Rough Itinerary Check – 7 Days Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Tokyo (too much?)

Hi everyone.

Here is a rough itinerary for me and my parents trip. We will be arriving in Japan from January 26 – February 2. We’ll be landing at Kansai International Airport. Now, the hotels were already booked and I was tasked to make an itinerary around it. We’ll also be using the 7 Day Jr Pass, so we wanted to see as much as possible (which is why i’m worried if this plan is a bit too much).

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**Day 0 / Jan. 26 – Arrive at Kansai International Airport (8:00 pm)**

* Retrieve JR Pass and have it set to activate tomorrow morning.
* Take the bus to our hotel in Osaka. Sleep. Don’t think there’s much time to go sightseeing at this time.

**Day 1 / Jan. 27 – Osaka**

* Universal Studios Japan for the whole day.
* Dotonbori (if there even is time for that)

**Day 2 / Jan. 28 – Osaka and Nara**

* Umeda Sky Building (or Abeno Harukas, haven’t decided yet)
* Osaka Castle
* Travel to Nara in the afternoon.
* Nara Park
* Wakakusa Yamayaki – Event where they burn the hillside of a mountain on fire.
* Return to our hotel in Osaka

**Day 3 / Jan. 29 – Kyoto**

* Leave really early for Fushimi Inari Shrine (is that even possible when we’re all the way from Osaka?)
* Nishiki Market
* Kyoto Imperial Palace
* Gion District
* Maruyama Park
* Return to our hotel in Osaka

From a reddit comment in this subreddit they said that you can walk from Maruyama Park to Kiyozumidera, passing by old houses and shops along the way. I don’t think we’d have time for that though.

**Day 4 / Jan. 30 – Tokyo**

* Leave for Tokyo in the morning by taking the Shinkansen.
* Leave bags at hotel
* Akihabara
* Ueno Park
* Sensō-ji
* Hoppy Street
* Nakamise Shopping Street

**Day 5 / Jan. 31 – Tokyo**

* Shibuya
* Harajuku

**Day 6 / Feb. 1 – Tokyo and back to Osaka**

* Tsukiji Outer Market
* Tokyo Tower
* Return to Osaka sometime in the afternoon

Tbh if in case Day 4 or Day 5 is too much, i’ll just rearrange some stuff to put in for Day 6. Also it feels kind of weird having Tokyo Tower at the last day. I wanted to group together places that are sort of near each other for each day (our hotel in Tokyo is near Kinsicho Station).

**Day 7 – Osaka and Departure**

Our 3rd hotel here is near Kansai International Airport. We have the whole day here since our flight back home is at night. Which is why I was wondering if it would be better if I move some Osaka stuff to Day 7 to give more time in Kyoto/Nara. Though I bet my parents are going to be pretty tired at this point so they might want to take it easy. This day might be dedicated to just shopping and food.

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Well that’s about it! Suggestions are appreciated. I’m a bit worried about Day 3 since I’m putting Kyoto in just a single day. The 7 Day JR Pass has me making a bunch of trips in a lot of places to make it worthwhile so let me known if any of this is too overly ambitious. Thanks!

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