Get hosted in Japan — Kyoto mornings, Osaka nights, Fuji days

No. Explera never provides flights, international or domestic, and does not provide rail passes either. You book and pay for your own travel to Japan and between cities unless that transport is part of an included activity. From Rising upwards, we provide a return airport transfer by private licensed vehicle from Haneda, Narita or Kansai, as your itinerary requires.

Hosted tiers start at 150,000 followers on your primary channel — Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or an equivalent blog audience. We look at one channel, not a total across platforms. Under 150k, we still reply and consider a single activity or tour case by case, without hotel or transfers. Above five million, we build the Japan trip with you.

Travel creators aged 18 or over with a primary channel they built themselves, their own blog or website, and a track record of travel content. We verify reach, engagement quality and audience geography, and look at niche fit and past work. Bought followers, engagement pods or undisclosed past sponsorships end the application, whatever the numbers.

Yes. Every applicant needs a blog or website of their own, including creators applying for Spotlight. A social profile or link-in-bio page does not count. We check that the site is live and yours. Your blog carries the pre-trip announcement and the post-trip article with a sponsored link, so the collaboration cannot work without it.

The hotel, return airport transfers and the activities in your agreement are complimentary, at the level your tier sets. You pay for flights, train travel outside included activities, visas, travel insurance and personal extras such as additional drinks, meals outside the plan, spa add-ons, souvenirs and upgrades we have not agreed. There are no cash fees.

From Rising upwards, yes: from one night on Rising to five nights on Authority, with breakfast, at a class that rises with the tier. In Japan the classes are described as "or equivalent", because Japanese hotels and ryokan are not graded on the same star scale as other markets. Spotlight does not include a hotel; Bespoke is built individually.

Every hosted post must be clearly disclosed under the rules of each audience you publish to. For viewers in Japan, the stealth-marketing rules in force since October 2023 mean marking the content as advertising, with 「PR」 or 「広告」 shown clearly at the start. Other audiences have their own rules. The exact wording for your trip is written into your agreement.

After approval and before your first travel day, you publish two announcements: a social post saying you are travelling to Japan with Explera, tagging @expleradmc, and a blog post on your own site linking to the agreed Explera page. You upload the URL and a screenshot of each in the portal, and we verify both before travel.

No. We never script or pre-approve your editorial content. We check only the points in your agreement: the @expleradmc tags, the links, and the disclosure. If you state something factually wrong — a price, an opening arrangement, a safety detail — we may ask you to correct it. Your opinion of the experience is yours to give.

At least three weeks before you want to travel, and allow at least a week between signing the agreement and your first travel day. For cherry-blossom season, Golden Week, Kyoto's autumn-leaf peak or New Year, apply well before that: hotels in Kyoto and Tokyo fill early, and flexible dates make it far easier to say yes.