Hey everyone, wife and I have booked flights at the end of this year and can’t wait to visit! This will be our official honeymoon since we were married during COVID and haven’t got around to leaving the country yet.
We enjoy exploring, food, sightseeing, shops, markets, museums, cool experiences, etc. Pretty standard tourist stuff. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m a weeb but I do like anime, video games, etc.
Draft itinerary so far:
Tokyo
• 19 Dec (Mon) – Arrive in Tokyo, briefly explore Shibuya
• 20 Dec (Tue) – Harajuku & Shinjuku & Nakano
• 21 Dec (Wed) – Disneyland & Disneysea
• 22 Dec (Thu) – Akihabara & Asakusa
• 23 Dec (Fri) – Hakone Daytrip
• 24 Dec (Sat) – Ginza, Teamlab, Museums
• 25 Dec (Sun) – Christmas – Free day
• 26 Dec (Mon) – Last day – Free day
Kyoto
• 27 Dec (Tue) – Arrive in Kyoto, explore Gion
• 28 Dec (Wed) – Central & Downtown Kyoto
• 29 Dec (Thu) – Arashiyama
• 30 Dec (Fri) – Nara Daytrip
• 31 Dec (Sat) – Fushimi Inari & Higashiyama
• 1 Jan (Sun) – New Year’s Day – Free day
• 2 Jan (Mon) – Hiroshima Daytrip
• 3 Jan (Tue) – Last day – Free day
Osaka
• 4 Jan (Wed) – Arrive in Osaka, explore Amerikamura & Dotonbori
• 5 Jan (Thu) – Universal Studio
• 6 Jan (Fri) – Aquarium
• 7 Jan (Sat) – Last day – Free for half a day, then go home
I guess our main questions are:
1. Will there be any issues with going to Hiroshima so close to new year’s day? Or Nara? I have seen online that a lot of places are shut in late Dec / early Jan, but was hoping Nara and Hiroshima would be mostly open?
2. Any ideas for things to do on our free days? We thought we should leave the final day in Tokyo/Kyoto free just incase something cool pops up on our radar while we’re there, but we also have nothing planned for 25th Dec or 1st Jan. Might be nice to try and find a traditional Christmas dinner on the 25th? Open to ideas!
3. Do you think it would be worthwhile getting a JR pass? I’ve run the numbers and, including small subway trips to and from our hotels, it would probably be cheaper to pay for individual trips rather than get a 21 day pass. Maybe a 7 day pass to cover Tokyo -> Kyoto and the roundtrip Kyoto -> Hiroshima -> Kyoto?
4. Any other tips or ideas for things to do?
Thanks in advance!!!
1 comment
For the free day in Kyoto, assuming you have visited most of the attractions in Kyoto already, 4-5 days in Kyoto is more than enough for that, you could head north towards Kanazawa for a day trip, it’s a rather popular destination to go to from Kyoto, plenty to see and do for a day.
For other free days, you can look into visiting Himeji, Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter + Okayama Castle, Kobe, Onomichi etc, assuming you have the JR pass. With the Shinkansen, could easily do Himeji, Okayama/Kurashiki in a day, and spend the evening in Kobe.
JR Pass will be worth it if you make the day trips.
For the Osaka segment, you mentioned you like anime and video games so would reccommend Nipponbashi Den Den Town, basically Osaka’s Akihabara, also check out the Shinsekai area nearby which is wonderful at night.