Top Nagano Day Trips

Our tour guides, Taka and Jake were great at keeping our group organized, entertained and gave clear instructions on where to meet and at what time which I'm sure is challenging with the number of other tour groups there. Would highly recommend Snow Monkey tours if you're planning on going to Tateyama.

We had a wonderful tour with guide, Endo. The pacing was excellent with enough time for the snow monkey park and the cherry blossom viewing without feeling rushed. The lunch was also delicious. I like that they scout out what cherry blossom sight is at peak so it will change on different days.

Taka was an awesome guide and he made sure all our questions were answered. The tour started with Sake tasting, which we did not care for since we do not drink alcohol. Still we made the best of our time there taking pictures in their courtyard which had a lot of cherry blossoms as well as other flowers. Next was the Shinkoji temple, which was pretty nice. There were a lot of other temples and shrines in the complex, which made it interesting. We then drive close to the money park but stopped for lunch before entering. Being vegetarians, we did not have high hopes based on our earlier experiences in Japan, but we're pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food. All is it was very tasty and completely vegetarian as per our request. Of course, the highlight of the tour was the monkey park. There were tons of monkeys around and I'm addition to the hot spring, there was a nice river with small rapids that made for a great backdrop for the photos with the monkeys. The monkeys seen used to humans as they just went about their business ignoring us completely. We got done nice videos of monkeys jumping across the stream and scampering across over a small rope. Overall, we had a lot of fun there. Be advised that it is a1.6km walk from the parking lot to the hot spring. It is mostly flat, but we're muddy. We bought plastic shoe coverings at the gift shop and they were all worth it for the must condition of the trail. We highly recommend this tour for anyone interested in nature and animals.