The Tourist Information Center provides essential maps and orientation, however many visitors prefer having local insight built directly into their exploration. Nagano Experience is a locally based company, partnered with the information center and the Nagano Tourism Association offering a different approach to discovering the city and its surroundings.
The Tourist Information Center
Step off the shinkansen at JR Nagano Station and, before you even leave the building, there is a resource worth knowing about. The Nagano City Tourist Information Center sits on the station’s east–west free passage, directly across from the Midori no Madoguchi ticket office, near the elevator. Open daily from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, it is positioned exactly where travelers need it: between the platforms and the city beyond.
Staff answer questions about Nagano City and the surrounding areas, help decode bus schedules, and offer practical advice for your stay in Nagano from navigating Nagano’s streets to planning the route to Jigokudani’s snow monkeys. English-speaking staff are available, and the center maintains a foreign currency exchange machine for visitors arriving with international cash.
The center also offers wheelchair rentals (reserve by phone at +8126-226-5626 due to limited availability), and the currency exchange machine handles twelve currencies, including US dollars, euros, Chinese yuan, and Korean won. It is a practical detail for international visitors who have not yet sorted their yen.
Planning Your Nagano Experience
Rather than navigating temple districts and historical sites entirely on your own, our guided experiences provide cultural context that turns a walk through Zenkoji’s grounds into an introduction to why this temple has drawn pilgrims for fourteen centuries. Our samurai experience goes beyond swinging a sword to explain the philosophy and discipline behind the practice. These are not staged performances, but chances to connect with living traditions through people who work with them every day.
As a locally based operation, Nagano Experience keeps group sizes manageable and paces tours to allow time for questions, photographs, and genuine curiosity. It is the kind of service that comes from being small enough to adapt to what interests you most.
When you stop at the Nagano City Tourist Information Center, look for our Nagano Experience flyers in the racks or ask the staff where to find them. Picking one up while you collect maps and advice is an easy way to see which tours fit your schedule and how you might spend your time in and around Nagano.
Page Top