Ok so this is our idea of a 14-days itinerary. As it’s the first time to Japan for both we know we picked a lot of overtouristy locations in the big cities, in between those we are trying to spend as much time in the nature as allowed by time and distances.
Day 1 (Friday): we arrive at HND at 17, go to our hotel in Asakusa/Sumida park area. If we are not cooked from jetlag we’ll go out hunting for dinner and supply on combini/snacks.
Day 2 (Saturday): visit Senso-ji via Nakamise-dori. Watch the view from the top of the visitors’ centre.
We take the metro to Ueno, have something cheap for lunch in Ameyoko. We have a one-hour or something walk in the park.
In the afternoon we move to Akihabara and spend a few hours in the arcades or shopping for collectibles until dinner (maid cafe or moving somewhere else for something more traditional). After dinner we have a pint or two in Hoppy Street.
Day 3 (Sunday): we hit the Tsukiji market for breakfast. We spend some time there before moving to Odaiba and stay there until lunch. Afterwards we visit teamLab Borderless. When we are done we will be within range of both Tokyo Tower and Sengaku-ji so we’ll try to visit both. Dinner not planned yet, but we check out Zojo-ji with the evening lights before heading back.
Day 4 (Monday): we travel in the morning to Shibuya for breakfast, then we walk towards Harajuku and have lunch in Takeshita-dori. Afterwards we walk through Meiji-jingu until Shinjuku. If weather is good we try a view of Mt. Fuji from the top of the Metropolitan Building. We stay in Shinjuku for the afternoon + evening, for dinner I would avoid Omoide Yokocho and try to go for something less tourist-y. After dinner we’ll check out Kabuki-cho and Golden Gai.
Day 5 (Tuesday): we head to Hakone via Odakyu express from Shinjuku. We check in our luggage at our ryokan if we are able to, else we send our checked in bags ahead to our hotel in Osaka. We’ll spend the day doing the usual Hakone things (Open Air Museum, Gora Park, Lake Ashi, ropeway) and spend the night there.
Day 6 (Wednesday): after checking out we collect our rental car and go for a chill self driven tour of the 5-lakes area. We have an AirBnB booked at a nice traditional house by Lake Kawaguchi.
Day 7 (Thursday): after driving back to Hakone we drop off our car, transfer to Odawara and from there we ride the Hikari Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka. We won’t make any plans for the day and just let it flow based on how tired we’ll be from the train ride, except maybe for stuffing on a few onomiyaki. We are aiming for a hotel around Shinsaibashi area so we’ll just stroll around there and have dinner somewhere in Dotonbori.
Day 8 (Friday): we visit Sumiyoshi Taiba then Umeda for lunch and a view of the Sky Building. We’ll visit the Pokémon Center and the Acquarium in the afternoon. Dinner somewhere along Tempozan Harbour and spending the evening in Namba.
Day 9 (Saturday): we send our luggage ahead to our hotel in Kyoto and go for a trip to Himeji. We’ll visit the castle until about early afternoon and return to Kyoto. We’ll only make enough time to check out Nishiki market for food and Pontocho.
Day 10 (Sunday): we try to be at Fushimi Inari first thing. Then Kiyomizu-Dera and lunch in Higashiyama. We’ll spend the afternoon in Gion and witness a traditional tea ceremony.
Day 11 (Monday): we go on a day trip to Nara until about late afternoon.
Day 12 (Tuesday): it’s the day of Kurama Matsuri so we’ll probably just leave it all to chance and up to how much crowd there will be. Ideally we are able to visit Kinkaku-ji and Ryoan-ji in the morning, then after lunch hike up to Kurama and watch the festival, then gtfo by 20 before the trains back to Kyoto become impossible.
Day 13 (Wednesday): we try to fit whatever on our bucket list we missed (Ginkaku-ji or Arashiyama or To-ji or Ni-jo). Then in the afternoon we travel back to Tokyo via Nozomi Shinkansen. We’ll try again to fit in the evening whatever we missed previously, like Ginza or Nihombashi areas.
Day 14 (Thursday): we leave to Nikko, spend the day enjoying the foliage, some hikes in the nature and stay the night in a local ryokan as a formal way to say farewell to Japan. Our flight back from Haneda departs at 17 of the following day so again we may have some little time left in Tokyo to do anything we missed, provided that we are able to store our luggage.
That’s about it – Thank you very much ahead if you took the time to go through it all and feel like you want to comment and add suggestions or criticism.
by mr-magpie-23