Hello,
My brother and I are travelling to Japan in late Marth/early April, and we’re just trying to get the itenerary sorted. So far, our plans looks like this:
1. Saturday 25th: Tokyo: Arrive \~14:25 at HND Airport. Transfer to hotel and relax in evening around hotel area.
2. Sunday 26th: Tokyo:
3. Monday 27th: Tokyo:
4. Tuesday 28th: Tokyo:
5. Wednesday 29th: Tokyo:
6. Thursday 30th: Tokyo:
1. Get bulk of luggage sent to Kyoto?
7. Friday 31st: Tokyo-Kanazawa. Arrive \~12:00am; visit XYZ.
8. Saturday 01st: Kanazawa: (Kenroku-en, old town)
9. Sunday 02nd: Kanazawa: Spend morning in Kanazawa; hire car and drive to Shirakawa-go. Stay overnight at **Onyadou Yuinoshou** Ryokan.
10. Monday 03rd: Breakfast and leave early. Scenic drive back to Kanazawa over mountain if possible. Return car, get lunch and see unseen sights. Kanazawa-Kyoto shinkansen to arrive early evening.
11. Tuesday 04th: Kyoto: Eastern Kyoto (Ginkaku-ji – Kiyomizudera itinerary)
12. Wednesday 05th: Kyoto: Arashiyama area. (Katsura Imperial Villa – Okochi-Sanso itinerary)
13. Thursday 06th: Kyoto: Southern Kyoto area. (Fushimi-Inari, Tofuku-ji (Kiyomizudera if first day is too long?)
14. Friday 07th: Kyoto: Northern/Central Kyoto (Kinkaku-ji, Toji, Gion district?)
15. Saturday 08th : Kyoto-Osaka
16. Sunday 09th : Osaka: Osaka Castle and grounds. Dotomdori at night.
17. Monday 10th: Osaka – Nara day trip.
18. Tuesday 11th: Osaka – USJ day trip.
19. Wednesday 12th: Osaka – Himeji castle day trip.
20. Thursday 13th: Osaka-Tokyo
21. Friday 14th: Tokyo:
22. Saturday 15th: Tokyo:
23. Sunday 16th: Tokyo: Depart 10:40 from HND Airport.
I know that the itenerary is a little light on Tokyo, but I’m not too worried about finding things to do in Tokyo so haven’t invested too much time on that yet. So, the current plan can be summarised as **”Start in Tokyo and spend time there, travel up to Kanazawa whilst sending luggage forward to Kyoto, spend a day in Kanazawa and then hire a car to drive to Shirakawa-go and spend an evening at a Ryokan, then return the car to Kanazawa and take a shinkansen to Kyoto, spend time in Kyoto, go to Osaka, spend time in Osaka, and then return to Tokyo for the last couple of days and then leave**”.
Based on this, I have a couple of questions:
1. Is it realistic to hire a car to drive from Kanazawa to Shirakawa-go? Would I be better off taking the bus?
2. Is this plan spending too much time in Kanazawa? Based on this, it’s looking to be an afternoon, a day, and then a morning there, and then more time after I return from Shirakawa-go.
I have another rough plan that I might do, which can rougly be summarised as **Tokyo (5 days) – Kyoto (4 days) – Hiroshima/Miyajima (3 days) – Osaka (4 days) – Kanazawa/Shirakawa/Takayama (3-4 days)- Tokyo (1 day)**. Would this be a better plan? I would use luggage forwarding from Kyoto to Osaka (to make Hiroshima easier), and then from Osaka to Tokyo (to make Kanazawa et al. more manageable). I could skip Shirakawa-go to gain a day earlier on, and still be able to go to Takayama for their Spring Festival (14th 15th April) which seems a fair trade.
Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Nothing’s booked so far (only flights), so I am pretty flexible to suggestions.