5 Days in Kyushyu – Help!

9 comments

1. If you want to add some more culture to your trip, you absolutely can’t miss Nagasaki. The history of the port city is amazing. Northern Kyushu is also known for its pottery, with each area having a specialty.

2. Option 2 looks the most reasonable and exciting of the 3 to me.
   I traveled Kyushu at the end of February 2018.

   Fukuoka is fine to do in 1 day unless you’re really into yatai. There are a few neat spots but it felt mostly like a business centric city. Also out of 6 major transit stations visited I found Fukuoka to be most confusing to navigate somehow.

   Kurokawa is beautiful at the end of winter and the residents are super friendly (it was heavily raining when we arrived and someone ran out to us with umbrellas, took us into their onsen to dry off, and then called our onsen to pick us up). The onsens also help so much after hiking and I highly recommend the wooden 3 stamp onsen pass. We didn’t get to do Mt Aso as it frequently closes (it is still quite active and monitored daily) so I can’t speak to that.

   The end of February is the lantern festival in Nagasaki (huge areas of the city are covered in lanterns and there are parades (also good champon!)) so if your trip coincides with that it might be worth visiting. The peace museum is quite powerful and the danish influence in the area is also very unique.

3. >I can speak a little bit of Japanese and read a little more (N4-N3 Level) but am by no means fluent or capable of complex discussion

   This is more than adequate, you won’t be carrying lengthy conversations, but you’ll be able to get where you need to go without issue I think.

   For cycling, the Shimanami is a classic and it’s near where you are going to be [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3478.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3478.html), granted, it’s technically in the opposite direction of your current plans.

   You could absolutely spend 2 days in Fukuoka, but it really just comes down to what you want to do, if you don’t have 2 days worth of interests, don’t force it.

   Tsuzura Rice Terrace is a nice visit and is on the way as the crow flies to Mt. Aso, but, it’s a bit out of the way, you can take the train to Ukiha Station and then board the Nishitetsu Bus from Nishitetsu Kurume and get off at the Yoshii Eigyosho or Ukiha Hatchakusho stops. (A taxi could work also but it’s $$$)

   **Yakushima** is easy enough to access [https://www.kagoshima-kankou.com/for/areaguides/yakushima/access.html](https://www.kagoshima-kankou.com/for/areaguides/yakushima/access.html) Just take shinkansen down to Kagoshima and then the ferry across. Once you are there there are some bus loops that run. No car needed at all.

   Looks fun! Have a good trip!

4. Yakushima is a jewel of an island and easy to explore by bus, you don’t need a car.

   Places i went while staying for a week in Kyushu were:

   – Nokonoshima Island, by ferry from Fukuoka, it has a really nice park.

   – Nagasaki, it’s a nice city, you can visit gunkanjima, atomic bomb museum and i liked the view from Mt. Inasayama Observatory by night.

   – Kagoshima, Sakurajima is an active volcano and worth a daytrip.

5. I’m curious as to why you want to do it alone. You trying to find inner peace or something?

6. > I really do not feel comfortable renting a car.

   And this makes Options B and C – a non-starter. I do not recommend visiting Kurokawa Onsen without a car, because it’s pain to reach by public transport.

   Option B modified to include Yufuin instead of Kurokawa Onsen (and then getting to Takachiho via Oita and Nobeoka) might work.

7. I would second Nagasaki for cultural sights. An amazing town with a very different vibe than the rest of the well known cities in Japan. Yakushima is an ideal destination for hiking but you have very little time and ferry/flight cancellations due to the weather is a common occurrence depending on the season. But other than that – if you want to do the famous trails such as Jomon Sugi, Shiratani Unsikyo or Yakusugiland – the island is totally doable by the bus. With the little time you have – once you decide on which trail you will try – I recommend you base yourself in either Miyanoura (better for Shiratani) or Anbo (better for Jomonn Sugi and Yakusugiland) for easier bus connections.

8. Yakushima is nice, but it’s rather out of the way and the kind of place where you should IMO spend 3-4 days just in itself to make it pay off (considering interest, expense and accessability). Do an overnight hike using one of the free trail huts, take it chill in general (rent a kei car or scooter if you can), eat well and visit the seaside onsen pools, etc.

   FWIW I’ve done a somewhat smilar trip as the C one you’re planning, and my schedule was about as follows;

   1)arrive at kagoshima late in the evening, eat out, overnight

   2)take early first morning speedboat to Yakushima

   3) Yakushima

   4) Yakushima

   5) leave Yakushima early in the morning with first ferry, rent car in Kagoshima. Take a leisury drive through the island to Kurokawa, arrive in evening

   6) Kurokawa onsen chill

   7)leave Kurokawa, take a leisury detour-y drive to Aso, docking off the lookouts above the valley on the way. Arrive by late afternoon.

   8) Explore Aso crater area

   9)leave aso towards Amakusa, arrive in Amakusa late in the evening

   10) explore amakusa region, leave by ferry to the nagasaki side. Drive to Hakata, drop off car.

   11) Hakata.

   In retroperspect, I should have had one day more to use for Amakusa region, but because of scheduling limitations that wasn’t a possiability at the time and I had to nick it from somewhere.

   Either way, roughly the same amount of locations, in kinda same-y areas, but almost twice the time. Also note that I had a car at my disposal, which made scheduling massively more convinient – If your intention is to solely rely on bus and train travel I would seriously consider putting one or two places on the chopping block. B would IMO be the nicest one in terms of schedule and convinience.

9. I did Kurokawa Onsen as part of a solo quasi-backpacking trip (I’m just more of a roller bag kinda guy given my fitness level) back in 2018 and absolutely loved it. One of the big highlights of Japan for me. That said I did it without a car, and I’d echo that that would be really tough on one night. I did two nights and am glad I did. I’m a huge fan of soaking in general, so getting the onsen-pass thing that let me go to a bunch of different places was awesome (lots of variety, and during the day I was often the only one at a given location, I’d often just relax and read). However I also found the town itself to be more charming and engaging than other onsen towns I’ve visited. If you like hot springs I think it’s worth the two nights, so you can have a good travel day and shoot to get to Kurokawa ~6pm, have that full day, then get out on the early side on your departure day. If you are set on one night, I’d be wary about doing it without a car, the bus took quite a while, and it’s been a few years but I think I had to get another ride to the town itself?

   Regarding car rental, obviously you know you, but I will say that I rented a car to get around Tohoku (which I think is similarly rural/populated) and really enjoyed it. The car I rented (which was by no means fancy, close to the bottom price-wise) had a built in GPS with an “avoid highways/avoid tolls” feature. And in 6 days we never paid a toll or used anything comparable to an expressway. The rural “highways” we took averaged maybe 40-45 mph (64-72 kmh) and felt quite safe. And I feel like I transitioned to left hand driving faster than I expected.