A Welcome Back to Japan Trip (Feb 2023)

13 comments

1. The order of things is a bit off

   Both yuzawa and ginzan onsen is closer to Tokyo than to Osaka.

   Matsumoto is near Nagano, so not sure why you’d do sendai in between, since that’s near Ginzan onsen.

   I get that you want to make the most of the JR pass, but tt makes more sense to go from South to North, than South-north-south-north-south-north. You might also want to actually stay at at least some location for more than a night, but that’s up to your taste

2. wtf, this is all over the place, make no sense at all. Why are you constantly moving between completely different regions and going back again to the same region ? Why would you waste that much time in the train for nothing ?

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   From Osaka, the next logical place is Kanazawa.

   Your onsen options, Yuzawa would be a detour and Ginzan is a bit deep in Tohoku, so it would make more sense to check at a a place closer to Nagano like Yudanaka onsen, Shibu onsen, or even Nozawa onsen.

   Next I would do Matsumoto, but Karuizawa would need to trackback to Nagano.

   Sendai is a bit of a stretch, why not just keep it more central Japan, like do a daytrip to Shirakawa-go from Kanazawa instead.

3. Why base your trip in Tokyo when you won’t even have time to experience Tokyo?

4. Frankly, as much as hate changing hotels, I would still go with staying at least couple nights in Nagano and Sendai to streamline your plans. As in limiting your travel time.

   While technically all destinations are doable as single day trips – spending 5 hours+ on trains on average on multiple consecutive days is not that desirable.

   Staying in Nagano would allow easy access to Matsumoto (1 hour trip, instead of 3 hour one), to multiple snow resorts (Shiga Kogen, Hakuba, Karuizawa, possibly Nozawa Onsen), Kanazawa (90 minutes one way, instead of 3 hours)

   Staying in Sendai would make Matsushima Bay a 30 minute trip, instead of 2 hours 3 minutes one. And a trip to Kakunodate (which has a samurai districts that fits description of beautiful place covered by snow in late February) would take two hours, instead of four.

5. Please reconsider your plans – I would happily jump on a call and assist you if you are having a hard time planning this out.

6. Your itinerary is all over the place and you are gonna spend most of your time in public transport, totally not recommended at all. You will only be there for less than 2 weeks, why not just travel to places around Tokyo? That should keep you more than occupied and you ACTUALLY get to enjoy more.

7. Everyday you’re wasting so much time traveling to and from Tokyo. If this is your 11th trip, I can’t even imagine how the other 10 were planned.

8. Oh my goodness gracious, as everyone else has said, this is all a very bad idea. I know you said you’re familiar with the country, but I would very much reconsider. Trains are fairly reliable, but even in Japan you have delays and cancellations. If you travel like this, you will spend the whole time rushing around and wasting time.

9. Hi OP! Is your family open to reconsidering the route of your trip? My family did the Takayama-Hokuriku route using an area-specific JR Pass in Winter 2018. We did Nagoya-Takayama-Shirakawa Go-Kanazawa-Osaka. It was our second time in Japan (Kansai area) and we were familiar with how tiring traveling around the country could be, so we opted to take advantage of the JR Pass and follow that route. I was able to buy the pass here in my home country.

   Winter travel could be very tiring for older people, so we took it slow, packed light, and booked hotels near train stations. Shirakawa-go is magical in the winter, I couldn’t imagine going there in any other season. The Takayama-Hokuriku route is absolutely beautiful during winter and every stop was fascinating to us. I live in SE Asia too and my family doesn’t get to experience winter every so often, so we wanted to see snow instead of staying in the city (i.e. Tokyo or Osaka) for that trip.

   Feel free to send me a dm if you want a copy of our itinerary!

10. Thanks everyone for the feedback! Appreciate it. We did a similar trip with Kansai / Chugoku in 2018 and it worked out well for us.

    In any case, it looks like we’ll adjust and probably do Tokyo — Nagano — Sendai — Tokyo as base cities for the trip. Who knows whenever Japan opens up for here’s hoping!

11. You should just hire a tour operator to escort you. It’s very probably going to be your only option anyway.

12. 10 days isn’t even enough to explore Tokyo to be honest. I spent 11 days in Tokyo 2 years ago and it felt too short. I didn’t even go to Kamakura or Hakone

13. Even if you weren’t wasting half your trip doubling back to Tokyo for no fucking reason this would still be rushed. This trip is basically just train travel and train stations–nothing else. And the trains you’re taking aren’t even particularly interesting. It’s little better than just flying all around the country to see the inside of different airports. So much of what makes a lot of these paces worth visiting isn’t anywhere near the major train stations, and you’re simply not giving yourself any time to actually do them.

    Travel light and change hotels. Focus on one or two regions. Don’t plan days where you’re taking take a train half-way across the country only to turn around go back a few hours later.