Hi everyone! I am so excited to get all of your advice and start planning my Fiance´s and I´s honeymoon to Japan. We will be going mid November 2024 to catch the fall colors. Definitely planning early!
Since I met my fiance, it has been our dream to visit Japan, and I am unsure when we will ever have the oppurtunity to go back since I will be graduating college soon and won’t get many vacation days.
**We want to get to experience a little bit of everything but also be able to relax and be flexible.** I will be **willing to take Hakone and/or Kanazawa off if it is too much.** Also open to switching them for other destinations. Our travel style is to wake up around 8 or 9, stay out late, and plan several activities a day but making sure to allow time for exploration and rest if needed. We have done circuits through Turkey and Europe that were non stop and did about 7 things a day, but they were exhausting and we’d like this trip to be on our own terms.
This is a VERY ROUGH ITINERAY and I am happy to take any and all advice and change it or make it more efficient. I haven’t seen if the activities I want to do are close by, so i’ll probably **have to adjust what activities to group with each day.** Please recommended if I should drop or add certain activities or places, we are flexible and looking for recomendations!
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* Day 1: Tokyo Arrival
* REST DAY. Nothing planned besides get used to jet lag and rest in hotel.
* Day 2: Tokyo
* Senso ji, Imperial Palace, Skytree for sunset, Ramen for dinner (recomendations!), Kirby cafe for dessert.
* Day 3: Tokyo
* Shinjuku Gyoen gardens, Meiji Jingu, Omoide Yokocho at night
* Day 4: Tokyo
* Teamslabs, Tokyo station, Tokyo tower, Akihabara, Shinkjuku nigtlife
* Day 5: Tokyo -> Osaka
* Wake up around 8, get souflee pancakes. get luggage from hotel and go to Osaka on shinkasen
* Purchase 2 – day Osaka pass
* Unplanned what we will do today, something included with pass
* Day 6: Osaka
* Unplanned
* Day 7: Osaka -> Nara -> Kyoto
* Get breakfast and head to Nara
* Stay in Nara for a couple hours, eat lunch, walk around park (could use recomendations)
* Head to Kyoto, check in hotel, grab dinner
* Day 8: Kyoto
* Unplanned
* Day 9: Kyoto
* Change into formal attire and take elopement photos with the fall foliage **(no idea how to pull this/ photographers)**
* Day 10: Kyoto
* Unplanned
* Day 11: Kyoto -> Kanazawa -> Takayama
* **Is this possible to do, or should we head straight to Takayama?**
* Check in to ryokan with private onsen **(despartely need recomendations that are reasonably priced)**
* Day 12: Takayama
* Explore town
* Day 13: Takayama -> Hykone -> Tokyo
* **Is this too tiring to do, should we head straight to Tokyo?**
* Explore Hakone (need recomendations)
* Day 14: Tokyo
* Unplanned
* Day 15: Tokyo
* Ghibli museum, Kawasaki Municipal Folk Garden (worth it?)
* Day 16: Tokyo
* Unplanned
* Day 17: Tokyo Departure
* Leave to airport
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I am willing to take away a day (or two) from Tokyo and add or take away places. I am open to any and all suggestions and recomendations!
I wanted to get the JR pass for 7 days and just use it in the middle of the trip, but we will be out of Tokyo for longer than that, looks like the JR pass calculator basically breaks even for a 14 day pass… Unsure what to do here.
11 comments
For elopement photo, like you want wedding type pictures ? You can just hire a company/photographer. I guess it depend on you expectation, not sure it there is places that do the western dress rental for picture, but I know for sure it’s possible to do with a Kimono, but expect to pay the price for it.
Doing Kyoto-Kanzawa-Takayama, you will not have much time to see anything in Kanazawa, so either skip it and go direct to Takayama or stay an extra day to have some time in Kanazawa.
If you want more time to explore Hakone, you can consider doing it on your way out of Tokyo, so from Takayama you only have to return to Tokyo. One of the reason is that if you do ryokan in Hakone too, you would have to be there before 5-6pm (depending on their check-in time), while you can usually check-in much later in a regular hotel.
JR Pass, in my opinion, take it if you save money. Otherwise, don’t and use whatever train is most convenient. For example no pass you can take the Nozomi shinkansen and you can use whatever train to move around for example you can use Kintetsu to Nara as the station is 1km closer to the park than the JR station.
I would merge your Kyoto and Osaka stays into just Kyoto, it’s only 15 minutes by train from one to the other
November 2024 is 20 months away, its hard to give recommendations like ramen or ryokan. Things can change and what seemed like a good recommendation at this point of time will differ by the time your trip arrives.
Example of change, TeamLab Borderless reopening this year, so then you have the option of Borderless or Planets by the time you visit.
Imperial Palace is across the street from Tokyo Station so do that on day 4 and replace it with Ueno Ameyoko Market on day 2. On day 3 I would fit in Kabukicho and Golden Gai after Omoide Yokocho.
For the JR pass it seems like you’re looking at the pass that covers the whole network of Japan. Are you aware that there’re regional passes as well? Personally I find the regional ones give more value for the money. You can find a whole list of them in the About section of this subreddit.
Days 1-3 look reasonable.
Day 4: wouldn’t be better to see Tokyo station before/after seeing the Imperial Palace on the Day 2? They’re right next to each other. I also either wouldn’t do both Shinjuku and Akihabara or skip Tokyo Tower.
Day 7 looks fine
Day 11: Like I mentioned in my other comment, it is doable, but it’d be a very long day.
Day 13: I’d head straight to Tokyo. Hakone’s not worth for just a couple hours.
For photos, check out Shoott or Flytographer. They specialize in photographers that do shoots for people on vacation. When picking a Tokyo photographer for my upcoming trip, I also cross referenced the photographers Instagram page to see more about their style. Enjoy the elopement and definitely do a professional photo shoot!
Day 11 – there are only four fast trains a day from Toyama to Takayama (there are four more slow trains with a non-timed transfer at Inotani). If you only wake up at 9am then it is impossible to go to Kanazawa, get meaningful time in Kanazawa, travel to Takayama, and still make the check-in deadline for a ryokan dinner.
Day 13 is also impossible if you want meaningful time in Hakone (which is not next to Odawara station). I would just go straight to Tokyo.
I don’t think this is too busy a trip in the slightest. My advice would be to shave a day or two off of Tokyo and just make Kanazawa a proper 2 night stop. I think 2 nights in Kanazawa and 2 nights in Takayama make for a good journey through that section of Japan. I feel very strongly that Kanazawa is an underrated stop in Japan, not only are the well-known attractions worth seeing (the castle, kenroku-en gardens) but the city itself is one of the best in Japan for just wandering and exploring (IMO). I did multiple nights on both of my ~30 day trips in Japan and didn’t regret it one bit. Other than that I think you have a good pace of things. My general off-the-cuff advice when you’re at the early/broad planning stages is to just avoid one-night stays (which you have done!) stick to either day trips, or spending at least 2 nights in a city.
I’m doing the same, having a little elopement during our trip in April. I won’t give you much advice with your itinerary but I can give you a photographer recommendation. As we are also just having a quiet moment by ourselves and a few photos. They are a Japanese/Australian couple, [Ippei and Janine](https://instagram.com/ippei.janine?igshid=OTJlNzQ0NWM=) They are very reasonable costwise and have all the costs upfront on their website.
Ryokan Murayama in Takayama has private onsens for free that you can use for 30min at a time without a reservation. Currently looks about 17,000y PP a night with hida beef meal service.
http://www.ryokan-murayama.com/
Personally I would cut 3 days from Tokyo and at least one day from Kyoto and add them the Kanazawa and Osaka, or shoot down to Hiroshima.