I'm planning a trip to Japan from October 4-14. I haven't decided on specifics yet, but I'm focusing on the cities to go to right now. One important aspect here is I have been to Japan twice and seen Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, and Hakone. However, my partner has not been. Because of this, we'll need to do some of the main cities again, which I'm fine with, but I also wanted to see something new. I did some research on this sub, and it seems like Hiroshima + Miyajima seems to be highly recommended, so I'm thinking of doing just that.
The itinerary I was thinking of is:
Tokyo: October 4 (landing in Narita at 3:00pm) – October 7
Miyajima + Hiroshima: October 8 (leave in the morning) – October 9
Kyoto: October 10 (leave in the morning) – October 12
Tokyo: October 13 – October 14 (flight at 4:30pm)
Now for my questions:
- High level, does my selection of cities make sense? I know Hiroshima is an almost 4 hour train journey, which is quite far, but at least on the way back, the stop in Kyoto will break up the journey a bit.
- Do you recommend just staying in Miyajima and doing a day trip to Hiroshima for the second day? On this sub, I heard everyone recommend staying in Miyajima.
- In your experience, is it better to just bite the bullet and immediately take the train to Hiroshima on the first day after landing, so the rest of the trip will be shorter journeys?
- Is there anything to do between Tokyo and Hiroshima (other than the Kyoto part of the journey) in case there are transfers?
- Would you recommend Tokyo -> Hiroshima -> Kyoto or Tokyo -> Kyoto -> Hiroshima?
Thanks in advance!
by datguy030