Itinerary Check

15 comments

1. One day in KYOTO???

2. You’ll probably want to drop Zao and Okama. From Tokyo Station, it’s 6 hrs round trip via train to Zao, 8 hrs to Okama via car. Also Fukuoka seems out of the way.

3. Day 2, you realize that Zao is not that close to Tokyo and that the crater is even further out in the countryside, this does not especially look like a casual daytrip from Tokyo.

   Day 3, do you mean Hitachi Seaside Park ? That is nowhere close to Mount Fuji and a bit of a detour if you come from Tohoku.

   Day 4, while Aokigahara is not too far from Mount Fuji, that would be a detour from Kawaguchiko, so does not seems especially practical.

   Day 6, Honestly, I find it a bit silly to go all the way to Fukuoka for a single day.

4. The whole plan for Kanto and Tohoku makes no sense. You’ll spend 80% of your time traveling to these places.

5. If your plan is to discover various equipments and configurations of Japanese trains, buses and planes, then yes it’s an interesting plan.

6. Not an expert on Japan and it’s been a while since I travelled there but it seems like Kyoto deserves more time.

   Also look out for those cute deer in Nara <3

7. I would call this itinerary COMPLETELY LUDICROUS. I’m not sure I can properly convey just how rushed and unrealistic your plans are. You could cut your number of locations in half and still have a fairly rushed trip. For a first visit with multiple friends in just 12 days, you could be completely overwhelmed with things to do without even leaving Kanto or Kansai.

   >Day 2: visit Zao village, Okama Crater, and the castles surrounding the area

   Zao is nowhere near Tokyo and I’ve heard pretty mixed things about the place from an animal welfare perspective (assuming you’re going to see the foxes). Just getting there from Tokyo is likely a 9 hour round trip, and then Okama Crater is another two hour round trip from Zao by car, and much longer if you’re relying on public transit (assuming it’s accessible via public transit at all). And that’s without considering adding even a single castle, let alone more than one.

   Oh, and you’ve made no allowance for jet lag recovery. The 2nd or sometimes 3rd day is usually when it hits the hardest, and you’re trying to cram 2-3 days’ worth of stuff into a single day on top of that. Do not do this!

   >Day 3: spend the morning walking around hitachi park before climbing Mt Fuji at night (plan to start hiking Fuji around 10:30)

   >Day 4: descending the mountain, sleep, possibly walk through Aokigahara

   Hitachi Seaside Park is 2-3 hours from Tokyo, and Mt. Fuji Base Camp is about 2+ hours in the opposite direction from Tokyo. You could easily be spending 8 hours in transit alone on this day, and that’s after spending at least 8 hours in transit the previous day just to get to the Fox village. And then you want to follow that up with a 5-10 hour hike up the tallest mountain in the country? Nuts.

   >5: Disneyland Tokyo

   And now we spend a day at an American theme park? You’re on your 5th day (4th full day) and you’ve spent the majority of your trip thus far sitting on trains and busses rushing all over the place for no reason, climbing up a desolate rocky slope to not see Mt. Fuji, and wandering around an American Theme Park in the hot July sun. Not to beat a dead horse, but what are you actually doing? When are you giving yourself any time to actually experience the country? If it were me, I would have spent the entire trip up this point just in and around Tokyo, getting to know the city and maybe doing one nearby day trip (e.g., Kamakura).

   >Day 6: Nagoya for a sumo tournament at night, not sure what to do in the morning or if we have time to do anything beforehand

   Realistically you’ll be spending the morning unconscious, because you’ll be so exhausted.

   >Day 7: Fukuoka Day

   This is AT MINIMUM a 6 hour round trip just between the major stations (Nagoya–>Hakata–>Shin-Kobe) and assuming you’re not using the JR Pass (and therefore not restricted from taking the Nozomi). More realistically, this will be an 8 hour round trip assuming you’re familiar enough with the transit system to not miss a connection AND don’t decide to make any stops. My question is: Why? Why are you running half-way across the entire country when you’ve barely had time to see anything in the places you’ve already been?

   >8: Kobe Day

   I love Kobe. I lived there for a year. It’s a beautiful city. And I would cut it–unless you make significant cuts elsewhere. It’s a great little day trip from Kyoto or Osaka if you’ve got say a week or 10 days in Kyoto/Osaka, particularly in combination with a morning in Himeji. However, right now you’re planning to give the entire Kansai area maybe 5 days, assuming you give it both of your “?” days (which I would recommend).

   >9: Kyoto Day 10: ? (Nothing planned yet) Day 11: Nara Day 12: ? (Nothing planned yet)

   I basically copy-paste this in any thread about going to Kansai in July:

   Mid-late July in particular is a MASSIVE festival season in Kansai–Including the Gion Festival (all of July, with the biggest events from the 15th-17th, and other large events from the 22nd-24th), Tenjin Festival (24th-25th–especially the 25th) Motomiya Festival (21st-22nd), and Mitarashi Festival (last 10 or so days of July). I also highly recommend Kobo-san at Toji on the 21st and/or Tenjin-san at Kitanotenmangu on the 25th, though I wouldn’t sacrifice going to the Tenjin Festival just to go to Tenjin-san Market.

   That said, these festivals are among the ONLY good reasons I can come up with to suffer through the heat of summer if going at another time of year is feasible. If you’re not really planning to enjoy such festivals to their fullest, I would strongly recommend picking another time of year (mid-November to early-December or mid-February to mid-April are my top recommendations). Also keep in mind that attending festivals takes time away from doing other things. Typically I would recommend roughly at least a full week just for a quick run-through of the highlights of Kansai (Kyoto/Osaka/Kobe/Nara/Himeji area), but given the sweltering heat of the late summer and the extra time needed for festivals, I would give it 10 full days or more if you’re going around this time (again, just as a starting point).

   >Day 13: get tattoos at Tokyo 3 tides, walk around and shop

   I have always personally thought it was weird to get tattoos in Japan. It’s something that can concretely limit your options in the country (e.g., you may not be allowed to visit certain attractions like onsen, pools, beaches, and theme parks; some employers are very put off by them), and a lot of the art I see tourists get tends to be very…generic. I’m definitely not a tattoo person myself so my opinion probably doesn’t count for much, but I always wonder how much tattooed foreigners think these things through before they go ahead with their decision.

   ***OVERALL TAKEAWAY:***

   When are you actually going to do anything? So much time is wasted just running around from place to place and so little time is given to exploration and just taking the country in. There is enough to do within a single district of Tokyo or Kyoto or Osaka that you could easily spend entire days on foot. I feel like you’d have a much more fulfilling trip if you just did like 4 days in Tokyo (skipping Disney), maybe a day or two Mt. Fuji (not necessarily climbing it) or Kamakura, Sumo in Nagoya, and then the rest of the trip in Kyoto/Osaka/Nara (+maybe Kobe/Himeji).

8. TLDR: You have allocated zero time to sightseeing Tokyo and not enough time for Kansai (note that Kobe is seen as probably fifth-ranked destination in Kansai after Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and Himeji). The itinerary would be insane even without sweltering heat and you’d have probably a better chance of getting altitude sickness than having a good time.

   Day 2: As people have already mentioned simply visiting Okama Crater will take a full day. It’s hard to discern what you mean by Zao village – Zao Onsen or Zao Fox Village – the latter should not be visited unless you find animal crulety amusing. Thus said visiting Zao Onsen and Kaminoyama Onsen (I’m guessing by the castle) requires overnight stay at one of the resorts/ryokans.

   Day 3: Hitachi Seaside Park is about 2&frac12; hours from Tokyo on the opposite side of Mt. Fuji. It will take about 6 hours to reach one of the 5th station trails from there.

   Day 4: Under best possible circumstances, you will probably not reach Kawaguchiko area before 1-2pm, which makes any attempt to walk Aokigahara unwise.

   Day 7: Unless you have specific plans, Fukuoka is perfectly skippable.

9. 2 weeks you really wanna just do Tokyo(with maybe Lake Kawaguchi or/and Hakone)+ Kyoto + Nara + Osaka. And depends on the details, people can find that to be too tight as well.

   Your plan doesn’t make sense. Actual trip planning isn’t just throwing random destinations from your bucket list into a spreadsheet with 2 rows. You got a lot of research to do on you own before making a reasonable itinerary AND THEN you can ask for our advice. Only by then our advice would be actually helpful and making sense to you.

   2 things to always keep in mind for your plan: 1. You gonna walk A LOT 2. It’s gonna be super fucking hot and humid. If you ever travel you know how important your physical condition is for your trip to go smoothly. Plus assuming you are going from NA or EU, jet lag can be a big deal too. You must take those into your consideration when you plan.

   Also before you ask people for recommended destinations and how many days here and there? Use the search function of the sub. Or just google and youtube. Not that hard. Info is abundant. 7 days, 10 days, 14 days itineraries are VERY common for people visiting Japan. Lots of existing itineraries for your reference.

10. This reads as a giant joke ngl. Your expectations about apparently magically teleporting around the country and having the stamina to go to a theme park the day after climbing a MOUNTAIN are laughable. Have you ever gone vacationing anywhere before?

11. this is like four or five different trip itineraries packed into one. lowkey kinda blowing my mind how much I’m picking up that you’re uninformed about japan’s geography and traveling in general

12. Your pacing is very tough and doesn’t allow for much breathing room. Too many places for your time budget.

    Basically you have one location per day. 2~3h travel between some. You will have to rush everywhere and burn so much time moving around, that you won’t be able to appreciate most of it.

    My advice: Cut the locations about in half. Spend more time at each. Japan is all about the little things.You’ll have more fun exploring that, then checking off the same temple/castle/shotengai in 8 different cities. There is so much fun stuff here. Small restaurants, parks & nature, crazy shops, conbini culture, festivals, events, onsen/karaoke/izakaya/resorts etc. You will miss all that if you focus too hard on going to as many cities as possible. Save some for a second trip.

    Tldr: Take it slower and you will experience more.

    Edit: My advice (If I were you) – Cut Fukuoka and Nagoya. Do either Kobe or Nara. Not both, do neither if you are short on time. Kyoto will take a while. Also deers are less fun than it looks on Instagram. They are wild animals after all. Consider cutting Zao village.

13. Oh dear don’t go to Fukuoka. It is way further away than you think. Stick to Kyoto area for days 7-12 and you can easily do day trips to Nara and Osaka and even Nagoya.

    Also going to Disneyland is insanity after hiking mt Fuji! We did it the opposite way and it was ok, but still a little crazy (2 days of Disney and then hiked mt Fuji) I’d also recommend Disney sea over Disneyland, though I absolutely love both!

14. We went to the coolest thing I have ever been to in Tokyo. Epson expirience, Idk if it’s still there. It’s in a huge bldg in an amusement park. It’s interactive light shows, aname, all kinds of things to do and interact with. We spent 4 hours only bc I was exhausted from travel. I wish they would bring that to San Diego.

15. If you have some spare time maybe [Tokorozawa Sakura Town](https://tokorozawa-sakuratown.com/en/) (under 1hr from Tokyo). The “giant rock” is actually a museum/library with space inside for art and anime exhibitions. It’s on a JR train line so if you’re getting a JR Pass, you can get there at no extra cost. It opened only in late Nov 2020 so not many people know of it yet and is a bit of a hidden ~~gem~~ rock.