November-December 2024 Itinerary

Hello, my wife and I are travelling to Japan from November 15th to December 2nd and we would like to share our current planned itinerary and see what you guys think of it. Feel free to share some tips on how to improve it and PLEASE suggest any other cities, villages or activities that you recommend that we may have missed! We are the type that like to visit and explore multiple cities so yes it is quite packed, but we like it that way! One good thing we noticed about Japan is how everywhere is so accessible via the well made train system, so why not take advantage? Days can be easily interchanged as well as the activities. This is just an example. Here's the itinerary:

Day 1: Arriving late in Tokyo. Go to hotel in Shinjuku, eat supper at a restaurant and then sleep.

Day 2: Explore Shibuya a bit and take it easy. Go to cafes, etc. Maybe Meiji Jingu since it's close (yellow tree road sounds nice)?

Day 3: Day trip to Lake Kawaguchiko. Do some biking, go to Oishi Park and/or Arakurayama Sengen Park as well as the maple corridor (heard it's pretty in fall).

Day 4: Akihabara + Asakusa (they are rather close to each other).

Day 5: TeamLabs and something else? Chill around the city, shopping, cafes, wtv.

Day 6: Possible day trip to Kamakura.

Day 7: Leave for our Ryokan in Nagano which is next to Zenkoji Temple. Flexible day. Can leave early or late depending what we wanna do. Could stop somewhere on the way, do more stuff in Toyko or just chill in Nagano.

Day 8: Matsumoto day trip.

Day 9: Relax day. Onsen, Zenkoji temple, Nakamise street and fireworks festival at night.

Day 10: Leave for Kyoto/Osaka but stop at Kanazawa on the way (it's literally on the way) for around half a day. Still unsure if it's worth staying a couple nights in Osaka or not. Not much to do there it seems but we want to go to USJ and day trips to Himeji and Nara.

Day 11: USJ and dottonbori at night.

Day 12: Arayashima + Kinkakuji (they are close).

Day 13: Nara day trip.

Day 14: Kyoto chill day. Go see Fushi inari and maybe something else?

Day 15: Himeji day trip.

Day 16: Kyoto chill day. Go see Kyumizudera and samurai museum?

Day 17: Kyoto chill day. Imperial palace? Maybe other shrines/temples like Jishoji, Nanzenji or kodaiji if they are worth it?

Day 18: Shinkansen to airport and go home 🙁

At night, we are mostly going to be just chilling at restaurants/bars, karaoke, arcades, pachinko, and roaming the cities. Fireworks festival in Nagano. Maybe go see Kyomizudera at night as we heard it's quite nice. Any cool night time activities you guys know of, feel free to suggest. 🙂

So yeah, pretty packed as I said but we don't mind. We like to explore different cities, do different activities and not sit around too much. We were looking at Shirakawago but it seems a little out of the way. Same for Narai juku which seems kind of similar to Kanazawa? One thing to note. We don't like modern cities TOO much. We prefer historical and traditional villages, castles, shrines, temples, etc. and we are castle LOVERS. So we REALLY want to see Matsumoto-jo, Himeji-jo and Kanazawa castle ruins. These are non-negotiable. The rest we are flexible though! I know there is not much near the Zenkoji temple, but Nagano is kind of serving as the "connection" between Matsumoto and Kanazawa and we found a nice ryokan right next to the temple for a good price so seemed like a good plan. The fireworks festival seems kinda cool too. To be honest, this COULD be changed but not sure for what. We definitely want to try a Ryokan though!

In terms of accommodation, we thought it would be annoying to stay at too many different areas, so atm we have a hotel in Tokyo, ryokan in Nagano and hotel in Kyoto which can be cancelled/modified at any time for free. We are STILL debating if maybe we should stay a couple of nights in Osaka to make it easier for USJ and day trips to Himeji and Nara. But yeah, this is the general gist of it. Again, nothing is set in stone, especially the days themselves. They can definitely be combined/interchanged/wtv. We are flexible! Let me know what you guys think!!!