Hello everyone!
My gf and I will be going to Japan very soon (after the golden week concludes). Really looking forward to it. I’d love to hear your suggestions or ideas regarding our travel plan. This is the first time travelling to Japan for us and the first time we’ve planned such a big journey either.
For the most part we’re more interested in the culture, the beautiful traditional towns and japanese nature rather than the bustling cities.
For transportation we’ve booked the JR Pass for 14 days.
We both speak English. I’ve taken a Japanse course for 3 years, though due to time constraints I had to stop last year – I’ve become quite rusty!
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**Day 1: Arrival in Tokyo Haneda**
We’ll arrive in Tokyo at 10:30 P.M. so all we do is hurry to the airport hotel right near our gate. I’ll write them in the upcoming days, in case we don’t make it in time before the checkin closes. Hopefully this won’t be too much of a problem.
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**Day 2-3: Tokyo**
We plan to spend 2 days proper in Tokyo. Our thought process was: If this vacation turns out great, it’s likely we’ll come back to Japan sooner rather than later. And everytime we return we’ll probably come through Tokyo again for another couple of days, so we don’t need to spend that much time here this time around, and don’t need to see everything the city has to offer right away.
That being said, On day 2 we wanted to explore around Harajuku, while day 3 would be focussed on Asakusa (including a visit to theater dancing show, and a trip to a vegan gyoza restaurant).
For day 2-3 we booked an affordable hotel in Shibuya.
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**Day 4: Tokyo to Hakone, Day 5-6 Hakone**
On Day 4 we’ll take the shinkansen to Hakone. Here our accomodation will be a traditional ryokan with a private onsen, lovely looking place.
Besides that we haven’t really planned these few days out in much detail. We’ll be looking to do some relaxed hiking, likely to check out the volcanic area, the beautiful lake (perhaps on a sightseeing boat?) and the surrounding trails and nature. In case of poor weather we could fall back on spending more time in the public onsens of the area – though we do both have tattoos, which might make visiting public onsens difficult, I suppose?
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**Day 7 Hakone to Nagoya, Day 8 Daytrip to Shirakawa-Go**
This leg of the journey is the one I’m a bit sceptical about still – though I’m also excited for it! I’d be glad to hear some feedback.
So we’ll move from Hakone to Nagoya on Day 7. Perhaps we’ll check out the castle, and maybe stock up on some supplies for the following day.
On Day 8 we’d like to make a day trip to Shirakawa-Go. I’ve found some organized trips on Get Your Guide, but I’d rather explore the beautiful village in my own pace, so we’d likely just take a bus there from Nagoya, with an estimated travel duration of 2,5h either way.
We’ve been contemplating to skip Nagoya (and shirakawa-go) alltogether and move to Kyoto earlier, but on the other hand I’ve been wanting to visit Shirakawa-Go for a while now – and the route via Nagoya seems like the best way to make that happen. Still feeling a bit undecided!
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**Day 8 Nagoya to Kyoto, Day 9 – 14 Kyoto**
The thing we we’re looking forward to the most in this journey is Kyoto, therefore we decided to spend the most time there!
We’ve booked a few events here across several days, each taking around 2 hours:
* a kimono tea ceremony,
* a kabuki theater show,
* a geisha makeover for my gf (I’ll be doing something else in the mean time),
* a pottery workshop for traditional japanese oni roof tiles (this sounds very fun!)
* another workshop for traditional fabric dying.
Besides those activites we also want to visit the Arashiyama bamboo forest and the Fushimi Inari. For the latter we’ve also spotted a guided tour on get your guide which promises to hike along some way less crowded forest paths. Though we’re not certain yet if it’s not easier to instead just get up early and beat the crowds.
In regards to some of these typically super popular areas – which time of the day would you recommend to arrive there? It doesn’t need to be entirely empty for us to enjoy the scenery, but it would be nice to avoid the heavy crowds.
Another highlight for us would be the historical district Gion. I hope it’s still worth a visit, even though some of it’s (private) streets have recently been closed for tourists? I had a bit of a hard time finding a map which showed how many streets really are off limits now.
Aside from these things we’ll probably do a lot of spontanous sightseeing around the temples and what not, and perhaps some hiking in the surrounding mountainous areas. I’d be really thankful for all recommendations towards nice (preferably somewhat easy) hiking routes we can tackle from Kyoto.
We’ve also pondered about adding in a day trip to Osaka and/or Nara from Kyoto, but I feel like the days in the old capital will go over really quickly even without spending one of them travelling to Osaka or Nara.
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**Day 15 Kyoto to Yokohama, Day 16 Yokohama to Tokyo Haneda**
On day 15 we’ll move back towards Tokyo Haneda airport. Instead of taking another accomodation in Tokyo, we’ve booked a hotel in Yokohama, so we can check out the nearby local China Town! Sounds like a fun activity for a few hours.
The day after we’ll move to the airport. Our return flight’s checkin opens at 9 P.M. so I guess we have more than enough time to get there from Yokohama after the morning rush hour without anything getting remotely stressful.
Thanks in advance for every bit of feedback or advice!
by donwolfskin