Trip reports were so helpful for me when planning, especially for planning a trip with kids, so here is my report. This is a looooong trip report with a few general tips at the end.
I have three kids (12 year old boy, 10 year old girl, 7 year old girl). We are travelling from California. Kids and husband have never really traveled internationally. We squeezed in a lot in 9 days, but it never felt too rushed. I did a lot of research and planning, and I tried to plan only one or two things per day. I also tried to have a balance between things the kids would like (monkeys, deer, mini pigs, roller coasters) and things my husband and I would like (temples, castles, walking around). My kids ended up liking the temples way more than I expected.
Day 1: The plan: arrive Narita in the evening, get PASMO cards, take Narita Express to Shinagawa station, stay the night at Shinagawa Prince hotel. It all worked out smoothly. The hotel was directly across the street from the train station, which was really nice after a long flight. (In retrospect, we could have paid more to fly into Osaka since the first part of our trip was in Kyoto. It would have saved us from going into Tokyo the first night, then taking a train to Kyoto the next day. But I found a great deal on flights that went in and out of Narita, so it would have been hard to justify an extra couple hundred dollars x five people.)
Day 2: The plan: Shinkansen to Kyoto, Kiyomizu-dera, Ponto-cho. I did not reserve the train beforehand, as I could not get the app to take my American credit card. There are trains every ten minutes or so, but it was hard to find one with 5 seats together. All the trains within the next two hours only had middle seats left. We opted for green car seats (more expensive), which had plenty of open seats on trains leaving within the hour, and seats on the right side so we could see Mount Fuji! After arriving in Kyoto, we dropped off our luggage at our hotel. Then took a very crowded bus to Kiyomizu-dera. Wandered through Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka. This was our first experience in Japan, and the kids loved these streets. We ate food from a few street vendors for lunch. The kids also loved the temple itself. It was afternoon on a weekday, so the streets and temple were crowded enough that you couldn’t get a picture without other people in the shot, but it was not so crowded that you were bumping into other people. The family was too tired for Ponto-cho, so we headed straight back to the hotel. My husband didn’t want to brave the crowded bus, so we took a taxi home. We were asleep by 7pm.
Day 3. The plan: Fushimi Inari, Nara. Everyone was awake at 3am, tried to go back to sleep with various levels of success. Headed to Fushimi Inari around 8am. It was more crowded than I expected for getting their so early, but still not too crowded. The kids were not too impressed with the hike, but I thought it was nice. We then took a train from the station directly to Nara. The kids loved feeding the deer, whereas my husband and I thought it seemed a little like a glorified petting zoo. The deer closer to the train station were much more docile than the ones closer to Todai-ji. Some of those deer were quite aggressive, so I recommend doing the feeding at the first park you reach from the train station. Todai-ji was amazing and was a highlight for my husband and me. The kids were exhausted with all the walking this day, but even in their tired state, they were impressed with it and the giant Buddha. We also saw one tree blooming with cherry blossoms, so that was exciting for everyone. Took a rapid limited express train back to Kyoto (this train required reserved seats, for some reason that I was never able to figure out). Asleep by 7pm.
Day 4: The plan: Arashiyama and Iwatama monkey park in the morning, Ginkaku-ji in the afternoon. This was our last full day in Kyoto, so we shipped all our luggage (except for one small suitcase) to our Tokyo hotel. The staff at our Kyoto hotel took care of all of it for us. We left for Arashiyama around 8am. Not too crowded at the bamboo forest. We hadn’t planned on Tenryu-ji, but it was right there and the kids were excited to see it, so we went. It was so peaceful. The kids loved walking around in socks. I loved the gardens. It started pouring and we did the hike up to the monkey park in the rain. Everyone was crowded into the little indoor hut, so it was a bit chaotic viewing and feeding the monkeys. I would have been fine skipping the entire thing, but my kids thought this was one of the best parts of the trip, so I’m glad we did it. It poured on the walk down, and the walk back to the train station. Ginkaku-ji was vetoed by the family because they didn’t want to walk around in the rain anymore. We went to Nishiki market instead, as it was a straight shot on the train and then indoors after that. This was our first really crowded experience where you were shoulder to shoulder with people. The vibe kind of fit the bustle of the market though, so we still all had fun. My older daughter does not like fish, and she got it in her head that everything had fish in it, so she refused to eat anything from the market. My son, on the other hand, ate all the crazy things he could find. Lots of good food, lots of fun.
Day 5: The plan: train to Himeji in the morning, visit Himeji, then shinkansen to Tokyo in the afternoon, Akihabara. Starting to wake up a little later. Checked out of our Kyoto hotel a little later than planned. Decided to take a shinkansen to Himeji instead of a rapid train to save an hour of travel time. Again, we had a choice between waiting a few hours to get seats together or booking a green car. We opted for a green car again so that we could get on an earlier train. We put our one piece of luggage and 5 backpacks into two storage lockers at the Himeji train station. After our train full of people, most of the lockers were full, so I was glad we got there relatively early (around 9am). By the time we got to the castle, it was closer to 9:30. It was not crowded at all. The kids loved climbing the steep stairs in socks. They enjoyed the castle way more than I expected. We spent about 2 hours total at the castle, then went back to the train station to book a shinkansen for Tokyo. We were able to book regular seats (not green car) and get seats together on the next direct train. By the time we arrived in Tokyo and made our way to our hotel, we were able to check in to our hotel. Our luggage from Kyoto was already in our rooms! We headed to Akihabara to look around. The kids had fun with some crane games until they gave up trying to win anything as they all seemed rigged. We spent way longer than expected at a gachapon place, and enjoyed the neon lights and walking around with the night time bustle of a city. This was our first evening where we were out past dark.
Day 6: The plan: DisneySea! We took a taxi there because public transport would have taken us an hour and we wanted to be there for rope drop. It was an amazing day. We got several priority passes, so we didn’t have to wait in too many lines. The park is so big that it never felt crowded. I vowed to take the train home, but in the end, tiredness won out and we took a taxi. Both taxis were pretty expensive, but it allowed us
Day 7: The plan: rest in the morning, Harajuku, mini pig café, Shibuya, Tokyo Dome City in the evening. This was mostly a rest day. We went to Sushiro in Shinjuku for a late breakfast/early lunch. This was a highlight for everyone in our family. You order all your food on a tablet (in English), and then the food arrives via conveyor belt. Even my daughters who don’t like fish found things to eat and enjoy. There were lots of families, so I never felt worried that my kids were being too loud (which I felt quite often during the rest of the trip). We made our way to Harajuku for a visit to the Mipig “minipig” Cafe. It was a little gross and stinky for me, but the pigs genuinely seemed to enjoy snuggling and being pet. My older daughter had lots of pigs to cuddle and this was her favorite activity of our whole trip. My younger daughter felt left out since not as many pigs cuddled with her, and so she cried about it for the rest of the trip. Murphy’s Law for kids. Afterwards, we planned to explore Harajuku and Takeshita street, but the street was too crowded. (It was a Saturday, so we kind of knew what we were getting into.) Shoulder-to-shoulder tourists and tour groups. The shops were cute but tiny, and it seemed like you could buy those things elsewhere. We had some crepes and then gave up. We went to Shibuya to see the Shibuya crossing and to shop at the Mega Don Quixote. The Don Quixote was packed and the tiny aisles made it hard to shop. My kids wanted to buy everything they saw, and I kind of regretted the whole thing. We bought a bunch of kit kats that were probably over-priced, but it was definitely an experience walking through the shop. (We much more enjoyed a trip to Bic Camera, although I’m not sure if they have the same selection of chocolates and candy). At the end of the day, we headed to Tokyo Dome City because my son wanted to ride the Thunder Dolphin roller coaster. We had checked the schedule a few days before, and it said the roller coaster would be opening that day. I should have checked it again because once we got there, we found out it was closed indefinitely. There was a baseball game about to finish, and we kind of wished we had seen the game instead of gone to Harajuku/Shibuya, but then my older daughter would have missed out on the pigs and my younger daughter would have missed out on crying about the pigs. We ended up doing the smaller roller coaster and going on the Ferris wheel. Some of the Ferris wheel cabins have karaoke, which my younger daughter LOVED. Belting out Taylor Swift into microphones while overlooking the lights of Tokyo skyline is a 7-year old’s dream.
Day 8: The plan: Senso-ji, tea ceremony, Tokyo Skytree. Our last full day in Tokyo. We went to Senso-ji and did some souvenir shopping at Nakemise-dori. It was really crowded, but had a better vibe than Takeshita, so we didn’t mind. The kids liked all the souvenir shops and the temple grounds. Again, I was surprised at how much the kids enjoyed this. We had booked a tea ceremony through Maikoya in the afternoon. This was another huge hit with everyone. All the girls got dressed up in kimonos and had our hair done and my husband and son wore whatever is the male version of a kimono. The staff does a great job of getting everyone dressed (quite a process for the girls!) and looking great. The tea ceremony itself was really nice and educational, and then my daughters wore their kimonos out and we went back to Senso-ji. This was by far the highlight of the whole trip. There were many Japanese teenagers and women wearing kimonos taking pictures at the temple, and my daughters were right there with them. My 10-year old, who is at that awkward self-conscious age said she felt so pretty and confident in her kimono. It sounds cheesy and touristy, but so many Japanese people also were dressed up in kimonos that it actually felt like an authentic Japanese thing to do. After returning the kimonos, we headed to Tokyo Skytree. We had 5pm reservations, so we were able to see the skyline at day and night. The day skyline was fun because we could see some of the places we had visited, but the night view was much prettier and impressive.
Day 9: The plan: check out of hotel, store luggage at Tokyo station, TeamLabs Planets, Narita Express to airport. It was rush hour on the trains in the morning, and it was a bit frenzied with all of us and all our luggage. We got the full smushed-onto-a-train experience. There were plenty of lockers at the Narita Express platform, so that was easy. We squeezed in another visit to a nearby Sushiro to everyone’s delight. Took the train to TeamLab Planets. I didn’t tell the kids much about it, so they had no idea what to expect. They loved each room and the excitement of “what is in the next room?” made it even more fun. Then the train back to Tokyo Station, picked up our luggage and took the Narita Express back to the airport.
General tips.
One of the best things I did before my trip was to look at our hotels on Google street view. This made it really easy to find our way to our hotels. Some streets are actually tiny alleys, so it can be confusing if you just look at the regular google maps. But with street view, you can get an idea of how everything looks beforehand, so you don’t find yourself wandering up and down alleys with your family members and all their pieces of luggage.
Hotels: I did a lot of research. I almost went the Airbnb route, but in the end I opted for hotels that were apartment style. Both our hotels had two separate bedrooms and a separate living room and kitchen with a washing machine. I did a load of laundry almost every night, so we were able to pack light. The kitchens made it easy to eat in for breakfast and some dinners. We had two mishaps on our trip, both of which were resolved by the amazing staff at our hotels. First, my husband left his toiletry bag (with medication) at our first Tokyo hotel. The staff at our Kyoto hotel was able to call the previous hotel, help them locate the bag and then arrange to have it shipped to our Kyoto hotel. They also did all the arranging to have our luggage forwarded ahead to our next hotel in Tokyo. Then, in Tokyo, my daughter left her ipad on the shinkansen. In any other country, I’m sure it would have been lost forever. But the staff at our hotel called the shinkansen lost and found and it was eventually located! None of that would have happened if we had stayed at an Airbnb, or at least, it would have taken a lot more out of our day to get the issues resolved ourselves. Both the hotels we stayed at were affordable and similar in price to Airbnb. We stayed at Glanz KEI Kyoto, which was close to Kyoto station so it was really convenient. In Tokyo we stayed at East Square Tokyo. This was not as centrally located. It was close to a train station, so that was a plus, but some destinations took two trains to reach. Still the hotel itself was wonderful, and I would definitely stay there again. The staff were delightful and added an extra bit of comfort and friendliness to the trip.
Food: Meals were a bit tricky with a family. We woke up early every day, so we did conbinis for breakfast every day. Lunches were mostly street food from vendors, which were delicious and exciting for my son and me, but a little less appealing to my daughters. At touristy spots, it was hard to find restaurants that did not have a wait that could seat five people. By dinner time, we were mostly tired and my kids did not want to wait. So we missed out on some of the smaller more interesting food options that Japan has to offer.
Transportation: Aside from three taxi rides, we used the subway and trains to get everywhere. It was easy with the PASMO cards, and it made the kids feel independent to tap their cards going in and out of the gates. Riding the trains and navigating was part of the daily adventure that we all enjoyed. Google maps is great for public transit in Kyoto. In Tokyo it is good too, but there are always ten different ways to get to where you want to go, so look at all the options Google maps gives you. Some options are way easier (fewer transfers or less walking between transfers), but Google maps will always list the soonest train first, so the first option listed is not necessarily the best. We had a few mixups (like a kid didn’t tap in, so when we went to tap out, the gates wouldn’t open), but there was always a transit official nearby and they are very helpful.
Overall it was an amazing trip and felt like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Japan is a great place to visit for a first international family trip since it is so easy to get around and has so many things to do. It was the first time my kids truly experienced a different culture, so it was a perfect choice.
by smrglivac