize–winning architect Tadao Ando, with major works and site-specific installations by everyone from Jackson Pollock to James Turrell. And it’s clearly been built for love of art, not profit; no budget-conscious hotelier would splash out for five Monet water lilies — to say nothing of their backdrop, a gorgeous Giverny-inspired garden. Even if not for the art, to sleep in a subtly luxurious Ando-designed hotel room, on a verdant, lost-in-time-feeling island, would be a treat in and of itself. But when you add the opportunity to literally spend a night at the museum, contemplating pieces by contemporary masters in virtual solitude, it’s like no other hotel experience out there.
WHAT ARE TABLET TRIPS?
Tablet Trips are curated journeys for boutique hotel lovers. With your specialist trip leader and a small group of Tablet travelers, you’ll meet artisans, insiders, and luminaries to learn about the local culture, with an emphasis on architecture, design, craft, cooking, and cuisine. Then, our unique spin on trips: stays at hotels that tell an essential part of the story, located in the neighborhoods and natural surroundings you came all this way to see.
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