Our team at Inside Japan Tours

The sun never sets on the InsideJapan Tours team (well, maybe on Sundays) as we have offices in Bristol (UK), Broomfield, (USA), Brisbane (Australia) and Nagoya (Japan). On this page you can meet the people behind our Japan holidays and tours.

We have a wide range of backgrounds and interests, but you can be sure that the one thing that ties us all together is a love of Japan, Japanese culture and a passionate desire to share that with other people.

From the accounts department, through the travel consultant teams to the tour leaders and guides on the ground, you can rest assured that everything we do is to make sure you have the best possible experience of Japan.

Tim Oakes
Australia Branch Manager
Email: [email protected]
Location (Brisbane, Australia)

Originally from Hobart, Tasmania, Tim has spent most of his life in Japan and Brisbane. As head of our Australian office, it's his job to ensure that everything's fair dinkum down under!

Tim's interest in Japan was sparked by a childhood friend from Hiroshima, who gave him his first introduction to a world where people think about others before themselves. Hooked, Tim headed out to Japan on a year's scholarship in 2000, living with a host family in Kitakyushu and commuting to work by bicycle. He would return again for another year interning for a Japanese automotive parts manufacturer in Yokohama (during which he retired each night to a room the size of a small bathroom), before spending two years working as a coordinator of international relations at the Gifu Prefectural Government in Japan.

From here Tim moved into the tourism industry in Australia, where he led Japanese-language bus tours of Victoria, and managed an international student tour company in Melbourne. He joined us in 2016 for the launch of our Brisbane office, an exciting event in the history of InsideJapan!

On his visits back to Japan, Tim enjoys exploring new towns and trails and seeking out his favourite snack: bontan ame (mandarin-flavoured sweets with an edible wrapper). In his spare time, he plays the violin in a chamber ensemble, enjoys beach volleyball and netball, and spends an inordinate amount of time on fantasy football.

Relive a favourite moment in Japan...

Oda Nobunaga Festival

At the Oda Nobunaga festival in Gifu City, I paraded through the city on horseback to the cheers of a Japanese crowd, dressed as a Portuguese missionary! A gust of wind swept my missonary hat clean off my head as I was introduced to the crowd, and a small Japanese grandma politely rushed out at high speed to pick it up and hand it back to me.