Hi all 🙂
Me and my boyfriend (UK) are planning to go to Japan in 2023 from end of March to beginning of April! You’re probably thinking this is too far in advance but we are saving up for this once in a lifetime trip (I’m already planning as I’m too excited!!).
We love anime, food and walking around, doing some sightseeing and people watching in a coffee shop! My main goal as well would be to collect shrine and temple stamps, we would love this as a souvenir for ourselves 🙂
We are going for around 16/17 days (a bit of a random number but it’s mainly due to work holiday). From reading loads of posts and itineraries online I’ve made a rough draft of where we would like to go. We will definitely be landing in Haneda. My main question is whether it’s worth starting from Kyoto and travelling up to Tokyo the final week? I feel that we would do most of our shopping in Tokyo so I was thinking of starting in Kyoto and spend the last week in Tokyo to avoid travelling with all the bags and souvenirs!
Also is Hiroshima worth visiting for 1 day or should we stay overnight? Am I being too ambitious including Hiroshima in this trip? What do you guys recommend?
Day 1 – Landing day at Tokyo Haneda Airport (arriving in a morning flight), travel to Kyoto. We will rest up for the rest of the day, it think we will be so tired from the flight and then the train travel!
Day 2 – Kyoto Stay. Have a relaxing day due to jet lag, wonder around Kyoto, visit a couple of shrines and have tasty food! Possibly go to Maruyama Park/Higashiyama area.
Day 3 – Kyoto Stay. Visit Fushimi Inari early morning and stay around the area, not too sure yet what to do in this part.
Day 4 – Kyoto Stay. Visit Arashima Bamboo Forest and then go to the monkey park wooo! Not too sure what to do around this area as well, just getting started with the itenerary!
Day 5 – Day trip to Osaka. Really want to go to the aquarium!! I feel that we could spend quite a few hours there, what do you think? Would then love to spend some time in Dotonbori and visit the Osaka Castle. Is this too much for one day?
Day 6 – Nara day trip! I think it will be a really relaxing day, walking around near the deers, get some good food and taking in the peacefulness haha!
Day 7 – Should I do another day trip to Osaka? Or stay in Kyoto? I think there is more I’d like to see in Kyoto such as the Nijo Castle, Kinkaku-ji, Nishiki Market! Or maybe another day in Tokyo? So much to do and see!
Day 8 – Travel to Hiroshima in the morning and stay overnight. Go to Peace Memorial Park and Atomic Bomb Dome, castle, stay around the centre and have delicious okonomiyaki (probably spelt incorrectly..)
Day 9 – Leave Hiroshima mid afternoon and travel to Tokyo. Wake up early to go to beautiful Miyajima island and have a relaxing morning and early afternoon. I understand the travel is really long to Tokyo (over 4 hours) so not sure if this is the best way of doing the trip..
Day 10 – Tokyo stay in Shinjuku. I don’t have a detailed itinerary of what to do in Tokyo yet, but I know there is plenty to do and my list is growing long!! Main highlighted would be Akihabara, TeamLab, Takeshita Street, Gotokuji Temple (love the cats)!
Day 11 – Tokyo stay.
Day 13 – Tokyo stay.
Day 14 – Tokyo stay.
Day 15 – Tokyo stay.
Day 16 – Tokyo stay. Get all the souvenirs and visit any of our favourite places in Tokyo again 🙂
Day 17 – Leaving day from Haneda 🙁
Sorry for the long text, writing this on the phone so hopefully it’s okay! Thank you so much for the help in advance 🙂
4 comments
> I feel that we would do most of our shopping in Tokyo so I was thinking of starting in Kyoto and spend the last week in Tokyo to avoid travelling with all the bags and souvenirs!
This is what I would recommend, finish by the place where you plan to do most shopping. However, if ou are to go to Kyoto the fist day, you might as well just get a multi-city ticket and land in Osaka on the first day, even if it’s a bit more expensive, as you will likely save money on the train.
Osaka castle is one of the things you can skip in Osaka as it is a concrete reconstruction with a museum inside, so not too hard to decide to skip especially if you have the option to see an original castle like Himeji.
While you can do Osaka as a day trip from Kyoto, you can also consider to stay there and do it after Hiroshima, this way you can break the long train ride from Hiroshima to Tokyo in two parts (otherwise, yes it is 4-5 hours depending on the train you use). You can also decide to do Nara as a day trip from Osaka, depending one where you would like to spend most nights.
Hiroshima/Miyajima can be done in one day as a day trip from Kyoto/Osaka, but it is extremely packed, so if you can, for sure it is worth to do it in 2 days. You can also decide to start the day early, stop by Himeji to see the castle on the way, eat in the shinkansen and visit Hiroshima for the rest of the day.
Day 1: Unless you have extensively travelled through 6+ timezones and know your biological clock, I would recommend for you to walk-off the flight in either Tokyo (perhaps a lunch around the station and a visit to Sengakuji) or Kyoto (Toji or one of the Honganji temples, if you’re staying around Kyoto station or a walk through a Gion if you end up somewhere around Karawamachi/Higashiyama). It may also make more sense to land in KIX than Haneda.
Day 2: Considering that you are highly likely to be up early (due to jet lag effect), this is a day you may start with a visit to Fushimi Inari (and then go either up to Tofukuji and Southern Higashiyama including Maruyama Park, or down to Uji (Byodo-in), or to Kiyomizu-dera (and make it a Higashiyama day).
Day 3: If you go the way of Southern Higashiyama on day 2, either Northern Higashiyama (Philosopher’s Path) → Nishiki Market → Nijo-jo or Northern Kyoto → Northern Higashiyama routes are possible
Day 4: Depending on the length of your stay in Arashiyama, you may want to include either northern Kyoto temples in the afternoon (Kinkaku-ji, Ryoan-ji, Ninna-ji), or Nijo-jo.
Days 8/9: Frankly, I would go to Miyajima on day 8 in the morning and visit sites in Hiroshima proper either on day 8 in the lata afternoon or on day 9 in the morning. On the way to Tokyo, I would stop at Himeji to visit the castle and Koko-en.
Sounds perfect! Definitely do Hiroshima and Miyajima as you’ve planned, they’re so worth the effort.
And the trains there are fantastic, so grab a bento box before you get on and enjoy the views for a few hours, make sure you sit on the left side when travelling back to Tokyo to see Mount Fuji!
Ending on a few days in Tokyo is the best idea too so you can gets lots of shopping done. For other ideas I’d recommend a day trip to Mount Takao if you fancy some nature, the Ghibli Museum, Shibuya and Nezu Museum.
Have fun! 🙂
We did a very similar trip in 2018 but for 22 days, and it was the best vacation of my life – looks great! We had 3 days in Kyushu and 2 in Hakone, with the rest pretty similar to your trip, so I definitely don’t think it’s rushed!
Hiroshima – I would definitely try and go for 1 night. The city is pretty small and you can see the main sights in a morning or afternoon really, but the main reason for us to go that far was for Miyajima, which is a must-visit IMO – we’re going back there on our second trip for sure.
We split our time in Tokyo to 3 days at the start to sight see and visit the places we wanted to go, then 3 days at the end to shop and see the last places we hadn’t yet. It worked really well and it’s a good introduction to Japan, plus you don’t have to immediately travel to Kyoto after landing.
Kyoto looks a little light and I’d definitely use Day 7 to see more of it. Walk the Philosophers path, Kiyomizu-Dera, Kinkakuji/Ginkakuji, Yasaka Shrine, Nishiki Market – I could have spent 10 days just there tbh.
Have fun!