I am traveling with my wife for our honeymoon and we are asking for thoughts and recommendations (especially for the last few days of our trip)
Thanks everyone!
We leave Thursday the 10th and arrive on Friday the 11th in the afternoon.
Day 1: Land in Tokyo, get some rest, get food, and possibly explore near where we’re staying.
Day 2 – Explore Tokyo, and visit the Studio Ghibli Museum. Visit Inokashira Park. Shibuya scramble square, Harajuku street, and the town of Akihabara.
Day 3 – Explore Tokyo and take a day trip to Kamakura;
Day 4 – Travel to Fuji and Kawaguchi. Lava Caves at Aokigahara. Matsushima or Hakone can substitute side trips for this day and the next.
Day 5 – Nagano to visit the hot springs in the mountains or in Yamanouchi. Also, maybe see shrines, temples, the Olympic village, or Matsumoto castle.
Day 6 – Start early in Kyoto. First Fushi Inari shrine. Next head to Kiyomizu-Dera; water temple. The shopping center there in Kiyomizu-Zaka. Yasaka Jinja; Gion Shrine, Gion streets, Geisha and tea shops. Pontocho Alley, Kyoto backstreets. Drinks and food. Finish up with Kamagowa riverside relaxation.
Day 7 – Kyoto – Kaege Incline; Suirokaku; ancient aqueduct. Take train to Arashiyama. The Bamboo groves. Togetsukyo moon crossing bridge. Kimono Forest. Iwateyama wild Macaque park; monkey park. Maybe Katsura River for a walk and boat rides. Take the train from Sagano to Kameoka. Then finish up the day here by heading to Kinkaku-Ji and seeing one of these temples: Hagashi Hongan-Ji, Nijo Castle, Kyoto Imperial Castle, and Heian Jingu.
Day 8 – Nara – Nara Koen; Which I understand is a huge park with friendly deer. Todai-Ji Temple; Buddhist complex. Uji City and river. Famous for matcha and the Byodoin temple. Naruto x Boruto park Nijigen no mori
Day 9 – Osaka – Head to Dotonbori. Then Nankin-Machi China Town. Then the Kaiyukan Aquarium. Then end the day in Shin Sekai.
Day 10 – Osaka – Osaka Castle Park, Himeji Castle, Koyasan & Nachi Waterfall. The Tempozan Ferris Wheel and Harbor Village.
Day 11 – Osaka- Universal Studios Japan
Day 12 – Hiroshima – Genbaku Dome. I’m still not sure what else to do this day.
Day 13 – Miyajima – Itsukushima Shrine
Day 14 – Not sure yet. We could possibly head to Tokyo Disney.
Day 15 – Return to Tokyo for last-minute exploring, sightseeing, and any last-minute stuff we may want to do.
Day 16 – Still in Tokyo for last-minute exploring, sightseeing, and any last-minute stuff we want do.
Day 17 – We have some time in the morning to do some last minute things, but then head to the airport around noon as our flight leaves around 5 pm.
4 comments
Odds are extremely low that you’ll be able to get tickets to the Studio Ghibli Museum as tickets must be purchased in advance, and are currently only available to Japanese residents.
So for that day also scrub Inokashira, it’s nothing special, and since you’ll be heading to Harajuku go to Meiji Shrine instead and maybe wander Yoyogi Park if it’s a people watching day like Sunday.
With the amount you’ve packed into your two days in Kyoto, I would highly recommend either booking another night’s accommodation there (to replace one of the currently-free days in Tokyo) or paring down the list to the essentials. Perhaps limit yourself to a couple of temples, because if you have too many in quick succession, they can start to blur together.
Day 7 seems quite packed; it might be a good idea to move one of your free Tokyo days to Kyoto if you haven’t booked your lodgings yet. You have two scenic rides planned; those often take a while since they are at scheduled times.
Day 12: You can see the museum in the Peace Park since you will already be there. You could also see the garden Shukkeien (our Airbnb host recommended this place to us but we didn’t have time).
Day 2 – Shibuya/Harajuku can be a day in itself, so while you could do Ghibli first and just have an overview of these two neighborhoods, adding Akihabara on top is starting to be too much.
Day 4 – Kawaguchiko is a nice daytrip from Tokyo. Hakone too, both have view on Mount Fuji and onsen, but other than that they offer quite different activities. For me Matsushima is not a daytrip from Tokyo, it’s a daytrip from Sendai.
Day 5 – Going to Nagano (Shibu onsen/Yudanaka onsen) for the hot springs is a bit silly, you could do that in Hakone/Kawaguchiko. But if you want to see the snow monkey, then ok… however, just going to the monkey park as a daytrip is already a lot, so you might be able to also go to the temple in Nagano… but if you take some time to stop by a onsen, it might get hard to visit something in Nagano. While Matsumoto is kind of doable as a daytrip from Tokyo, doing it and Nagano on the same day is unrealistic.
Day 7 – Honestly, you already have enough if you just keep from Arashiyama to the Sagano railway. Kaege incline is on the opposite side of Kyoto and will waste time to move around. Then while Kinkaku-ji is possible along Arashiyama, it close at 5pm, so if you do a lot in Arashiyama, you won’t be at Kinkaku-ji on time. The other places are also not especially in the same area, Higahsi Hongan-ji is close to Kyoto station, Nijo castle/imperial palace kind of in the middle and Heian-jingu actually closer to Kaege incline. If you want to do all that, add one day for Kyoto.
Day 8 – Nara and Uji on the same day… ok, possible… Nijigen no Mori that is on Awaji island ?really bad plan.
Day 10 – Honestly you can skip Osaka castle if you plan to go to Himeji. Koyasan is a full day in itself when you consider the train… Nachi fall in itself is already a silly idea as a day trip from Osaka. If you are to go to all these places, you can spend about 5 seconds to see it before getting in the train.
You have several days that are unrealistic with way to much time spent in the train.