Hi all, really appreciate all the information available here!
I wanted to run this itinerary by you all. We will be traveling in July. We will definitely be traveling as a family of two adults and one 6 year old child. Potentially also another family of two adults, one 5 year old, and one 10 month old baby. None of us have been in Japan before. We love nature, food, traditional culture, and theme parks.
* **Day 1: Arrive in Tokyo**
Land in the afternoon, travel to hotel in Yokohama.
* **Day 2 & 3: Mt Fuji**
Day 2: Travel from Yokohama to Fujiyoshida (I thought earlier that I saw a direct connection for this but now I don’t see it – may need to revisit staying in Yokohama if there is no direct connection as that was part of the motivation of staying there).
Go to FujiQ.
Go partway up Mt Fuji and do some hiking (around a station, not up to the top) – maybe the Ochudo trail.
Mt Fuji Panoramic Ropeway.
Itchiku Kubota Art Museum if it’s open and logistically not too complicated.
* **Day 4 & 5: Kanazawa**
Day 4: Travel from Fujiyoshida to Kanazawa.
Classic fare in Kanazawa: Kenroku-en, Ishikawa museum of traditional arts and crafts, Myouryuji, etc.
Day 5 is July 7 so enjoy whatever Tanabata festival atmosphere there is.
Also ideally a tea ceremony and visiting Fukushima Sangenten store for a shamisen lesson.
* **Day 6 & 7: Takayama**
Take early bus to Takayama on day 6, bus back to Kanazawa at the end of day 7. Possibly stop by Shirakawa-go along the way.
Explore Takayama (standard fare: Hida village etc etc).
Stay in temple hotel Zenko-ji.
Bus back to Kanazawa at the end of day 7 (hopefully back to wherever we stayed for day 4 and 5).
* **Day 8: Kanazawa**
Full day in Kanazawa to do whatever we missed on day 4 and 5. Then check in to a ryokan in Kanazawa and have dinner there.
* **Day 9-11: Nikko**
Day 9: Travel from Kanazawa to Nikko.
Two full days in Nikko to visit the temples, do some hiking, etc. I would love to visit some of the waterfalls.
* **Day 12-15: Tokyo**
Day 12: travel from Nikko to Tokyo.
Go to Ghibli museum if we can get tickets, maybe go to the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum, maybe a cooking class, etc.
On day 15 go to Tokyo DisneySea.
* **Day 16: Travel home**
We fly out at in the morning so just go to airport and fly out.
What do you think? The family with the baby would likely skip the Takayama detour to keep things logistically less complicated for them. We are obviously missing out on some great places to visit (Kyoto, Osaka…) but it’s only 2 weeks so we had to make compromises. It seems like for a lot of the travel (e.g. Tokyo to Mt Fuji, Kanazawa to Takayama) it’s better to go by bus so we will probably not get a rail pass, although we’ll price everything out before deciding for sure.
Thanks for any advice you have!
2 comments
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OK, if you can move some things around, I would go to Nikko first and then go to Kanazawa. I know you want to be there for Tanabata, but it’s really not an easy trip from Mt. Fuji to Kanazawa and I would avoid it if at all possible. The fastest way is probably going all the way back to Tokyo because trying to transfer to various trains to get to Matsumoto is not really going to help all that much since then you still need to get to Nagano to get back to the shinkansen or bus it through the mountains directly to Takayama, but that involves moving around Kanazawa.
It’s also a lot of travel between Kanazawa to Nikko, and BTW you want to transfer in Omiya if you are taking the shinkansen, which is going to make the most sense, since you’re sort of far from Tobu stations.
Conceivably, you will come close to the value of the rail pass doing a roundtrip to Kanazawa and a trip to Nikko if you get those within 7 days.
Yokohama is a shorter trip if you are going to Hakone. Even with a direct bus, Yokohama is not closer than Shinjuku and environs to Mt. Fuji.
You are 100% right about taking the bus between Kanazawa and Takayama. Timing for the train between Takayama and Toyama is harder than one would think. We missed ours and got a few extra hours hanging out in Takayama that way.
My daughter is a tween now, but I took her at 6. I have to admit, long amounts of time sitting on the train is something she doesn’t like. I am always now trying to think about travel days though she does deal with them much better as a tween than as a grader schooler.
My tween loved Hida no Sato, though it is not ideal to go on a Thursday since a few of their exhibits are closed then. (We went on a Thursday and she still enjoyed it a lot.) I didn’t take her to Shirakawa Go because I didn’t think she would enjoy it.
My tween didn’t like Myouryuji as much as I did. I think it’s because you have to do the tour in a set way and can’t just read what is in the book about the temple and move on at your own pace. I want to say she was 7 when we went? Her favorite ninja activity so far has been in Kansai, but we’ve not been to Togakushi or Nikko Edomura, though I’d like to do both at some point.
It will be hot and humid while you are there, We plan to be there some of the same time period as you because that is when school lets out. You can still have an amazing time, just know it might be hot and humid and some people have a hard time with it. Takayama and Kanazawa do get hot in the Summer. Though Takayama cooled off nicely once it got dark. I have been to Nikko in the Summer, and it was hot, but I didn’t stay overnight so I don’t know if it cools down.