This is a follow-up to a draft itinerary posted last October: [https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/y8bqbc/draft\_itinerary\_three\_weeks\_in\_cherry\_blossom/](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/y8bqbc/draft_itinerary_three_weeks_in_cherry_blossom/)
January has come, and though the cherry blossom forecasts are still pending and my hopes of catching a New Japan Pro Wrestling show in Tokyo have fallen through, it’s time to nail down a basic itinerary and start booking hotels. Four of us (three first-timers, including me) are heading to Japan for three weeks for cherry blossom season.
I have an updated itinerary from last time with a couple destination changes and a better (but maybe still not great) idea of how to break up our multi-night stays in Tokyo and Kyoto. I’m actually not sure what advice I’m looking for this time, but please let me know if you have any recommendations, or if I’m setting myself up for a bad time!
# General Considerations
* We bought our plane tickets months ago so our arrival/departure dates are fixed. My *hope* is that this schedule lines up so that we arrive around or after *kaika* in Tokyo and catch *mainkai* or close to it before we leave for Hiroshima, and make it to Kyoto around or shortly after *mankai* there. (The dream is obviously to be surrounded by cherry blossoms the entire trip; here’s hoping.) I haven’t seen a forecast for 2023 yet, but I compiled the blossom season dates for the last three years and the average dates and guesstimated that the season will be few days earlier than average (see the sakura front data at the end).
* We’re getting JR Passes. Given that we’re spending our first week in Tokyo, the 14 day pass seems like a no-brainer; I believe it won’t cover our train back from Kawaguchiko but the Fuji Excursion isn’t fully covered by JR regardless.
* One of our party is a trans woman, which (from my understanding) precludes our ability to use public onsen (or at least, it precludes her ability, and we wouldn’t want to leave her out). We have one extremely ritzy stay at Konansou at the end of the trip, but if anyone has good recommendations for private onsen somewhere else on our route, I’d love to hear it.
* Given our group size, I was thinking we should pick up a pocket wifi. One of our party suggested renting SIM cards; I’m not sure if that makes economic sense on-paper, but I’m thinking he might be right if only because it’s a safer option in the event that the group gets separated (I don’t expect to abandon one of us in another city but trying to keep all these people in a fixed radius is like herding cats, so making sure everyone has an independent line of communication seems like a good idea). I haven’t actually looked up prices for this, would it be reasonable to get both, and get cheap low-data SIMs for emergency use?
* There’s been a lot of discussion in the group on if we should bring extra luggage to bring back shopping (we have free checked bags); between the hassle of customs and lugging extra bags around between cities, I’m personally thinking just shipping stuff back via Japan Post is probably a better idea. I know luggage forwarding is a thing, but I haven’t looked into it (and I haven’t booked hotels yet so I don’t know if every place will support it); any insight into either process would be appreciated.
# Itinerary
**Mar 23**: Arrive at Narita in the afternoon. Explore around the hotel for as long as we can fight jet lag, make an early night of it and try to get on an early-riser schedule (we’re all habitual late risers but by slamming our heads into a 13-hour time change I hope we can be out and about by 8am for the duration of the trip).
**Mar 24-29: Tokyo**. I have some rough day plans below, which we can follow in mostly any order, with a few considerations:
* We probably want to do Akihabara on Sunday to take advantage of pedestrian-only traffic.
* There is a Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling show at Ryogoku on the afternoon of 3/26 which we’re definitely attending (Maki Itoh is the cutest).
* If the blossom timing works out, I’d like to push at least one of the trips to a major city park to catch as close to full bloom as possible.
**Tokyo Day Plans**:
* Ueno/Asakusa (Tokyo National Museum, Ueno Park, Sensou-ji, Tokyo Skytree)
* Akihabara (definitely Eorzea Cafe, but other than that who knows, we could live here honestly)
* Harajuku/Shibuya (Meiji Jingu, animal cafes, Shibuya Sky, Hachiko, Nintendo Store)
* Shinjuku (Tokyo Metro Gov. Building, Shinjuku Gyoen, Omoide Yokocho, Nakano Broadway)
* Chiyoda/Odaiba (Chidorigafuchi Park, Pokemon Center, teamLab Planets)
* Day Trip to Kamakura
* Day Trip to Nikko
**Mar 30:** The beginning of the travel-heavy leg of the trip. Take the shinkansen in the morning to **Hiroshima**. (\~5 hours) Spend the afternoon at Peace Park. Explore in the evening, get some okonomiyaki.
**Mar 31:** Day trip to **Miyajima**. Debating staying overnight at a ryokan on the island; definitely looking for advice here.
**Apr 1:** Take the shinkansen in the morning to Mihara, then hop the Kure line and a ferry for a day trip to **Okunoshima** (\~2h) to hang out with some rabbits. Evening and overnight in **Onomichi** (do at least some of the temple walk if we have time).
**Apr 2:** Take the shinkansen in the morning to **Himeji** (\~2h). Lunch and afternoon exploring the castle and garden. Back on the shinkansen to **Osaka** (\~45m) for the overnight. Depending on timing, Aquarium Kaiyukan either this evening or the following morning. Explore at night and eat so much food we die.
**Apr 3:** Kaiyukan if we didn’t get to it yesterday. Lunch and hanami (hopefully) at Osaka Castle. In the afernoon, leave to overnight at a temple in **Koyasan** (\~2.5h). Catch the night tour of Okunoin.
**Apr 4:** Can we wake up early enough to attend a fire ceremony? Who knows! Explore Okunoin in the daylight. In the afternoon, leave for **Kyoto** (\~3h).
**Apr 5-8: Kyoto**. Finally, in one place again! Rough day plans, in any order:
* Arashiyama (Sagano Scenic Railway, maybe Hozugawa River Cruise, Tenryu-ji, bamboo groves, monkey park, maybe Saga-Toriimoto and Adashino/Otagi Nenbutsuji)
* Eastern Kyoto full-day walk (Ginkaku-ji, Philosopher’s Path, Nanzen-ji, Heian Shrine, Yasaka Shrine, Kodai-ji, Kiyomizudera)
* Fushimi Inari Taisha, Kyoto Railway Museum, Nijou Castle, Hirano Jinja, Kinkaku-ji (dumb spread out route and probably have to drop something for time but they don’t fit anywhere else and if I don’t see Fushimi Inari I’ll die)
* Day Trip to Nara
**Apr 9:** Catch the Thunderbird in the morning to **Kanazawa** (\~2h). Kenrokuen, Ninjadera. Overnight.
**Apr 10:** Explore more of Kanazawa. In the evening, return to **Tokyo** (\~2.5h).
**Apr 11:** One final full day in **Tokyo**. If we missed anything before, we might fit it here, or (more realistically) we’ll spend the whole day shopping in Akihabara.
**Apr 12:** Catch the Fuji Excursion in the morning to **Kawaguchiko**. *Extremely* ritzy overnight stay at Konansou.
**Apr 13:** Catch the return Fuji Excursion in the evening to **Tokyo** and overnight.
**Apr 14:** Depart from Haneda in the afternoon.
When I write it down it seems incredibly packed, but I have to remind myself it’s three and a half weeks and Japan has functioning public transit so you can actually get between places in a reasonable amount of time.
# Sakura Front Data
This is the table I compiled to estimate blossom season in the absence of forecasts for this year. *Kaika* (開) and *mankai* (満) are from Japanese Meteorological Agency, except for Fujigoko. Fujigoko data are from japan-guide.com best viewing estimates.
​
|**City**|**22開**|**22満**|**21開**|**21満**|**20開**|**20満**|**Avg開**|**Avg満**|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Tokyo|3/20|3/27|3/14|3/22|3/14|3/22|3/24|3/31|
|Nagasaki|3/22|3/29|3/14|3/23|3/24|4/03|3/23|4/02|
|Fukuoka|3/17|3/27|3/12|3/22|3/21|4/02|3/22|3/31|
|Hiroshima|3/21|3/29|3/11|3/25|3/22|4/03|3/25|4/03|
|Osaka|3/23|3/30|3/19|3/28|3/23|4/03|3/27|4/04|
|Kyoto|3/24|3/30|3/16|3/26|3/22|3/30|3/26|4/04|
|Nara|3/25|3/31|3/21|3/30|3/26|4/03|3/28|4/04|
|Kanazawa|3/30|4/05|3/23|3/29|3/26|4/01|4/03|4/08|
|Nikko|3/27|3/31|3/20|4/02|3/21|4/03|3/30|4/06|
|Fujigoko|4/08|4/12|3/31|4/02|\–|4/15?|\–|\–|
|Sendai|4/08|4/11|3/28|3/31|3/28|4/03|4/08|4/13|