Here’s my first draft going in June 2024 if anyone has any advice if my locations are decently close to each other and time wise doable.
Fly to haneda airport
Explore area around where we are staying take it easy possible jet lag get our bearings pick up sucia card and pocket wifi
Day 2 – find breakfast Asakusa sensoji temple and shopping street/ akihabara(electric town)
Day 3 – Harajuku opens 11am Takeshita Dori street Meiji shrine and yoyogi park and garden open 9am do first? Hedgehog cafe HARRY Harajuku opens 12 noon/ Shibuya afternoon Hachiko statue Shibuya sky tower.
Day 4 – Shinjuku National garden Hanazono ginja shrine? ARTNIA Square Enix café must make reservation. Kabukicho St. has Godzilla a must at night lots of food cat billboard here. Maybe omoide okocho “drinking st” shopping just exploring.
Day 5 РGinza area breakfast at Tsukiji outer fish market. Pok̩mon cafe? need reservation and store. Art aquarium. Department stores.
Day 6 – Tokyo skytree tallest tower in world. Contains sumida aquarium. Kirby cafe nearby.
Day 7 – Change hotels to closer to Tokyo Disneyland and visit odaiba area TeamLab planets. Gundam statue and divercity Tokyo plaza mall unko museum
Days 7-9 Tokyo DisneySea x2 days and Disneyland x1 day
Day 10 РShip luggage to Kyoto and take backpacks with essentials. Romanc̩ car from Shinjuku station must reserve seats ahead of time to Hakone-Yumoto station
Do Hakone loop and then check in to ryokan Yama no chaya. RELAX
Day 11 – Visit the open air museum and then travel to Kyoto by shikansen from Odawara station. Nishiki market for food they close at like 6pm maybe Kamo River night walk.
Day 12 – Super early start to Fushimi Inari shrine possibly 2-3 hour hike we don’t have to do the whole things there’s a stopping point midway with shops. Maybe kimono rental Gion kiyomizudera temple Tatsumi bridge(memoirs of a geisha) just walk around explore
Day 13 – Arashiyama bamboo forest early in the morning. Arashiyama monkey park next and bridge and town to explore for the day. Kinkakuji golden temple. Maybe kimono.
Day 14 Рtrain to Osaka. Stay near dotonbori explore. Shinsebashi shopping street (has Pok̩mon cafe and uncle rikerus cheesecake. Do boat tour. Takoyaki and okonomiyaki here. Shinsekai 20 minutes away and had the fish your own food restaurant
Day 15 – Universal studios day
Day 16 – Osaka castle. Osaka museum of history? Explore Kita/umeda umeda sky building garden hep5 mall and Ferris wheel Namba Yasaka shrine
Day 17- Osaka aquarium. Americamura shopping. Zaou fish your own fish restaurant anything else we want to explore
Day 18 – Shinkansen back to Tokyo. 2.5 hour ride check in hotel into hotel and explore whatever we want.
Day 19-20 go back and do things we missed or more shopping
Day 21 – Fly home
1 comment
Some observations:
One thing to keep in mind, in June, Japan’s sunrise is around 4:30AM and sunset is around 7PM. So there will always be plenty of sunlight in the morning, but the evenings draw fast. This is especially different if you’re coming from the US, where the sunrise/sunset is much later.
Day 2 – The shopping district around Sensoji has a lot you could buy and then you might be carrying that to Akihabara, where you might buy more stuff. Just to prepare you in case you’re carrying around a lot of bags on your first day.
Day 3 – I believe Meiji Shrine and Yoyogi park opens at sunrise (although Meiji Shrine shops open later). I believe you can make online reservations for the Hedgehog cafe?
Day 4 – I’d recommend to check out the Toho Movie theater (in the Godzilla building) to look for movie program guides. You might find some program guides to western movies playing, in the past I’ve gotten program guides for the Lord of the Rings, Marvel movies, and even Top Gun Maverick. Its something you don’t find in other countries anymore. Also the Don Quiote store nearby is an interesting discount store.
Day 6 – There a Pokemon store in Skytree as well. There also a separate foreigners entrance that will get you to the top of the tower sooner. Its at a different ticket counter, but there should be signs pointing the way. You’ll need your passport for this, but you should be carrying your passport at all times in Japan anyway.
Day 10 – When you buy your romance car tickets, there also a Hakone day pass for all the area’s transportation. [https://www.odakyu.jp/english/passes/hakone/](https://www.odakyu.jp/english/passes/hakone/)
Day 12 – Fushimi Inari is open 24 hours, with the gates on the lower half of the mountain are light up all night long. The shops run normal hours.
Day 13 – Arashiyama Bamboo Forest is way less crowded (and noisy) in the morning. Will let you hear the breeze through the bamboo better. Rickshaws also run up and down the path as well. The Sagano Romantic train also runs west through the canyon. It pretty popular, so getting tickets early is advisable. [https://www.sagano-kanko.co.jp/en/](https://www.sagano-kanko.co.jp/en/)
Day 15 – usual theme park advise. Buy ticket ahead of time. They sell express passes that allow you to set a time to enter a ride, but they are limited per day. They also do Area (ie Harry Porter / Super Nintendo World) entry tickets in addition to designated ride entry tickets. The USJ app can be used to get a ticket. There are a few websites and youtube videos on tips on getting in and around USJ.
There are also Pokemon Stores in Osaka and Kyoto. Each one tends to have some unique items to the location. There also pressed copper coin machine (ie. the pressed penny machine) with Pokemon and the store location.
It seems most of your Kyoto destinations are reachable by train. But some will require using the bus. Google and Apple Maps are pretty good at navigating using the bus system. And they sell day passes for 900 yen. Some spots, like Kiyomizu-dera, are better reached using a taxi. While they can be expensive for a solo traveler, they are economical alternatives for small groups that split the fare.
Have fun.