This is the writeup I wish I had found as I was planning my trip. There was limited information on winter travel in Japan and most of the itineraries I found seemed copy pasted by some AI bot. So here ya go.
For context, we are two 30 something Americans and our main interests are the outdoors, architecture, food and engineering. We are not anime people and we wanted to skip most of the pop-culture and instagram-specific attractions. I have traveled fairly extensively in Europe and SE Asia, my partner had never traveled internationally for fun before. Neither of us speak any japanese beyond “hello, thank you and excuse me.” It was fine and easy to get around.
**Timing:** We chose winter based on our desire to go powder-skiing in Hokkaido. And now that we’ve gone, I’m thrilled with our timing. The weather in Tokyo and Kyoto was pleasant, 20F-50F or so and the crowds were so manageable. We got to go see all the popular locations in every city without major consideration for beating the crowds. We waited in a couple lines, but it’s nothing compared to what I’ve heard about spring and summer crowds. I would have loved to see more greenery, but honestly the gardens were lovely even in the winter and the plum trees were already starting to blossom. And seeing Hokkaido in the winter was stunning.
**Travel Style:** We love walking a lot and following our noses to whatever looks interesting. I hate feeling rushed or constrained by too many pre-booked things, so I had a loose itinerary of options in each city and I had pre-booked hotels and one or two reservations or experiences that were worth being constrained about. Otherwise, we just chose our activities based on the weather and what got us excited. It usually meant that we did one major experience per day ( a museum or specific place) and otherwise enjoyed what we found along the way.
**Boring Logistics:**
**Cell Service:** we did two things. My partner bought international data through T-mobile and we rented a pocket wifi at the airport from Ninja wifi (booked on klook and picked up at arrivals in Terminal 1 at Narita). That way we could split up and both still have coverage. Google maps (with preloaded favorite pins) and google translate for image translation were what we used the most.
**Trains:** We did not buy the JR pass and it would not have saved us money. I used Suica on my iphone (Pasmo would have been fine too) and reloaded it 1,000 yen at a time as needed. If you have Android, you’ll need a physical card which you can only buy right outside the airport right now. It’s called a Pasmo Passport pass or something. Otherwise, due to a chip shortage, they are not available elsewhere. The cards can be reloaded at any train or metro station and can be used on most trains, vending machines and conbinis. FYI, you scan your ticket as you get on AND off the train and are charged according to distance traveled. If you have a paper ticket for an express or shinkansen train, you still have to scan it at the end to prove that you rode to the stop you purchased. If you miss your stop, you’ll have to pay the difference in fare. The only tickets we had to buy at a ticket machine rather than scan a card were “rapid express” for rides to/from the airport or shinkansens. Be aware, the last metro train is usually around midnight and taxis are expensive.
**Money:** We had a credit card with no foreign transaction fees and a debit card with low cost foreign withdrawals. We just made withdrawals straight from ATMS at the airport and at convenience stores, never had any trouble. Protip: Call your cards before you leave home and put a travel alert on them for the dates you’re gone so you don’t get shut down for being flagged for “unusual activity.” Cash and coins were what we used for all purchases under $20 or 3,000 Yen. Easiest way for me to remember the conversion was $7 for 1,000 Yen. Buy a coin purse (and a hand towel for sinks) when you get there. I had no issue using my credit card for train tickets, expensive dinners and things in touristy areas.
**Budget:** Honestly I didn’t keep close track. We did not treat this as a budget trip. . But in general, most things were on par or slightly cheaper than they would be in a medium-high COL city in the US. And cheap, wonderful food was easy to find. Hotels and shinkansen tickets were the biggest overall costs.
**Luggage:** We used Yamato transport to move our big ski luggage around and it was cheap and reliable. Getting huge luggage through transit would have been miserable. We dropped it off straight from the airport and it was waiting for us when we went skiing. Then we dropped it off after skiing and it was waiting at the airport. They’ll hold luggage up to 7 days, so it worked perfectly.
We did pack an empty, packable duffle bag at the beginning of the trip and we filled it with souvenirs in our last two cities before we left. It was nice to know I had space to get treasures if I found them, which I did. Best things I bought were yukatas (casual kimono robes for around the house), ceramic ware, and printed fabrics that I can hang on the wall.
**Clothing:**
For the non-skiing portion of the trip, I brought: 2 pairs leggings, 2 pairs pants, 4 base layer tops, 1 windproof fleece and 1 packable down jacket and I was fine, if a bit frumpy. I bought a warm sweater dress at Uniqlo and it became my favorite for cold days. FYI, tops are very conservative in Japan and I would have felt very out of place with anything below my collarbone showing. Most ladies in Japan had knee length winter jackets on and they looked comfy, if a bit overwarm. Laundry was easy enough to access at hotels. I usually wore a warm hat, a brimmed hat or sunglasses and none of the local women wore any of those which surprised me.
**Food and Drink:** In general, it was so easy to find great food using my standard travel checklist:
1. Is the place busy enough?
2. Does it smell good?
3. Are most of the people eating there local?
Favorite foods that are better than at home: Uni (Sea urchin), fish eggs, barbequed eel, yuba tofu skin, amazing sichuan food and mapo tofu, chicken hearts, lumpfish liver, a million mushrooms and seaweed. Japanese food in general lets the food speak for itself and does not rely heavily on seasoning or spice. The textures were unique and super interesting (Apparently the japanese language has 200 or more words for food textures compared to English having 50 or so) We were glad to be adventurous eaters, we have no idea what most of our favorite things were. You could survive Japan if you were a chicken nuggets and pizza person but it would be a darn waste. We also really enjoyed being in a dense city with so many diverse options. I had the best mapo tofu of my life and some truly excellent thai food too.
Order the sours at the bar. It’s club soda and gin and a little fruit flavoring. Cheap and refreshing and I LOVED them. Highballs and Chuhai too. All wonderful and a nice break from beer.
**Itinerary:** I’m not going to do a line by line itinerary for each city, but I’ll list our favorites and general impressions.
**Tokyo :**
4.5 days Total between the start and end of the trip and it was the right amount of time.
Stayed in Asakusa near Senso-Ji Temple and we enjoyed that part of town, though it was a 50 minute train ride to Shinjuku and other more modern parts of town. I would stay there again. It was older, shorter buildings and more sleepy than Shinjuku, but there was still plenty of nightlife.
Highlights: Tokyo National Museum for art and history (3 hours) , tokyo skytree ( 2ish hours depending on lines) , a night out on Hoppy Dori at a lively izakaya, Meiji Temple (2 hours, lots of walking) and DanDan noodles at Akai Kujira. We found it accidentally and it was one of my favorite meals. I also really enjoyed the Yushukan War Museum. I’ve listened and read a fair bit about WW2 in the Pacific and it was really fascinating to read the Japanese take on it all. I wish I had more than 2 hours there to absorb the history and detail. I’m amazed I’ve never seen it recommended here. It is controversial, as naturally it is the nationalistic, pro-Japan view on things. It glosses over major events like the Nanjing Massacre and other war atrocities but it was still fascinating to read a less US-centric take on the war than any I have previously read.
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Lowlights: Honestly, shibuya crossing was meh for me, as was the whole shibuya area, maybe we were there at the wrong time. Shinjuku was lively and bright, but I didn’t need to stay long. I’m so glad we skipped any theme parks or instagram places like Teamlabs. I’m sure they’re fine, but not our thing.
**Minakami:** 2 days and it was enough time.
We stayed at Takaragawa Onsen and it was a lovely, old wooden ryokan that provides set dinner and breakfast. It is off on its own and the only way to leave there is either the shuttle bus to town or the local bus. No walking (apparently there’s bear danger, plus the hotel takes your shoes when you check in). It was relaxing and borderline boring for my partner. He took off and took the bus to a small, local ski hill and had a great day.
I would come back to Minakami in the summer for mountain/hiking activities and I would go again on a winter trip as the snow around the onsen was beautiful.
**Hakodate:**1 night and I would have liked one more day
We took the train here and it was a surprisingly charming town. We loved the industrial, brick feel around and how different and spacious Hokkaido felt compared to Tokyo.
Highlights: The cable car to the top of the mountain was fun, though the view is frequently foggy. We loved our indonesian dinner at Ready Made, a few blocks off the main drag. Breakfast at the seafood market was also excellent.
Lowlights: The restaurants by the brick warehouses by the waterfront felt very tourist trappy and I’m glad we skipped them.
We then rented a car for the rest of our time in Hokkaido. Toyota rent a car allows you to return the car somewhere other than where it’s picked up and they had good snow tire and 4wd options (which were crucial). We had International Drivers Permits that they did check (you just take your drivers license to AAA before your trip to get the permit). The driving was sporty and I would not recommend renting a car if you are not comfortable in extreme snowy conditions. The roads had a constant layer of snow and ice and it took major attention for us, even though we drive mountain roads all the time. The nav system in the car worked well and we loved that it told us the toll amount before we got to toll booths so we could gather our change properly.
**Makkari/Niseko** 3.5 days and it was about right.
The snow started falling right before we got there and did not let up for more than 15 minutes. We got something like 2’ on top of their already considerable base. We had a shared rental house in Makkari with some friends which was a nice break from hotels. In general, this part of Japan felt more like a snowy outpost of Australia than Japan. All the signs were in English, and most businesses were catering to english-speaking tourists. Niseko was a dense but small ski town, Makkari was a little town 30 minutes away at the foot of Mt. Yotei.
Ski specific info: Niseko United is really four adjacent but poorly connected resorts. You can only ski between them if the upper mountain lifts are open which is not guaranteed. We stuck to Grand Hirafu and Hanazono mostly for harder blues (reds) and trees. The trees were so different than our pine forests at home and I loved the open space between them. Visibility was genuinely awful due to the blowing snow and it was no more than 10-15 feet at times. The snow quality was excellent and even though we were there on a weekend, the crowds were no worse than a regular weekend at home.
We did rent skis, and since we planned to do a mix of front-country and back country, we got touring skis at Niseko 343. Most other rental shops did not offer touring options so I’m glad we found them. You could also rent beacon, shovel, probe and even snow pants, though we mostly brought our own stuff. Bring your own boots if you want them to fit well, they had limited options for bigger sizes.
I took a ski lesson so that I could practice powder skills that I can’t normally learn at home and I honestly wish I had done it a day sooner. It helped me dial in my powder technique AND, more importantly, it gave me a great tour of the less crowded, perfect trees that I would not have found on my own. I’m so used to skiing my own home mountain that I didn’t realize how much it sucks to find your way around a new resort, especially one with lackluster signage.
Get travel insurance, especially if you’re skiing. One of our friends on the trip broke his tib/fib in the backcountry and had to fly home for surgery and that would suck even more without travel insurance.
**Sapporo** 2 nights and it was enough
We went mostly for the snow festival, which was cool but did not need more than a day. The city in general is a very new city, developed in 1850ish and it felt very different from other Japanese cities we visited. It took us awhile to realize that half the lively parts of the city are in the underground tunnels. Sometimes the streets felt dead and it was because everyone was inside. My normal system for finding good restaurants did not work since I couldn’t see which ones were busy from the street. I should have done better research before I got there. I wish I had been there on a day when the art museum and exhibit on urban planning was open. I also am sad we missed Ramen Alley. I would go back here on a winter trip, but I wouldn’t stay for long.
We returned our car on our first night in Sapporo and we were so glad to be done with it. I would hate to have to manage car logistics in any of the cities.
We flew out on a JAL flight to Osaka.
**Kyoto** 4 Nights, which was good
We took a train straight to Kyoto and stayed in the Gion district, which we loved. It had old buildings and narrow streets and easy access to the metro and we loved crossing the river every morning.
Highlights: Our favorite day started early at the arashiama temple and bamboo grove( not too crowded since it was off season, but absolutely not worth it if it were in busy season. There is other bamboo out there), followed by paddling in the river (touristy but we’re boat people and paddled far enough upriver to avoid the chaos) and hiking up to the monkey park. I’m skeptical of zoo things in Asia, but the monkeys are totally free range and the only cage is for people who want to feed the monkeys, which you can easily skip. We loved watching the family dynamics among the monkeys and the view from the top was pretty stunning. We also found our favorite mapo tofu afterward at Arashiama Brother Tofu. I wish I could eat here 3x a week.
We also took a worthwhile kintsugi class (ceramic repair with lacquer and gold dust).
Next time I want to make reservations to go to the Moss Temple (SaihoJi? ) , but it was closed for restoration
Lowlights: Fushimi Inari was a cool temple but the conveyor belt of tiktokers and tourists drove me nuts and I bailed onto a forest trail as soon as I could to go find birds and bamboo. I would only do it again if it were night time and if I wanted to kill 2 hours.
**Nara** was a daytrip and I was totally underwhelmed. I’ve seen deer, they’re cute, they’re not worth two cumulative hours on a train about. I had also hired a walking guide hoping to learn more about temple architecture but unfortunately she didn’t know the right details or vocabulary for my questions. Next time I’ll have to research a more niche tour for woodworking and architecture. It was way too much time on a train and the whole town felt like a tourist trap.
**Osaka** 2 nights, wanted more
We stayed in Nippombashi, 10 minutes or so outside of Dotonburi. Immediately near our hotel was a bunch of anime stores and maid cafes, I would stay elsewhere next time.
Highlights: Hands down the Osaka Aquarium. We spent 5 hours there and I would have stayed longer if I could. Buy your tickets for your time slot early or at least when you get off the train and you can probably skip the lines and waiting to get in. The whale sharks were mesmerizing and I couldn’t get enough of watching penguins and puffins swim underwater. It was a beautifully designed building and if I lived in Osaka I would go once a week. We stayed until 8pm close and it was cool watching the animals go to sleep. Then we went to the big ferris wheel afterward and there was no line. 10/10.
The next day we went to the Osaka Museum of HIstory, which had a cool view of the Osaka Castle and it was worth an hour or two. Walking under the castle was also lovely and worth bringing a picnic. Getting into the castle itself was crowded and not worth it at all, none of the finishes inside were castley anyway. It was a glorified stairwell.
Lowlights: Takoyaki was mostly just wet and fried. Hard meh. Dotonburi in general was lively and hard to decipher between truly good food and overhyped tiktok recs.
I would love another 3 days in Osaka to get to know the city better and there are tons of good daytrip options nearby. We were also sad to miss a car factory museum that we passed on our train ride out of town.
We took the train to Tokyo for one night and flew home. It was nice to have a little breather in Tokyo to reflect on the trip before the long flight home. I should have bought more food as gifts for people.
**Conclusions:**
Japan was one of the easiest and most rewarding places I’ve traveled, I never got bored and I have a long list of things I want to go back to do. Next time I go back, I’d like to go to smaller towns in a warmer season and to build in more time with local artisans to learn about their craft or find a specific architecture/woodcraft tour.
by InvoluntaryEyeroll