Looking for some advice on the best places to base yourself in Japan! Going there on honeymoon (April 2022, first visit) for 21 days. Absolutely love the culture and history, so we want to absorb as much as we can while we are there!
Originally looked at flying into Fukuoka and spending 5/6 days exploring Kyushu, heading to Osaka for 5/6 days and then spending the remaining time in Tokyo before flying home.
We’ll be doing day trips from each place we base ourselves, but are these the best places for things like temples, ancient Japanese history and walking routes? I’ve scrambled my brain looking at different forums and blogs so any advice would be greatly appreciated!
We’ll also be buying JR passes so travel is sorted as well.
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Have you been to Japan before, or is this your first time?
It sounds like you’re more or less doing a reverse golden route with Kyushu attached to the beginning. It’s a good first-time route.
I might recommend splitting your six days in Osaka between Osaka and Kyoto. If you’re looking for “temples, ancient history, and walking routes,” Kyoto is really better than Osaka. You’ll probably want to go there for multiple days, and while it’s not difficult to get there from Osaka you’d be wasting ~2-hours a day just commuting and robbing yourself of the ability to go back to your accommodations to drop things off if say you wanted to hit one of Kyoto’s many awesome flea markets.
As an aside…If you’re going to be in Osaka/Kyoto in April, you might want to check out the [Sanno Festival](http://hiyoshitaisha.jp/event/sannou/) in nearby Otsu City.
If I were you I’d rather set up base in Kyoto than in Osaka. Osaka is a very nice city but for an outsider it’s very similar to Tokyo or any other major Japanese metropolis. You can still do trips to Osaka from Kyoto, it’s not that far away.
Kyoto itself is full of beautiful temples and gardens and an amazing countryside around the city, especially Kifune in the north. Definitely consider a visit to Nara which is south of Kyoto. You can see the amazing tōdai-ji and the surrounding area has many architectural wonders. And of course you can watch hundreds of deer just chilling in or walking through the park.
You could think about spending 1 or 2 full days in Hiroshima. Paying a visit to the peace park and museum is very interesting. Hiroshima also has great seafood okonomiyaki you shouldn’t miss. South-west of the city is the island of Miyajima with one of the most famous views of Japan, the torii gate of itsukushima shrine which you can walk to during low tide. Maybe come back after a few hours to see it get flodded. In the meantime you can visit Mount Misen via ropeway.
That’s funny, I’m planning a trip for November that’s just the opposite of yours! 1 week in Tokyo, 1 week in kansai, and 1 week in Fukuoka. Still trying to decide where to stay in kansai. Our heart is in Osaka, but I’d love to explore more of Kyoto and or Nara in the morning and at night
For Osaka/Kyoto/Kansai, set up in Kyoto or Osaka. Kyoto and Osaka are like 30-60 minutes away (I forget) by train.
In kyoto, just pick something close to Shin-Kyoto station or close to a bus stop. Use the buses in Kyoto, I found the trains for inner city travel to be really inconvenient.
For Osaka, I set up near Dotonbori, it was near the most popular spots. Osaka is like Tokyo, but the trains are kind of annoying and your JR pass won’t work if you have one. From either of these places, you can visit Kobe or other nice tourist spots like Amanohashidate from Kyoto.
In Tokyo, both times I’ve gone, I have set up in Ueno and Uguisudandi. They’re in a central location and Ueno has great stuff to do itself. Uguisudandi isn’t a popular place but it’ll probably be cheaper than other areas and once again, really convenient area near Yamanote Line and Tokyo Metro.
Tbh, you can set up in any area off the Yamanote Line and you can probably say you didn’t make a bad choice. You can set up in the nightlife hubs but it’ll probably cost you more and you just save like a 35m train ride from Ueno.
I think your itinerary sounds wonderful. I know more about western Japan since I lived in Hiroshima long ago. I love the area because there’s so much to see and enjoy there. I hope you have a lovely trip.
As an easy day trip or great overnight from Fukuoka or Hiroshima you might want to visit Tsuwano, called Little Kyoto. You take a fun and historic steam locomotive to get there, there are bicycle routes throughout the small town, it’s famous for cranes, Christian martyrs, a small museum, numerous small exhibitions and is just such a lovely, remote town. It used to be the summer home of the daimyo of Hiroshima. You’ll find info on Wikipedia. It’s one of my favorite places in Japan, even though it’s a popular tourist destination, it’s not trite or overrun with tourists.
Also Kurashiki is a town that is an easy day trip east of Hiroshima. Parts of it are designed to recall the Meiji era. There is a museum of contemporary art and multiple small museums throughout the old town. My favorite was the shoe museum. Again, it’s a tourist spot, but not overrun.
Maybe make some time for a visit to an onsen? Only downside is that it’s gender separated (there are suppose to be a few around Japan where genders mingle).
I often hear people say they love the culture etc, but rarely they talk about the bathing culture.
Edit: Also make time to engage in the locals daily life. For example, if you as a couple have a social hobby like couples dancing, make time to go to a club one of your evenings. People tend to see you as tourists if you act like tourists. But if you engage them in their lives, you might find yourselves in some interesting conversations.
I want to echo that you may want to base yourself in Kyoto instead of Osaka. Personally, after seeing Tokyo, Osaka is pretty much like any giant metropolis.
Kyoto itself is a wonderful city, and is within daytrip distance to Nara, Kobe, even Hiroshima (long day though)
I also based myself in Fukuoka on my last trip because of it’s links to other parts of Kyushu. I did a daytrip to Kumamoto from there and it was fantastic.
More or less what I did with some friends. 21+ days. All travel was by train except for getting the bus to hike Mt. Fuji.
* 3-4 days Tokyo
* 2 days hike Fuji
* 2 days Onsen resort near Matsumoto
* 4 days Matsumoto
* 7 days Kyoto
* overnight trip to Osaka during a festival
* several day trips baseball, Himeji, Suntory Yamazaki
* 3 more days in Tokyo. Gift and souvenir purchases.
You got any ideas about you want to do/where to go in Kyushu? Anything you’ve seen that has captured your imagination? I can give you some ideas if you’d like or some general pointers about something you may be interested in.
The cities you’ve listed are good, though like others say Kyoto is probably a better bet. Another thing to take into account is what train line to stay near. Such as the Yamanote line in Tokyo is great for the major attractions if you don’t want to waste time changing trains often.
Just a note on the JR Pass: don’t buy until you are sure they will be cost-effective. Nationwide JR Passes pay off with frequent long-distance travel, and with your home base idea a 21-day JR Pass may not pay off – you would need to check the prices to be sure. You may find a combination of shorter/regional/bus/etc. passes more cost effective.
This website has a comprehensive list of rail passes available: [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2357.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2357.html)
This website will let you check train prices and times: [https://www.hyperdia.com/](https://www.hyperdia.com/)
I usually make a spreadsheet with my itinerary and then look at different options – a pass to cover the whole trip, then different combinations of other passes specific to certain areas, no pass for some days, etc. – to help me find the most cost-effective option.
Osaka is ok as a base but Kyoto is way better as a destination and you can day trip to Nara and other places from there.
My last two trips to Japan have been set up with a home base and trips to nearby towns. We start our trips in Tokyo and end in Fukuoka because my wife is from a town near Fukuoka. IN 2018 we used Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Fukuoka as bases. We stayed at business hotels. The rooms are small, but are not so expensive as a bigger hotel chain.
In Tokyo we visited many places in the city, but went to Shin-Fuji via Shinkansen, made our way to Fuji City took the train to Fujinomiya then a bus to Shiraito Falls. If the weather is clear you can see Mt. Fuji.
In 2019, weather knocked out part of a rail line to Kawaguchi (near Mt. Fuji) so we went to Gotemba and took a bus to Kawaguchi. The bus ride was about two hours each way. (I don’t like buses.)
Back to 2018, in Kyoto we spent two days visiting temples. One day was the east side of the city and the next day was the west side. From Osaka, we went to Himeji to see that castle. Another day we went to Hiroshima, Miyajima and Iwakuni.
From Fukuoka we went to visit my wife’s hometown, but also Beppu, Oita, and Nagasaki.
In 2019, from Tokyo, we visited Shizuoka on one day, more of Tokyo on two other days, and the fourth day it was raining, so we boarded the Shinkansen to Aomori. That’s a three hour trip each way, so we stayed around the Shinkansen station (Shin Aomori) and went back to the big city.
Again in 2019 in Kyoto, we went to Uji for another temple, and more shrines and temples in Kyoto.
We also went to Nagoya, where there is also a nice castle and a famous park. We also made the journey to Iseshi (Ise City) for the Ise Grand Shrine. The Shrine is two different areas. One is close to the train station and the other is a city bus ride.
From Osaka, Dotonbori, the Abeno Harukas 300 Building (so far the tallest building in Japan), then went to Nara and Horyu-ji for another Temple.
We had a trip planned for this year, but that plan fell through. This trip would’ve been in areas where foreign tourists usually don’t visit. Also, hardly any Shinkansens in a lot of areas.
The JR Rail Pass worked very well for us in the two trips I listed here, but the trip for this year probably would’ve meant renting a car. For the amount of luggage we had with us, and would’ve had again this year, carrying all of that on trains is not fun, especially when the trains are crowded.
Have fun on your trip to Japan.
I enjoyed a couple of nights in Fukuoka, but any day trips from there seem problematic. The train to Nagasaki takes 2 hours each way. For me, there’s a lot more to see and do in the Osaka/Kyoto area, and it’s worth more than 5-6 days.