Hey everyone,
Two friends and myself are going to Japan in late May for our graduation trip from college and I took it upon myself to find a fun itinerary that fit our interests and the time we’re there.
So far, we’ve got this itinerary of where we’re going and how many days:
2 nights in Tokyo, May 31 – June 2
1 night in Yamanochi, June 2 – June 3
1 night Matsumoto, June 3 – June 4
1 night Magome, June 4 – June 5
2 night in Takayama, June 5 – June 7
1 night Hikone, June 7 – June 8
3 nights in Kyoto, June 8 – June 11
2 nights in Tokyo, June 11 – June 13
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All three of us are very interested in Japanese folklore, tradition, and history as a whole, so we’d like for our visit to encompass more of the countryside and traditional villages in Japan. All three of us live in big, bustling cities (LA, SF, NYC), so we decided that spending a lot of time in these, in Japan, would be counterintuitive besides Tokyo. We’re also very interested in a more relaxed, laid-back experience of going on hikes, spending time in villages, staying in Ryokans, so I created this itinerary with that purpose.
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Any suggestions, recommendations as to what to add, remove, where else to go, etc.?
Thanks!
Edit: I’ve come to notice how inconvenient it’d be to change hotels this often, so we’ve decided to take a couple towns off and stick to more to day trips (Kyoto -> Hikone for example)
We’re thinking 4 days in Tokyo, 4 in Kyoto, 2 in Magome/Tsumago, and 2 in Takayama
4 comments
One night is pointless if there’s travel time. Why travel to a place just to find a hotel, have dinner, then go to bed. Only to wake up, travel, find a hotel, have dinner, and then go to bed. What’s the point.
Yamanochi is unlikely to have any snow monkeys in the onsen because it will be late Spring to early Summer.
I like Takayama, but it’s not some sort of small traditional village, the same is true for Matsumoto. Close to 90,000 people live in Takayama and 250,000 people in Matsumoto. Kyoto has several million people.
Perhaps if you want to be in the countryside look at Tohoku? Tono is famous for its folklore traditions.
Also going mid-late May for a college graduation trip lmao. Congrats!!
Also I see you don’t have Osaka on the itinerary. You can possible just head from Kyoto to Osaka one night they’re pretty close. I know you said you don’t care too much for cities but the night life culture there is really awesome to experience including the night time street vendors
Congratulations on (almost) graduating!
Recommendations:
* Locating a hotel, checking in, unpacking, packing etc can take a lot of time – consider if you really want to be constantly changing hotels or if it’s easier to consolidate into fewer hotel stays and day trips.
* Yamanochi is not worth it in June (no snow monkeys and you can make up the onsen elsewhere in the trip).
* Tsumago-Magome is a 2-3 hour hike and the towns are dead at night, be sure to have a plan for how to eat dinner.
* I suggest swapping Hikone and Kyoto so that you avoid the latter on weekends. Since you don’t want big cities may I also recommend the temples in Shiga prefecture, the southwestern part is a 30 minute train ride from Kyoto but much more low key, and as far as I can tell has a very similar temple/shrine architecture style to Kyoto (which I suppose makes sense given their proximity and similarity in geography) so the pictures will look close enough. In fact I wrote the first English review (on google maps) for both the dining establishments I visited on my last day trip XD