Hey all, I’m a resident in Japan and (obviously covid dependant) hoping to visit Kyushu and Okinawa this winter to take advantage of the JR Kyushu Pass available to foreign residents at the moment. I’m still in the early stages of planning at the moment so I’ve not put too much thought into everything yet, but any feedback on the feasibility of my itinerary and recommendations would be appreciated.
|Day|Place|Plans|
:–|:–|:–|
|Day 1|Fly from Nagoya to Fukuoka|Not decided what time flight I’ll take yet, but I’m hoping to arrive early afternoon-ish. No real plans other than just checking out the city and eating some local food and grabbing some drinks in the evening.|
|Day 2|Fukuoka|Visit Dazaifu in the morning, then return to Fukuoka city in the evening and just do some sightseeing around the city.|
|Day 3|Nagasaki (activate rail pass)|I’ve heard good things about Nagasaki so was planning on staying two nights here, think I’ll check out the peace museum and Chinatown during the day, and the famous night view in the evening.|
|Day 4|Nagasaki|Full day in Nagasaki, Huis ten Bosch looks interesting so might do a day trip there, or potentially to one of the islands.|
|Day 5|Kumamoto|Just check out Kumamoto City, have a look at the castle and the gardens. Don’t really know much else about it, so any recommendations are welcome. I wanted to go to Aso but considering it erupted recently it might be best to give it a miss.|
|Day 6|Kagoshima|Go to Sakurajima and walk around, check out Kagoshima city in the evening. I’d like to go to Yakushima but I can’t drive, and I’ve heard that it’s much better to visit with a car, so I decided to give it a miss on this trip.|
|Day 7|Miyazaki|This is the one day I’m not really sure about. Is there actually much to see in Miyazaki city at all? Takachiho Gorge looks really interesting but I’m not sure how I can fit it into my itinerary, again it seems like having a car would be beneficial here.|
|Day 8|Beppu|Chill in the onsen in Beppu – I’ve heard Yufuin is also nice but Beppu looks a bit more interesting to me.|
|Day 9|Return to Fukuoka (pass finishes) -) Okinawa|Return to Fukuoka and fly to Okinawa. Will likely stay in Naha and just explore the city and relax in the evening.|
|Day 10|Okinawa|Not too sure about this day, but maybe potential day trip to Tokashiki.|
|Day 11|Okinawa|Day trip to Nago to visit the aquarium.|
|Day 12|Fly to Osaka|Get an early flight back to Osaka.|
I don’t usually like to stick to a strict itinerary and usually plan my days properly as I go, but I just like to have a general idea of what I’m doing each day. The main part of the trip I’m not sure about is from Day 5 to Day 8, is there a better way of visiting all of them? Is the JR pass even worth it? Are there any other places which would fit in better to my general itinerary? I could possibly extend the trip by a day or two if there’s anything I’m really missing out on! If anyone has any good local food or bar recommendations I’d love to hear them too, also a big craft beer fan so if there’s any good local breweries I’d love to check them out.
Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this, any feedback or suggestions would be really appreciated! 🙂
11 comments
I would recommend against visiting Okinawa in January, at least if you prioritize beautiful beach views. While it’s possible that the weather will be sunny and relatively warm, Okinawa can be much colder and more miserable in winter than many websites would have you believe. Take it from someone who has stood on Kabira Bay under clouds, with torrential rain falling in the 9ºC air!
I can understand the wanting to see Okinawa if you have the chance, but at the same time, I can see that this will be an overview of Kyushu. I am personally planning Kyushu for my next trip, more or less the same loop as you, but it would be a minimum of 2 weeks (and 3 would add Yakushima) and that is considering I’ve already been to Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Beppu and Kitakyushu, so I would either not go or spend less time in each.
The Miyazaki to Beppu will also take much more time in the train than Fukuoka to Kagoshima would be as there is no shinkansen.
Feel like Fukuoka is a city that can deserve over a full day to visit. Nagasaki I personally really enjoyed Dejima, that you should have heard about if you are interested by Japanese history.
The choice between Yufuin and Beppu I think depend if you want to go in a cute onsen town or in a city that just happen to have a lot of onsen. The 7 hells are interesting, but they are attractions and not onsen you can bath in.
To be honest, that feel a bit like a visit all prefectures speedrun and it will leave a lot to be explored, so next time you go, it will have to be to fill the gap between what you have already done, or else you would just repeat the same thing again and again. Yes I can understand you will leave Japan, but are you considering never going back?
Winter may not be the best season to enjoy all beach and ocean activities in Okinawa but if you visit in late January/early February, you will get to view Cherry Blossoms. If you schedule is flexible and can add a few more days to your trip, consider flying to Okinawa from Nagoya, then taking ferries to Kagoshima, and continuing your Kyushu adventures from the south. You will end your trip in Fukuoka and can take trains, instead of flying, to Osaka.
Regarding your day 4, I lived right beside Huis Ten Bosch for 3 years and I hardly ever went. I don’t want to discourage you from going as I had friends who loved it, but just giving you my 2 cents so you can make your own decision. It aims to look like a dutch town, but coming from Europe, I’ve seen the real thing and HTB was a cheap knock off with a $70 admission fee haha. The attractions were also never that impressive to me, but they did often have big illumination events in the winter with cool light shows at night. It’s been 5 years since I lived there though and I see online that they have a number of new attractions like Playground Fantasia that could definitely make it worth going, so again, I don’t want to discourage you. I would just say to research it a little more closely and then compare it with other possible day trips from Nagasaki City such as:
– If you wanted to go to Sasebo you could check out the 99 islands (Kujukushima). There are a number of [viewpoints](https://previews.123rf.com/images/fuutamin/fuutamin1709/fuutamin170900075/87301583-99-islands-in-sasebo-nagasaki-japan-.jpg) to go to and it looks like there’s a [tour bus](https://travel.sasebo99.com/en/todo_tours/todo_tours_1362) if you won’t have a car (the area isn’t accessible by train). There are also [boat tours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E_K3PYsDoQ) you can take around the islands. Huis Ten Bosch has a discounted night ticket I think, so it could be possible to do both of these in one day.
– Shimabara is a nice little town with a traditional vibe. It has a [castle](https://muza-chan.net/aj/poze-weblog7/shimabara-castle-big.jpg) and is known for these [quaint streets with koi fish](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/03/24/11/26337460-0-image-a-8_1585049103563.jpg). Depending on whether you can figure out transport, the area also has the [Unzen Hells](https://peterlamphotography.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/the-unzen-hells-015734.jpg), an area of natural geothermal activity with lots of boiling hot, steaming gloop pools you can walk around.
– If you wanted to find more to do in Nagasaki City for an extra day, half way up the mountain with the famous [night view](https://japanrailandtravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/e8bbca9dae660bbe833f74b1ac6ebefc-e1551926785920.jpg) is one of my favorite onsen in all of Japan, [Fuku no Yu](https://www.fukunoyu.com/nagasaki/). Its outdoor public baths have a really [nice view](https://imgcache.its-mo.com/contents/KNK_ZPOI/00000000000002473964/002473964-1/002473964-1_m.jpg). When I lived there, there was a shuttle bus from Nagasaki Station. Also important to note it is not tattoo friendly.
– You can get a boat from Nagasaki City to Gunkanjima (aka [Battleship Island](https://cdn.cheapoguides.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/11/gunkanjima-iStock-1055490366-770×514.jpg)). I’ll warn you though, the internet is full of cool, creepy pictures but on the guided tours you don’t actually get to see much. For safety reasons you only walk along a very strict, short, pre-defined path.
– Some of the nearby islands such as the Goto Islands have some [nice beaches](https://www.nagasaki-tabinet.com/storage/tourism_attractions/341/responsive_images/dmwYEQayX8d2FNh0HZjoeNlLMtmIEvGQscW0oJOC__599_400.jpeg) and other more [nature-y stuff](https://www.tokyoweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/%E5%A4%A7%E7%80%AC%E5%B4%8E%E7%81%AF%E5%8F%B001-01.jpeg) (<-Osezaki Lighthouse) but the boat ride there and back would take up quite a bit of time, it would probably be difficult to organize (not much in the way of public transport), and you’d get to see a lot of similar stuff if you went to Okinawa anyway.
Few recs for around Kyushu:
Kagoshima city: The city itself didn’t really do much for me and had a one of the most stand-offish vibes of any other place I’ve been to in Japan. We went because I have a very good friend from there and I really wanted to see him. The downtown area felt like a smaller, more gritty version of Dotonbori or Shinjuku without the big-name tourist spots. Probably great the locals, but much less so for visitors. The rest of the city was just generic Japanese city. I’m positive there are some lovely and interesting things to see there, but I didn’t look too hard. This was just my own personal perception.
Around Kagoshima, however, I thought was lovely and one of the highlights of our visit. One of the days we chose not to do Sakurajima and instead went down the Nagasakibana cape (we had a car) to check out the sights there. We discovered a super funky zoo/botanical that was like being time-warped back to the Japan boom times of the 80s. The views from the cape of Kaimondake cinder cone are also spectacular as well as the panoramic views of the ocean. This was definitely not a hugely popular tourist spot but it was quaint and the people were very friendly and accommodating of broken, Tokyo-dialect-based Japanese.
The best thing we saw down there was the Flower Park Kagoshima, which is a huge massive complex and botanical garden with peaceful walking paths and packed with all kinds of plants, flowers, and wildlife that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else in the western world. It’s a fantastic place to escape the city and has some lovely views and a very tropical vibe.
Other stuff around Kagoshima are the tea fields, which are incredible to see. There are a few places that offer tours and tasting and whatnot.
Around Kumamoto is some great hiking up in central mountains, but given when you’ll be there, it might be out of the question. Kumamoto is also the resting place of Miyamoto Musashi in a lovely little park that’s easy to access and is generally pretty empty.
Only thing I can recommend on the north/east side of the Kyushu is the Saitobaru Kofun-gun (burial mounds) and museum. Super interesting stuff and the museum is top-notch and English friendly.
Sublime experience mate
Sublime experience mate
I’m going to Kyushu for 12 days Dec/Jan. My 2nd time there but first for my partner.
Try to fly to Fukuoka in the morning, then that’s all the time you need there. No need to spend more time
I researched the train pass but felt a rental car was better. I drove last time too (9days with parents). So many places that are not possible without a car. 11 days rental for ¥50,000 plus gas. Unless you are solo, or can’t drive, I would definitely recommend it.
Seems like a waste to go to Okinawa. Better to go in a warmer season and with more time.
Man you are a busy little bee. The transportation alone can exhaust you and take several hours a day. Okinawa is a beautiful place. I’d recommend staying a little longer though.
I did a road trip around kyushu in 2017. I rented a car from budget japan because they have an english website, and then there was an “expressway pass” discount for foreigners from the tourism promotion office that made it feisible (when we returned the car after a week approximately 70000yen in expressway charges got voided because of the pass). There is a lot that you’ll miss by relying only on trains, especially considering that due to covid the usual sightseeing and tourist routes might not resume.
Other suggestions:
* plan two days for kagoshima: One for the ibuski peninsula and one for Sakurajima. The sand onsen in ibuski was one of my favorite experiences ever.
* Kumamoto was still recovering from the earthquake when I was there, so the castle was closed and we just stopped briefly to go to the garden which didn’t really seem like anything special. The garden in Kagoshima is way better.
* However, the two main attractions in the prefecture are actually Mt Aso and Kurokawa onsen. Staying in a ryokan in Kurokawa and onsen hopping around town was one of my favorite experiences ever. If you don’t go the car route, there are usually day-trip tour busses.
* Takachiho Gorge is the only thing in Miyazaki that most people end up doing. IF you can swing it, do it. Also I ate chicken nanban at one of the restaurants above the gorge, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth.
* Beppu has the “hells”. It’s a series of onsens that are not for bathing but rather all have their own weird twist. Fun, but kitchy, and dare I say you can skip it. Every single hotel, even the shitty ones, will have their own onsen/spa. But if you have transportation there is a “mud onsen” a bit outside of town that was cool (bear in mind that its facilities are really really rustic).
Because we had the car we also ended up going to kitakushu for spaceworld (amusement park) and the train museum. And in Saga prefecture we went to a waterfall thing (not worth it), and Yoshinogari Historical Park (worth it).
I did a trip report on my January 2020 trip to Fukuoka and Beppu. Having trouble linking it but feel free to check my history or search for related trip reports in the search bar.
I agree with you about Miyazaki. I’ve been twice and don’t feel particularly called to go back. The takachiho gorge was cool and all…
My favorite bits of Kumamoto are Kurokawa onsen and the Mt. Aso areas. The castle was still under construction when I was there.
I’ve also done Okinawa for New Years and it was a really good time. It wasn’t balmy, but for sure warmer than every other part of Japan at the time. Naha didnt impress me except for the castle (rip) and doing a tour of the fish market. I would say save your time and plan a longer trip where you can make it out to Ishigaki, which is absolutely stunning.