I have a 13 day itinerary for my husband and I in April/May but I just figured out we can add an extra day and make it 14!
Here’s the itinerary below. I have a few questions in parenthesis throughout the itinerary where I haven’t figured things out yet.
I also have a summary below the itinerary of places we could add an extra day to.
Day 1
* we arrive in Tokyo towards the evening – get to our hotel around 7 pm in shinjuku.
* Explore around Shinjuku or go to sleep
Day 2
* 8:30 – 12:30 Wake up early and go to Tsukiji and Toyoso for a tour that includes food (about 4 hours). I’m hoping it’s easy to wake up because of jet lag so I want to take advantage – I saw most tours start around
* 12:30 – 4 pm Explore Asakusa (is this enough time?)
* 5 pm Izakaya food tour in Shinjuku
Day 3
* Shibuya and Harajuku
* (don’t know what to do here other than walk around and go shopping)
Day 4
* Studio Ghibli museum and nakano broadway
* (we might not be able to get tickets to Ghibli. if not, what else should we do for half the day if we still go to nakano broadway?)
Day 5
* Disney Sea
Day 6
* Travel to Kyoto and go to our Ryokan.
* We booked one in west kyoto but I want to rebook in Hakone if we can.
* This may mean we will need an extra day to see Arashiyama.
* If we do keep this ryokan, then we will go to the monkey park, bamboo forest, etc this afternoon or split between this afternoon and tomorrow morning.
Day 7
* Change hotels to one in western Kyoto near Gion
* lunch in Nishiki
* This might be a good day to go to Nara after we get the hotel sorted since that’s a half day trip.
* (Will we make it back from Nara in time for a food tour in Gion at 6:30 pm or will we not have enough time in Nara?)
* (if not Nara we could also do Western Kyoto/Arashiyama for half the day if we didn’t finish on day 7?)
Day 8
* Eastern Kyoto
* Fushimi Inari Shrine
* Possibly go to Uji and check out some tea houses.
* I’d like to maybe do a temple walking tour and a tea ceremony if we can.
* (anything else we should do in these areas?)
Day 9
* I have this as a bit of a free day.
* We can go to Nara or Arashiyama if there was not enough time on Day 7
* There’s a festival in Kyoto (Fujinomori) starting that day that we can check out, but I am unsure how long we will spend there.
* We could also go to Toei Park as a backup option.
* (anything else in Kyoto that I missed?)
Day 10
* We are going to change hotels and go to Osaka in Namba.
* In the morning we can see anything else in Kyoto that we missed.
* (Maybe Arashiyama this morning instead?)
* In the evening explore Dotonbori
Day 11 – 12 Osaka
* I haven’t planned these days yet so I don’t know what we should do.
* (suggestions needed for Osaka)
* Will definitely do a cooking class, but what else?
* Universal? Aquarium?
* TeamLab botanical garden at night?
Day 13
* Train back to Tokyo and fly out.
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**Where do I add another day?**
* In Tokyo at the beginning and we could check out some museums
* Between Tokyo and Kyoto if we go to Hakone
* Skip Hakone and add a day to Kyoto (I think I’m most worried about not having enough time here but we might be fine)
* Add a partial day in Tokyo after Kyoto – so we’d take the train up and just stay overnight before our flight. I’m not sure if we would have enough time to do anything, so I worry this is just wasting a day.
1 comment
As far as the added day, I would probably just figure out which place you are most excited about and add it there. You won’t have any issue filling an additional day in any of Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka.
One thing that I would definitely change is swapping your schedules for the first two days. On your first full day there, I think it would be a huge mistake to schedule a tour that early as you probably will be dealing with jetlag.
I would have the open ended “exploring day” be your first day there, I wouldn’t schedule any formal tours etc. until the second day, especially considering you already have an open exploration day scheduled for the second day, very easy to just swap them. I would say especially so if it is your first time to Japan, your first time there you can easily burn the entire day just wandering and taking in the atmosphere.