Hey all!
Going to Kyoto for 4 days and Tokyo for 5 in mid-May and want to understand the best areas to stay.
I’ve been to Tokyo before, staying a bit outside the “”center”” near Nerima. To be fair, since you’ll be getting on subways no matter what, I don’t think the specific area you stay in in Tokyo matters much, maybe with the exception for nightlife, but happy to be proven wrong. I’m thinking either Shinjuku or Shibuya but again, I think there’s not really a lot of wrong options. WDYT?
For Kyoto I’m a bit more lost – I’ve heard that anywhere near the train station is recommended but happy to hear other opinions and whys/why nots
Thanks!
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by Bazdor
2 comments
Hotel Granvia in Kyoto. It’s at Kyoto station.
Agreed that it doesn’t much matter in Tokyo.
In Kyoto it depends a bit. The public transit there is pretty rough (mainly buses that are never on time, at least that was my experience in peak season, it might get better in other months) and the subway there is bizarrely underdeveloped. I’d probably recommend staying near Gion just so you can easily get there early in the morning to avoid the crowds. Even during peak season things really emptied out at night when all the day trippers went back to Osaka, so it shouldn’t be too loud at night around there in case you were worried.
Unfortunately though, Arashyama, The Golden Pavilion, The Imperial Palace, Gion, and Fushimi Inari are all fairly far from each other so you can’t really be truly “central”