Anemix

Many times goodwill guides are retirees. We took some “free” tours in and around Tokyo and Osaka. Some free tour guides are very knowledgeable and some are not. We had a very nice gentleman as a goodwill guide in Kamakura. He was polite and friendly, but we understood less than 10% of what he said. He had a huge English vocabulary, but his sentences just didn’t make much sense. The other “localized free tours” we took were with two different individuals who where bilingual. Both of them (one in Tokyo and the other in Osaka) had lived several years in the states. Both were very knowledgeable and entertaining. Even though they were “free” tours, it was clear they expected a nice tip. One of them, spent a good time letting us know he left his technical career to become a tour guide, and then covid happened, etc. Of course, we didn’t mind tipping them well because they earned their tip. I just mention this because you read everywhere you are not supposed to tip in Japan. It’s true in restaurants, hair salons, massage places, etc. However, this is slowly changing. Specially, when dealing with tourism and foreigners. Some of the private “free” localized tours were created specifically for foreigners and with tips in mind. The “free” tours organized by the cities/towns are run by volunteers (mostly retirees). I have been living in Japan since 2016–still doing some “tourism” in this beautiful country, and my observations might be a bit different from locals.