Hi friends! I’ve been eagerly doing my research till I got to the point where I felt comfortable fine tuning my itinerary to post here, and hope that you might correct me on any thing that seems too crowded, or perhaps some additional suggestions that might pertain to our interests!
For context, this will be my (F, 26) and my boyfriends (M, 32) first time in Japan, and this has been a long dream coming to fruition that got pushed back again and again since the pandemic happened, our current flights are for end of May (18th) but we are prepared to move it back till September – if we have to move it further, we’ll eye cherry blossoms in 2023. That being said, we weren’t particularly picky about festivals, more interested in good weather & fair prices! But if anyone does know of a cool festival going on during this time do let me know!
I’m rambling. Our interests are history, anime, video games, food & drink. We’re bartenders, so we appreciate good night life. I tried to balance all the highlights & some of the more niche things we’re into – so please give me all your input!
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Day 1 – Travel from NY–>Toronto–>Narita (Landing on Day 2)
Day 2 – Land at 3:45, pick up our JR Pass (7 days, not activating till we leave Tokyo), getting a SUICA or PASMO card (Does it matter which?) and the 72 hour subway passes before heading to our hotel Sunroute Plaza right next to Shinjuku Station. I thought staying in Shinjuku both next to the largest train station would be good for sight seeing, as well as if we go out late in Kabukichio we won’t worry about missing the train. Once we check in, if we are tired we will grab a quick dinner in the hotel and rest. If not, I think starting in Roppongi, where it seems a lot of expats/foreign geared places are, would be a good jumping off point.
Day 3 – Sleep in, then hit a conbini for some togo breakfast for a picnic in Shinjuku Gyoen. From there head to Meiji Jingu, through Yoyogi and on to Harajuku. After spending the afternoon there, head back to grab dinner & bar hop through Kabukichio & Golden Gai
Day 4 – Tokyo Station, on the way to the Imperial Palace for a tour. Head down to Tokyo Tower & get lunch somewhere with a view of it (Suggestions?), head over to Zozoji Temple to see the 47 Ronin. Down to Ebisu to try Miharu Ebisu restaurant, then walk off the meal to head to Shibuya. Do the starbucks, see Hachiko statue, shop a bit then head up to Shibuya Sky for the light show, sunset, and hammock hanging.
Day 5 – Take the train to Tokyo Dome City, snap some pics then backtrack to the cobble stone streets of Kagurazaka for shopping & lunch at Agezuki. From there head to Akihabara. Mandarake / Super Potato / Square Enix Cafe / Theme Cafes / Kyourakutei / Tokyo Anime Center / TAITO, etc. Planning on spending however long this area needs.
Day 6 – This is a day of transit, to Kyoto. I want to stop in Yokohama to see china town, but it seems very out of the way. Is this possible, and then still be able to do a Geisha dinner in the evening in Kyoto after getting settled?
Day 7 – Early hike to Fushimi Inari, then head to Gion for a geisha/samurai lesson & dress experience. Walk the philosophers path, then head home to change for dinner & go to Nishiki Market & Potoncho for dinner.
Day 8 – Kinkaku-Ji & (hopefully) the Arashiyama bamboo forest before catching a train to Nara to feed the deer & see todaji. Head to Osaka at night.
Day 9 – Universal Studios Japan, primarily for Nintendo World. Dinner in Kobe and strolling the waterfront before heading back to Osaka.
Day 10 – Himeji castle, grab some Japanese Mcdonalds, head back to Osaka. Do Amerika-mura & Dotonburi.
Day 11 – Train to Hakone. Stay in hotel with open air bath & onsen. Relax.
Day 12 – Do the Hakone open air museum in the morning before heading up to Lake Kawaguchiko. Eat Houto Noodles for dinner, soak in hot spring before bed.
Day 13 – Head to Fuji Q Highland park, both for Naruto’s hidden leaf experience & for some of the most extreme coasters in the world. At night, try to see views from Fuji 5th station/Panormaic Ropeway, grab dinner & walk around the lake in the evening.
(If we have to move this to September, we will likely add a day here to climb Mt Fuji)
Day 14 – Head out early to return to Tokyo, then the Ghibli museum. See Inokashira Park, and grab lunch/dinner in Kichijoji
Day 15 – Head to Odaiba. Hopefully teamlab borderless will open a new exhibit or extend its run time. I hear planets is not closing, regardless I would like to do this in the morning, before heading to the giant gundam & riding Daikanransha. After that we would do Mari/Street Kart, the gokarting loop, over the rainbow bridge. If we didnt go to Roppongi night 1, we could go this day, or head to maybe Ginza or Ueno and see the nightlife there.
Day 16 – Edo tokyo museum, then Nakamise shopping street & Sensoji. Head to Hoppy St for happy hour, then the Sky Tree for dinner. If we still have energy, we’d like to see either the New York Bar (lost in translation) or another jazz type bar.
Day 17 – this is a day to backtrack to our favorite locations, or see some places we may have missed (Ginza for classy lunches & architecture, Ueno Zoo, Pokemon Center, etc)
Day 18 & 19 – these are extra days before traveling home that we could do a few things with. We could fly to Sapporo to see the chocolate factory & sapporo brewery, but both times we’re hoping to go seem very out of season for Sapporo?
We have also lorded the idea of going all the way to Hiroshima, or adding a day in Lake Kawaguchiko to climb Fuji if in season. The other option is also of course to stay in Tokyo, where I’m sure we could do a pleathora of things we haven’t yet (Spa Laqua, Tokyo Dome City, Ikebukuro etc), or maybe we need to add a day to Kyoto/Osaka region? Or other worth while day trips from Tokyo I may be overlooking?
We fly out on Day 20, from Tokyo.
Please let me know what you think! I’ve been trying to view all the other itineraries here, but I think ours is a little off the beaten path at parts. I am concerned about the travel days, but we’re also very active people who don’t like to waste time, especially on a trip like this. Tell me if I’m being unrealistic! And thank you all so much for your help & reading through this.
18 comments
Do not exchange the JR Pass at the airport (especially if there is a line), do it another day before you start using it.
Suica and Pasmo are basically the same, however, if you plan to get the 72h subway pass, then get as Pasmo, so you can load the pass on the card instead of getting an extra ticket (you cannot load it on Suica). You can see it at the bottom of this page [https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/ticket/travel/](https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/ticket/travel/)
If you think about going to bar/izakaya late, then yes Shinjuku is a good area. The fact it is a big station also have a drawback is that it can be more confusing than a small station and it can take more time to reach the platform. If you feel good on the first night, go get a dring in Shinjuku, there is no reason to go to Roppongi.
I would suggest to go to Roppongi Hills Mori Tower instead of Tokyo Tower, you can go on the room, the is an art museum and you have a view on Tokyo Tower.
The grave of the 47 ronin is at Sengaku-ji, not Zojo-ji.
Kinkaku-ji and Arashiyama in a day is fine, but forget Nara, you will not have time.Kinkaku-ji open at 9am and Todai-ji close at 5pm. So you have 8h to do everything. At least 45 minutes to move from Kinkaku-ji to Arashiyama, just over 1h30 to move from Arashiyama to Nara, 30 min to walk the 2.5km between Nara station and Todai-ji, add 30 minutes to eat.. This mean that close to half of the time you have to visit would be spent… not visiting.
Karting is obnoxious and dangerous, but I guess it’s useless to tell people who think it’s cool.
Edo-Tokyo Museum will be close for renovation. Tokyo National Museum in Ueno is a nice history museum too.
Instead of going to Sapporo, I would add a day in Kansai so you would go on the first day of the pass and reach Hakone on the last day. This would give you a day to properly go to Nara for example.
Around Tokyo there is also a lot of day trip options like Kamakura, Nikko, Kawagoe. If you want to check a beer breweries, there is factory tour in different places, like Suntory in Kyoto and Musashino, Yebisu beer museum in Tokyo, Kirin in Yokohama, Asahi in Kanagawa, Sapporo in Chiba.
I think that in general you have a lot each day. Even if you are active, what will happen is that you will be in one location for 5 minutes, take a picture and move to the next location. Instead, just take your time to enjoy your surrounding, It’s ok if you drop things mid-day because there is too much. If you see your itinerary as a checklist of things you MUST see, it will be exhausting. Just take your time to discover things that are
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Sorry to disappoint you but I think this is not off the beaten path at all, about everything is quite mainstream and among the most visited places. You might have one or two less common things at best. But this is not a problem, if it’s what you want to do, it’s ok.
This isnt specifically itinerary-based feedback, but avoid the JR Pass until day 6. Most of the places you mentioned aren’t even accessible with JR. You will be able to get around with the metro and other subway lines/operators. And you’re right, it doesnt matter which IC card you get (Suica or Pasmo), both can be used nationwide and won’t offer any benefits to you over the other.
For one of your free days, have you considered stepped slightly off the beaten tourism path and going to locations like Niigata or Kanazawa?
Niigata – [https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g298120-Niigata_Niigata_Prefecture_Koshinetsu_Chubu-Vacations.html](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g298120-Niigata_Niigata_Prefecture_Koshinetsu_Chubu-Vacations.html)
Kanazawa – [tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g298115-Kanazawa_Ishikawa_Prefecture_Hokuriku_Chubu-Vacations.html](https://tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g298115-Kanazawa_Ishikawa_Prefecture_Hokuriku_Chubu-Vacations.html)
Either one are accessible by a direct shinkensen from Tokyo in about 2 hours. Either one are great for day trips and to see a slightly less touristy side of Japan.
(If you need any ideas for Niigata, please let me know!)
It looks pretty good to me!
One suggestion in regards to your day 9 and 10 – Kobe is on the way back from Himeji, so I think it’d make more sense to visit Kobe and Himeji on the same day, and just staying in Osaka after USJ.
For Kyoto, I would skip the Golden Temple and would do kiyomizu dera instead. It’s much more jaw-dropping.
The bamboo forest is not huge and easily very crowded.
For universal studios Japan definitely check out TDR Explorer for some tips. Hard to say what it will be like then, especially because your trip may get pushed back, but as of right now, I believe there is no guarantee you will get entry to Nintendo world. You do need to read up on that process beforehand in case it’s still a lottery timed entry system.
What time zone are you coming from? It’s pretty common for folks to find that they’re not able to do as much in a day as they normally could because of jet lag. As someone else mentioned, a lot of historical places close at 430 or 5pm daily. You might feel tired at 7:00 p.m. because of the jet lag. You might wake up at 4:00 a.m. and realize there’s nothing really open to do that early.
>Day 2 – I thought staying in Shinjuku both next to the largest train station would be good for sight seeing, as well as if we go out late in Kabukichio we won’t worry about missing the train.
Do manage your expectations of hotels, especially within the cities. They can be rather cosy (read: tiny) because real estate is very precious in Japan. But staying in Shinjuku is a good choice because it is one of the main interchange stations within Tokyo. Yamanote Line is going to be a line you’ll be taking regularly.
>Day 4 – see Hachiko statue, shop
I would suggest you spend as LITTLE time here as possible. It’s disappointing. The last time I went there, it was a gathering spot for smokers.
>Day 6 – This is a day of transit, to Kyoto. I want to stop in Yokohama to see china town, but it seems very out of the way. Is this possible, and then still be able to do a Geisha dinner in the evening in Kyoto after getting settled?
You can do Yokohama in your final two days. Its more of a day trip.
>Day 7 – Early hike to Fushimi Inari, then head to Gion for a geisha/samurai lesson & dress experience. Walk the philosophers path, then head home to change for dinner & go to Nishiki Market & Potoncho for dinner.
Most of the shops would have already close for the day in the evening. Potoncho might be your best bet.
>Day 8 – Kinkaku-Ji & (hopefully) the Arashiyama bamboo forest before catching a train to Nara to feed the deer & see todaji. Head to Osaka at night.
Kinkaku-ji does not have a train station nearby and requires you to take a bus. I would suggest you do Arashiyama in the morning, then head to Kinkakuji instead of the other way round.
>Day 9 – Universal Studios Japan, primarily for Nintendo World. Dinner in Kobe and strolling the waterfront before heading back to Osaka.
I wouldn’t do dinner in Kobe. I can’t imagine spending close to an hour to get there after a full day at the theme park.
>Day 12 – Do the Hakone open air museum in the morning before heading up to Lake Kawaguchiko. Eat Houto Noodles for dinner, soak in hot spring before bed.
Schedule in a soak before breakfast too!
I find that certain parts of your itinerary is a little too ambitious for a first-timer to Japan.
Day 2: Roppongi is not particularly desirable area to stay, even if you are interested in nightlife. Shinjuku makes much more sense as there at least plenty of good eateries/restaurants around for every price point.
Day 3: Frankly, you are more likely to be up early than late on the morning following your arrival, so probably that picnic would be in Yoyogi Park. Also note that Harajuku (particularly Takeshita-dori) gets stupidly crowded after school hours, so if you are looking to have a nice experiences, getting there in the late morning would make more sense.
Day 4: Skip the Imperial Palace tour – it takes you just through outer part of the complex. 47 Ronin are associated with Sengakuji and not Zozoji.
Day 5: Unless you are visiting particular experience in Tokyo Dome – it’s utterly skippable. Personally, I would skip Kagurazaka and visit either Ameya Yokocho or Jimbocho for shopping depending on your interests.
Day 7: Nishiki Market will be mostly closed by dinner time (the association shops close between 4-6 pm).
Day 8: This would be a very rushed day considering that Arashiyama is 1 hour+ from Kinkakuji, and Todaiji is almost 2 hours away from central part of Arashiyama.
Day 13: Fuji-Q Highland, Fuji 5th Station and walk around Lake Kawaguchi in the evening on the same day is downright impossible (well, without renting a car anyway).
Day 15: Teamlab Borderless will not extend its run time – due to particularities of Japanese law the lease on the land cannot be extended.
Day 17: Ueno Zoo is perfectly skippable, especially if you care for the welfare of the animals.
Sapporo: I wouldn’t go to the city in early-mid April, however, both late May and September are perfectly reasonable times to visit, even if there are no major events.
I love reading your plans. It gives me fresh eyes and renewed appreciation for Japan. I hope you have an awesome time here. I know you will.
I’ve only been twice, but maybe there might be something helpful buried in my reply..
First, I wanted to point out that after buying a suica card, I quickly realized I could use my iPhone as a contactless suica card. There was either a prompt if you held it by the reader, or some other prompt in the Wallet app, but it was very easy to set up. It was great to never need to go to a machine to fill it up with money, I could just do it via my phone. It’s super helpful to be using phone with service to do this. I was using Tmobile at the time, so there was free 2G international data, which was plenty fast enough for tiny financial transactions like this. It should be possible to use it even without roaming data, you’d just need to figure out how to get it to prompt you to add the suica card while you were on your hotel’s wifi. I’m sure Android must have a similar recourse.
Second point was more about the density. I felt like, despite the comprehensive transit, it took surprisingly long to get anywhere. Even if you are from NYC (not just flying from NY, but a NYC resident who is super familiar with all things MTA), familiarizing yourself with the peculiarities of Tokyo’s transit system will add some overhead to your travels. And just like MTA and Amtrak are different, once you head outside Tokyo, things are similarly different, so there’ll be more acclimatization time needed to make sure you’re not making mistakes.
Also, the larger stations are pretty bedazzling in their own right. Similar to Penn Station’s giant food court stretches, but of course everything is going to be way more interesting because it’s different. The JR stations (and maybe others), particularly larger ones, can have amazing [Ekiben](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekiben) selections. I could easily lose 10-15 minutes just picking one out.. These are mostly sold only in the ticketed areas, beyond the turnstyles.
So, between transit-figuring-out and just being fascinating in and of themselves, the stations can easily siphon away many minutes. 10 here, 20 there, heck, even an hour, maybe.. Grabbing something delicious, or maybe puzzling over a train schedule as you miss the next train. If it’s a single platform station with nothing in it, then..yeah, that’ll be quick! Just make sure you’re going in the right direction.
This is all pretty typical for foreign country travel, though. So long as your schedule is built to be resilient, where you can drop stuff as needed, it won’t be a big deal. I’d just make sure to figure out which items are your absolute priorities, so you can ensure you get those checked off the list. Of course, you may barely have any “absolutes”. I think when I first went, I only had one: the Park Hyatt in Tokyo (since I’d just recently seen Lost in Translation). The second time I went, I had 3 high-priority items only: stay at a traditional Ryokan (booked that months in advance), Ghibli museum (thought I had that booked a month in advance, but still almost screwed it up; kinda complicated. If you’re trying to do this, mention it and I can explain), and see the Imperial New Years address (I made a big post about there [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/eigw93/any_tips_for_getting_into_imperial_palace_for_new/), but it’s only relevant if you’re there in early January or on the Emperor’s Birthday in Feb, so it’s out of the picture unless you get pushed back that far)
Your trip is very packed and detailed. Being realistic, especially with the time lag, having everything in Japanese (if you aren’t speaking the language fluently), errors that occur along the way (getting lost in the train, bus, etc.) I think you’ll be able to do maybe half the stuff you want to do, if you want to properly enjoy everything without rushing off to the next thing like you’re doing work. If you’re super energetic, you might be able to do 3/4 but for instance most things you mention close around 4-5pm (especially public attractions). A lot of the events are also probably going to be extremely packed (public attractions, universal, dinner) and you’ll probably be spending 1-2 hours kind of waiting/getting from one place to another if they aren’t all reservations (which is realistically impossible). Specifically a place like Nara park (I’m from Nara) you can spend hours and hours at the park and the hill (small hike) mt wakakusa. Every place you mention I personally spent 3-6 hours at least (getting there, being around the area, etc.) — kinkakuji, around Kyoto station, Nara, Hakone (2 museums, not even including onsen), kabukicho/bars, shibuya shopping, Yokohama stroll. You get the idea.
Love the idea of the planning. Definitely think it’s wayyy to detailed. I would go to the places you want to go, write down the attractions you want to go in order of importance, and try and go through as many as possible, while understanding some places you might want to stay longer, etc. Good food will also require heavy planning, and a lot of places don’t accept reservations. Might need to be at good restaurants 30 min+ in advance to guarantee entry, especially depending on the time of day.
Star Club in Tokyo is a Nintendo themed bar. You can play Nintendo games and drink themed drinks. Awesome.
I had to laugh, your day 3 itinerary is IDENTICAL to the first full day I spent in Tokyo. Checkout Champion bar in Golden Gai, say hi to Masa 😂
As a first timer, definately stay in Shinjuku over Roppongi. Shinjuku just had more variety of attractions, and has a billion different transport connections (vs Roppongi which is mainly served by the metro). If you really want to be in the thick of the night life, stay in Kabuki-cho itself… e.g Hotel Gracery (the one with the life size Godzilla). Hotel Sunroute Plaza is at the southern, quieter end of Shinjuku.
If you guys like anime, you should go to Nakano Broadway on your Ghibli museum day, it’s an easy stop on the same train line. Its more geared to second hand and vintage anime and video games, versus the more modern stuff in Akihabara. Also visit Gundam Base when in Odaiba… it’s a mix of Gundam store and Gunpla museum.
I would definitely recommend visiting Hiroshima. It’s my favourite city in Japan, both in terms of history, and food (I will admit Osaka food is better in general, but Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is my fav Japanese dish). It’s best done as 1-2 day stay, but you could do it as a day trip too.
I would suggest giving Hokkaido a miss this time. Sapporo itself is good to visit, but many attractions are in the smaller towns. You’ll need more that a couple of days to do it justice.
I’m not sure if the flights are available to you or not, but you can save a travel day by flying into Kansai, then out of Tokyo. That’s usually also cheaper; a one way Osaka to Tokyo Shinkansen trip is cheaper than a 7 day JR pass.
>Day 3 – Sleep in,
FYI going from the US to Japan, jet lag will cause you to go to sleep pretty early (not unlikely you find yourself exhausted by 9 PM) and wake up pretty early (like 4 AM).
Take that into consideration and revise your schedules somewhat with that in mind.
Sorry to say, mackers (mcd’s) in other countries still sucks. Went with Aussies and mixed euro and they all hated it.
Mr Donut I got nearly every day. Watch out on 711 bentos, the fish will go bad by the time you get to lunch. Gorilla curry is worth the find. Milk tea is great, real shame they don’t have it in the US.
Just catching up on this sub. If at all possible with refunds and rescheduling, do yourselves the favor and fly direct. Don’t do Air Canada. I’m not at all opposed to connecting to get cost down — in fact, I don’t regret the layovers (outbound a hectic 1h, return we had to spend the night) in China we did to get a $350 fair some years ago, but I’ve done the Air Canada thing twice and both have been awful. Just swallow the cost to fly Japan Airlines or ANA directly, preferably to HND. You will be so much more relaxed upon arrival. The layover and the trip from NRT will not only take up a lot of time themselves, but will also make you exhausted and you’ll need time to recover after arrival.
Also, sakura season is pricey and high traffic, especially in the Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto tourist triangle. Don’t underestimate Japanese efficiency and ingenuity around bad weather. We’ve had amazing trips during rainy season and in the winter time, the only season I didn’t much care for was hot+humid mid-summer before the rainy season.
If you want to be efficient, use luggage forwarding. Don’t schlep 20 days worth of luggage around with you. You definitely haven’t packed too much in your itinerary, you e.g. reserved an entire travel day for TYO-KYO (a short shinkansen ride). That said, Sapporo is ways away from your current itinerary.
I would cut out yoyogi park as it’s just a park. Download suica on your phones that way you can load them instantly and don’t have to worry about a physical card. Download smartex app for the Shinkansen. I worry that you’re cramming a lot of things into a day and not realizing that you have to travel between places. Even in Tokyo it can take anywhere from an hour to 90mins to get to the next place. Obviously once you get here you’ll fine tune what it is you really must do and see. As for Starbucks get there early! Like 6am.. they open at 7 and there’s normally anywhere from an hour to 3 hour wait. Cherry blossom season is over as of this upcoming week, so looking at your dates they won’t be in bloom. Also you can see Tokyo tower almost anywhere in Tokyo I didn’t see Asakusa on your list, but it is most definitely a must do as well. Keep an eye on teamlabs they say they’re closing or relocating, but they’ve said this once already it’s tentative to close in august.
Edit to add: I would definitely choose borderless over planets it has way more to offer.
Just curious what was your budget for this trip set at sorry if it was in the post and I missed it.