So I am in the process of making an itinerary but I am finding it to be a little challenging and overwhelming and was hoping to get some advice.
Just a little background
I will be going to Japan in November for 3 weeks (16th of October 6th Novemeber) on a Temporary Vistor’s Visa to see my Fiance, who lives in Gifu. I don’t want to be too far away from her, so I was thinking about setting up shop in Nagoya and using that as my base for the first 5-7 days (she is off work for 1 week). I am not really sure what to do after that. I want spend time in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo but I am not sure if I can fit them or what order to them in and how many days I should do. She has expressed that she wants to travel to Osaka and Tokyo since she has never travelled there before
16: Fly out from Heathrow to Tokyo. Arrive on the 17th
17: Spend the night in Tokyo and then travel to Nagoya in the morning (Hotel undecided at this point)
18: Meet my fiance and spend sometime with her in Gifu.
19 – 23: Explore Nagoya, Gifu + days drips to surrounding areas
I am not really sure what to do from here. Things that I want to see in Tokyo
Asakusa (Tokyo Midtown, Senso-ji temple)
Ueno Park
Akihabara
Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya
Tokyo Tower
Studio Ghibli
Skye tree
EDIT: Is it possible to do Kyoto and Oosaka as “day trips” from Nagoya. I kind of want to avoid lugging my suitcases around everywhere
3 comments
Is it possible to do Kyoto and Osaka day trips from Nagoya? Yes, although considering the time needed to get into interesting parts – it’s not recommended.
The question is how often do you expect to your fiancee beyond that first week. If it’s only on the next weekend, then probably your best course of action would be to move for four nights to Kyoto or Osaka and spend time there. If you want to see her every couple of night – then it might be better to stay in Nagoya. Depends also, where in Gifu – she lives/works, because if it’s not that close to Meitetsu or JR lines – the second option will not work.
You have probably enough days to see highlights of Kyoto and Osaka, Aichi and Gifu, and the areas you wanted in see Tokyo. Note that unless you plan to Ghibli Museum together and your fiancee manages to snatch the tickets – it’s probably off the menu.
While Kyoto and Osaka are technically doable as daytrips from Nagoya, it can be a bit of a waste of time if you are going there several days and can get really expensive if you do not have a JR Pass. Realistically, Osaka is easily 1-2 days and Kyoto 2-3 days, plus several possible daytrips to other cities, so if you want to spend that much time around there, it totally make sense to lug your suitcase once and stay in one of these two cities.
Concerning the question in the title, from experience, I would not do more than 1 city a day, so technically, you could do 21 cities in 3 weeks (if you look in my post history, I’ve done it). However, there is several cities that are worth more than a single day, that is especially the case of big cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. For example to leisurely explore what you listed in Tokyo, it can easily take 4 days and it’s not even hard to find more places to fill a full week. Then there is a lot of possible daytrips options too.
As you mention not wanting to lug your suitcase too much, you would likely want to get a hotel in one city and do daytrips, as opposed as to frequently change hotel. Still I would change twice, once to go to Kansai (Kyoto or Osaka) and once to Tokyo. Just as a side note, I would suggest you to travel as light as possible, you do not want to bring too much cloth, it make more sense to do your laundry than to carry 3 weeks worth of cloth to Japan. You can also use a luggage forwarding service if you do not want to move your luggage yourself, but I would still travel as light as possible and leave space in luggage for souvenir.
Then to decide how many days you want to spend in each city, it work much better when you start listing places you want to visit, then group them by area inside of the city to see how many days are required to see everything, then you can add day trips to have more days, for example in Kansai you can easily go to Nara or Kobe, from Tokyo you can do things like Kamakura, Kawagoe, Nikko, Kawaguchiko, Hakone, Yokohama, just to name some some.
Just as a note, Tokyo Midtown is not in Asakusa but in Akasaka, right next to Roppongi.
It would help to tell us if you have ever traveled before overseas. Generally, I find any new city/town 2 nights at minimum as you will need to include traveling the day of into the city and the third day to depart. That would give anyone a full day to see 1-2 (and maybe 3) highlights of what that area has to offer. I’d say Kyoto and Tokyo are mega-cities in size, you could easily spend 5 days at each and still have many items on an interest list. Since this itinerary will be made by the two of you, I would highly recommend chatting with your fiance since she is from there. The Japanese are known generally to be very great planners and have a wealth of travel information at their disposal.
Personally, if I were in your shoes, I would probably do two cities with your fiance based on the time she could travel with you. Than if there’s a city that peaked your interest astray from hers, do that as your last leg (in case you have any issues/trouble, you have her as local help). Plus you can pickup some traditions/culture assimilation from your fiance intiially so you’re not entirely on your own at first.