Hello,
Long time lurker, first time poster. First and foremost: apologies in advance for any misspell and thanks to all the sub for the precious information. This whole sub has been vital in the long hours of planning.
I’ve patched up a rough itinerary for our 2 or so week stay this next late september/early october. We’ll be traveling as a group of 5 males in our thirties, moderately fit, general interests are manga, anime, video game, food. For all of us it is going to be the first time in Japan and I more or less planned the whole thing myself asking for their feedback along the way.
Being the first time in Japan I tried to fit in all the usual places I’ve seen in a lot of other itineraries, narrowing down to the ones I felt were must see. Of course this is a rough sketch, if we find something interesting to see while wandering around we might end up skipping some of the points of interest noted down for the various days. My main concern is figuring out if what I’ve planned is actually doable day by day or if some of those are over packed. We won’t be getting the JR pass since I assume it’s not the best option anymore (for our itinerary at least) after the price increase last year.
The lunch/dinner in the itinerary are just to give a general idea of the timeframe for the day, marked some places I’d really like to try out in the itinerary, have a list of pins from various recommendation in the thread but for the most part we’ll follow our noses I guess ahah.
**Day 1 – Arrival**
Flying from Rome and arriving at Haneda late morning, doing the usual airport stuff, getting SUICA and an eSim. Was considering buying an eSim plan before departure, when I checked the sub this last spring while planning Ubigi seemed to be the most common, but from what I’ve gathered recently the option of buying an eSim directly at the airport is a viable choice, correct?.
Travel to our hotel, as I said I still have to book anything but the idea is looking for one in the Shinjuku area. Assuming we’ll arrive at the hotel in the afternoon and having no idea how bad the jet lag will be I’ve planned nothing for the day. Once we check in we might just wander around the neighborhood, eat something and go to sleep early.
**Day 2 – Tokyo – Harajuku + Shibuya**
\- Meiji Shrine
\- Takeshita Street Square
\- lunch – Omotesando Hills, at A Happy Pancake
\- Shibuya Parco (mainly for the Nintendo Store and Jump Shop)
\- Shibuya Scramble Crossing
\- Hachikō Memorial Statue
\- dinner – Shibuya Nonbei Yokocho
\- Taito Station
**Day 3 – Tokyo – Asakusa + Akihabara**
\- Sensō-ji
\- Nakamise-dori Street
\- Kaminarimon Gate
\- If time allows it check out either Kappabashi Dougu Street or Tokyo Skytree (I’ll get the ticket before in case)
\- lunch
\- Mandarake Complex
\- Akihabara Radio Kaikan
\- dinner – Eorzea Cafe (need to make a reservation a month before)
\- GiGO Akihabara 3
**Day 4 – Tokyo – Ikebukuro + Shinjuku**
\- Sunshine City
\- lunch – Sōsakumen Kōbō Nakiryū for lunch ideally, but it all depends on how much time we’re gonna spend in Sunshine City, might as well end up having lunch somewhere in there since the queue tend to be really long for Nakiryu
\- ARTNIA Square Enix
\- Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden
\- Suga Jinja (this is mostly for the Your Name staircase near there)
\- dinner – Omoide Yokochō
\- Golden Gai
\- Check out the Hotel Gracery Shinjuku and then wander around
**Day 5 – Tokyo – Odaiba**
\- Sengakuji Temple
\- Odaiba Seaside Park
\- lunch
\- DiverCity Tokyo Plaza
Haven’t planned anything really for the evening since the following day will be a traveling heavy one. The idea is to send via Takkyubin (with some help from the hotel reception I hope) our luggage from the hotel in Shinjuku to the one we are gonna stay while in Kyoto (day 8 to day 11).
**Day 6 – Kamakura**
\- Check out from the hotel, for the next couple days we’ll be traveling light with just a backpack
\- Go to Shinjuku Station at the Odakyu Sightseeing Service Center to buy the Hakone Kamakura pass, then take the direct train to Enoshima. The pass itself, as far as I’ve gathered, should cover most part of the transportation fee for the next couple days as far as the Kamakura/Hakone part of the trip is concerned (do you need to “activate” this kind of pass before using it like the JR one?). I’ve read around that it’s probably better to get some help at a station counter to buy the Shinkansen ticket the first time (to get from Odawara to Kyoto). Can we get it a couple of days in advance somewhere here in Shinjuku Station?
\- Enoshima
\- lunch
\- Kamakurakōkō-Mae Station, what can I say, to this day Slam Dunk is still my favorite manga of all time. I need to get that profile pic with a train passing, ahah.
Depending on time will have to check in now, ideally we’ll be staying in some AirBnB in the area for the night, still have to look it up but if the time and the place allow it we’ll check the next 2 location, otherwise fit them the next day or skip
\- Hokokuji Temple
\- Tsurugaoka Hachimangu
\- dinner
**Day 7 – Hakone**
\- Check out from the AirBnB
\- Kotoku-in
\- Hasedera
\- lunch – somewhere then catch the train to Hakone, if I got it right there should be one from Fujisawa to Sagami-Ono and from there to Odawara, the train line should be name Odakyu and the aforementioned pass should cover the fare
\- Hakone-Open-Air-Museum
If there’s time check out Choanji but most likely will end up going to the Ryokan (want to find one in Gora) and take it easy there taking a bath before dinner
\-dinner
**Day 8 – last part of the Hakone loop – travel to Kyoto**
\- Owakudani
\- Lake Ashinoko
\- Hakone Shrine
\- lunch
From here to actually getting to Kyoto would take 4 or so hours, still have to figure out the minute detail but we should be boarding the Shinkansen at Odawara station if I got it right. Depending on the time of arrival we’ll see if check in now or later, the idea is to stay in a hotel/ryokan in the eastern part of Kyoto (where we hope to find our luggage previously sent here on day 5), we’ll need some more help to ship our luggage from here back to Tokyo at the last hotel. As for the Kamakura part, depending on the time we might check out the next 2 location or postpone/skip them
\- Heian Shrine
\- Nishiki Market
\- dinner – at Kichi Kichi Omurice if we can get a reservation
**Day 9 – Kyoto East**
\- Yasaka Shrine
\- Kodai-ji
\- lunch
\- Ryozen Kannon
\- Ninenzaka
\- Sannenzaka
\- dinner
\- Gion
**Day 10 – Kyoto West**
\- Arashiyama Bamboo Forest super early to try and avoid the crowd
\- Monkey Park Iwatayama
\- Tenryu-ji
\- Ryōan-ji
\- lunch
\- Kinkaku-ji, then depending on various factor such as time, tiredness and being templed out we might skip the next 2 and just move over to the Pontocho area
\- Genkō-an Temple
\- Shōden-ji Temple
\- dinner – Pontocho
**Day 11 – day trip to Nara**
\- Tōdai-ji
\- Nara Park
\- Kasuga Taisha
\- Nakatanidou
\- lunch
\- Kofuku-ji
\- Higashimuki Shopping Street
\- Horyuji Temple if we have enough time since the plan would be to get back to Kyoto and visit:
\- Fushimi Inari Taisha , how feasible is it to visit in the late afternoon/evening? Is it even possible, do you need a torchlight? Don’t plan on reaching the top of course since we’ll be pretty tired by now. If this is possible the idea would be to get as far up as we feel like then going back down, eat something at a konbini and head back to the hotel. Have to figure out the timing to send back our heavy luggage from the Kyoto hotel to the last hotel we’ll be staying in Tokyo before departure. For the next couple day is back to backpack.
\- dinner
**Day 12 – Osaka**
\- Check out from the Kyoto hotel, depending on where we’ll be staying in Osaka (probably at some AirBnB) I’ll figure out when to check in but the plan of the day would be to visit:
\- Shinsekai
\- Tsutenkaku
\- Nipponbashi Denden Town
\- lunch
\- Super Potato
\- Kuromon Market
\- Amerikamura; but then again this is a rough sketch and depending on the time some of those can be postponed to the next day
\- dinner – Dotonbori
**Day 13 – day trip to Himeji/Kobe**
This one is a bit of a wild card since I’ll probably detach myself from the group to get a tattoo, for the rest of the group I laid out some ideas: the most likely one being a trip to Himeji castle with a stop on the way back in Kobe (for the beef, yeah).
**Day 14 – Tokyo – Ghibli museum + Nakano**
We move back to Tokyo for the last part of the trip, still have to figure out the are for the last hotel but I was considering somewhere near the itinerary for the next day (Chiyoda/minato area). Ideally we’ll be catching one of the earliest rides of the Shinkansen. The idea for the day would be visiting:
\- Inokashira Park
\- lunch
\- Ghibli Museum
\- Nakano Broadway
\- JOJO-style bar DIO
\- dinner
everything depends on if we can get the ticket for Ghibli museum on this day and which time slot (from what I’ve gathered they go on sale on the 10th of the previous month, right?). We might have to switch this day with another one from the first part of the trip or the next one depending on what we can get.
**Day 15 – Tokyo – Chiyoda + Minato**
\- Tsukiji Outer Market ealy in the morning
\- Kokyo Gaien National Garden, check out the Imperial Palace (just from outside, no tour)
\- Pokémon Center Tokyo DX
\- lunch
\- Cafe de l’ambre
\- Zojo-ji
\- Tokyo Tower
\- dinner
**Day 16 – departure**
Depending on the time of the flight we might just go to the airport or end up getting some last minute souvenirs