YES! Yakushima

  We booked 2 tours with YES Yakushima and also used them to arrange a hydrofoil booking and our hotel for one night on Yakushima. Steve was really helpful with arrangements... read more and suggested tours. Our first tour was an island tour during which we drove the whole way around the island taking in the major sites and learning about its history and geography. Our guide, Hiroko, was lovely and taught us so much about the island. The bento lunch provided was great. A shout-out to our driver, JJ, who took photos for us at every opportunity. Our second tour was a 4 hour hike in the Shiratani Forest with Shohei, who was also an excellent guide. The scenery in the forest is fabulous and we had a brilliant time with, again, an excellent lunch. I would recommend anyone thinking of spending time on the island to use YES Yakushima.

  Leave it to Steve! This was one of the best organized trips I've taken and I'm so very grateful to Yes Yakushima for doing all the logistics after I booked... read more our tours with them. We did two tours (A one day hike to the Moss Forest, and a one day island tour). Steve made our ferry arrangements, rain gear rental arrangements, and hotel arrangements, which was an enormous help in planning our trip. He was extremely communicative and provided a lot of hotel options for us to choose from. After a long day of hiking, knowing we had dinner waiting for us at the hotel was so nice!

Both tours were fantastic - the island tour gave me ample opportunities to photograph the Yakushima deer and monkeys, and the scenery was amazing. I was worried about the hike, as I'm a 44 year old woman with a leg that can sometimes be a little weak, but Steve made arrangements for me to have a walking stick, showed me how to use it, and helped me over a few tough spots. I was able to do the whole hike and Steve assured me I wasn't the worst person he's guided over those rocks. :) We couldn't have asked for a better Yakushima experience!

  The tours provided by Steve and his team were not only extremely enjoyable but both guides were clearly very knowledgeable about both the trails and the island of Yakushima... read more as a whole. Furthermore, being picked up directly from the airport on the first day and my hotel on the second allowed me to maximise the short amount of time I had on Yakushima. Definitely recommended for anyone visiting Yakushima for the first time.

  We had an exceptional time with Steve and Hiroko. Both guides were knowledgeable and accommodating to our needs. Definitely will book hikes with them again!

  Loved the guidance and the not too strenuous hike in this wonderland. Steve is knowledgeable and explains about history, botany, and culture really well.

  I did the guided shiShiratani trail (with Steve as my guide) because I wanted to explore the beautiful nature of yakushima. But this tour was much more than that. Steve... read more gave meaning to this hike through the stories about the (cultural) history of the island, of Japan and he also told a lot about the different types of plants, mosses and trees (and animals) that live on the island. He took a lot of time to explain things and look around. I really enjoyed this magical island and I'm guaranteed to come back (and then I want to do a hike with an overnight stay in the woods) I was very inspired by this hike and I can recommend it to anyone who wants to explore Yakushima in a special and in-depth way. Thanks a lot, Steve. It was 100% worth the travel.

  We couldn’t have done this trip without Steve, great help with every aspect and the tour was amazing

  My wife and I had three wonderful days of touring with Steve. We had booked the tours several months ago at the suggestion of the Sankara Hotel, where... read more we were staying. We corresponded about recommended tours and decided on the three that we did as they offered great sites, and were not terribly strenuous. Steve proved to be an excellent guide. He was very knowledgeable in history of the island, it legends and the flora and fauna. His talks were very informative, and he gave the right amount of history, plus added some great stories. Being English, there was no language problem. He had lived on the island for about two decades so he was exceedingly knowledgeable, and spoke Japanese to the locals. The bento lunches were great. In addition, we had asked him to take us to a wood craftsman, which he did, and bought some excellent pieces at about half the price of the almost as nice pieces that they had at the hotel. He also booked our hydrofoil back to The mainland, which was helpful.

  Our group was family, four of us participating in a one day tour of the island with UNESCO forest highlights-focus on the natural beauty and world of Yakushima. We got... read more to know the island through our guide; we saw many monkeys, deer, waterfalls, forest, ocean views, beaches, you name it!

Tour guide Steve was friendly, knowledgeable, flexible, set a great pace, felt I had seen all there was to see within the time allowed.

All in our group were very pleased with all aspects of the guide and tour.

  We used Yes Yakushima for a few things including a full day hike (Yakusugi Land + yamato sugi hike), trial dive for scuba diving (via another vendor), and also to... read more book our rental car on the island. Overall, we had a really good experience and I would recommend them to anyone travelling to the island. Here is where they really stood out:
1) Very quick responses to inquiries about options and things to do
2) Each vendor they used for us -- car rental via Destino and scuba via Kaiolohia were fantastic and we had a great experience.
3) Quality of hiking guide (Steve) - I cant express enough how much we enjoyed our hike with Steve. We did it on our first day and learned so much during our time about the island, the trees, and the flora/fauna. There were so many times we would have normally just walked by something by Steve highlighted it and helped us understand why something was important for the forest. The 7 hour roundtrip flew by and we had a great time just having conversations about Japan, life, etc. Cant recommend this enough.

We have done a few different guided activities in Japan and this was certainly one of our top experiences.