No year finalized yet. Possibly 2022 or 2023. Originally planned to go next year before Covid was a thing and now we’re just using the extra time to build up our savings and such. Because of this though I already had a decent amount planned and had gathered amazing advice from here. And I continue to plan because it’s fun for me and I use it to distress between school and work.
So this is a trip for hopefully 4 of us, the same 4 who went to Japan in December and new years in 2018-19. Last time we hit up Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hiroshima. While I don’t think we spent to long anywhere we do wish we had the time to spend longer in Hiroshima and Kyoto so we will be returning to those locations on this trip as well.
The issue is one of our members may not be able to do more than 30 days and currently, my itinerary is about 36. The last bit is Tokyo which, while I know she would love to join us there worse comes to worst she could fly home before us if need be but I’d like to avoid that if possible. So any advice with the locations we are thinking of hitting up? Am I planning to many days in any of them? After only planning 1 full day in Hiroshima last time which wasn’t nearly enough I’m worried about rushing things too much. Would love to hear about any of your experiences in these places.
Itinerary:
(Note: We will fly so we either arrive the day after golden week or on the very last day of golden week)
Day1-2: Leave Canada and fly into Tokyo. Layover in the airport (hoping to book it so we arrive and fly out of the same airport) then fly to Fukuoka. Most likely arrive late evening, 9ish or so.
Day3: spend day in Fukuoka, Sleep in if needed and just have a chill day exploring and recovering from jet lag.
Day 4: Fly to Yakushima. Arrive in early afternoon.
Day 5-7: Yakushima. We plan on renting a car but also taking a few guided tours with YES Yakushima.
Day 8: (21 day JR pass will activate on this day) Leave early and take the slower, cheaper ferry to the mainland and train it to Nagasaki.
Day 9-11: Nagasaki including a day trip to the Nagasaki bio park.
Will also be visiting the bomb memorials and museum. But nothing else currently planned.
Day 12: Nagasaki – Beppu
Day 13-14: Explore Beppu and the surrounding area.
Day 15-17: Travel to and stay at a green tea farm stay (If I can get us a spot. It’s a small company so may be fully booked.) A lot of people I’ve read about doing farm stays though only stay one night which doesn’t seem long enough to me. Does anyone have experience with them?
Day 17: Travel to Hiroshima. Get hotel/hostel near Miyajima ferry
Day18: Check out (will make sure hotel/hostel will hold onto our luggage after checkout or we will pay to store it at Hiroshima station) and catch 6am or 7am ferry to Miyajima. Spend the day there then travel to the city center. Stay in Dondori area if possible or at least close to it.
Day 19: explore Hiroshima. We went to all the memorials and museum last time so may not go to them this time.
Day 20: Hiroshima – Kyoto
Day 21-23 Kyoto/Nara
Day 24: Kyoto – Kiso Valley ( first night in Magome)
We will ship our luggage to Matsumoto and pick it up there so we’ll be travelling light.
Day 25-26: Kiso Valley: Will be hiking the trail between post towns, spending each night in a different Post town.
Day 27: Kiso Valley- Matsumoto
Day 28- Miso Brewery and Sake brewery tours. Also, the place I’m hoping we can stay at is very close to the castle so in theory, could check it out in the morning before the tours or before we leave on our travel day.
Day 29: Matsumoto – Kusatsu Onsen
Day 30: Enjoy onsen town, relax after all the hiking we’ve been doing.
Day 31: Kusatsu Onsen – Tokyo
Day 32-35: Tokyo/ Yokohama/ Niko
We spent 5 days in Tokyo on our last trip but it was in late December/early January so will be nice to see some of it in warmer weather. Also hoping to do someday trips outside of Tokyo. We went to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama last time but honestly want to do it again since they change up who is serving there and we are kind of foodies.
Day 36: Fly back to Canada.
I know our JR pass will run out before we leave Kusatsu Onsen but I’m not sure if it’s worth getting another 7-day pass. If we don’t we’ll just pay as we go. Am going to TRY to get our flight back home out of Haneda airport,
7 comments
Unfortunately I cannot give you any advice here. But I love your travel plan, last year I was lucky to get to Japan for Cherry Blossom and I fell in love with that country.
Sooo if you don’t mind I will save your plan as I will be coming back for sure 😀 …with more Japanese on the hand….
I would advise not to buy ticket if you have to change between Narita and Haneda.
Based on my experience of visiting many cities, most small size cities, you can hit the main attraction in one day, for larger cities, to do special tour or workshop or if you wan to visit the surrounding area, two or more days can be good.
While you said you do not want to rush things, as you felt for Hiroshima, I have the feeling that instead of rushing a city, you are rushing regions. At leas this is my feeling after visiting many cities, as I found much more places in-between, so now I feel that I will have to return around the same regions to see everything I want to see.
Fukuoka is a pretty nice place, in my opinion worth at least two days. You also completely skip Kagoshima, Kumamoto for example. There is also smaller places that I liked from there to Kyoto like Kita-kyushu, Shimonoseki, Iwakuni, Onomichi, Okayama, Himeji…
Nagasaki, easily worth 2 days, I did regret a bit spending only one. Would recommend Chinatown, Dejima, Mount Inasa for night view. You can also look into history of hidden Christian.
Green Tea farm stay, I personally want to do it, but so far the places I spotted are more in Kagoshima prefecture Shizuoka prefecture, and I would only do one day. I would be interested to know if you found a place.
If you have a hotel close to Miyajima, it make no sense to bring the luggage at Hiroshima station, if you do, you might as well stay close to Hiroshima station, so it’s more at Miyajimaguchi station or at the ferry terminal.
Nikko look like you would do it as a day trip, personally would say it’s worth 2 days if you want to se both the Temple/Shrine area and the nature side such as Lake Chuzenji.
In general, I find the moving ineffective, a full day for each, Nagasaki-Beppu, Hiroshima-Kyoto, Kyoto-Kiso, Kiso Matsumoto…. Try to plan the train at a moment of the day when things you want to visit are close, that is more than often really early, or after 5pm. That can easily save you days that you can use to plan things to do instead of just taking the train. In one one my previous trip, on a 21 days rail pass, I went from Tokyo to Nagasaki, to Hakodate and back to Tokyo, did about 20 cities and I was taking the train every day, usually after 5pm.
JR Pass, to decide what is best, check the price of individual tickets or regional pass before and after the 21 days. For example, Kagoshima-Nagasaki cost 12 000 yen, so far less than an extra week of JR Pass. There is also regional JR Pass for Kyushu. There is also the Tokyo Wide pass that could work if you take the bus from Kusatsu to Naganohara-Kusatsuguchi Station and from there use the pass to reach Tokyo and can go to Nikko within the validity of the pass. Also always check if the 21 days pass is worth for what you want to do.
Nothing to really add except good luck! Looks like a great trip!
Hoping to be there for 3 weeks in May 2022 as well with at least 4 nights in Okinawa.
Looks like a lot of fun.
My only change would be the first day in Japan. I would give myself an extra 1-2 days in Fukuoka, or just take the flights all at once. They have a direct flight from Osaka, if you’re able to fly in their from Canada instead of Tokyo.
Wow! Sounds like an amazing trip!
We just did the Toronto to Tokyo to Fukuoka in December in one shot. It was not my first trip to Japan but it was my first time getting a connector.
It’s best to fly into Haneda because travelling from the International terminal to Domestic does take a bit of time. ANA offers a free bus for those flying on their domestic connectors but there are other options.
The last flight to Fukuoka was sold out so we had to book the second last…giving us 2 hours and 50 minutes of cushion. My Japanese frequent flyer dad gave it the “maybe okay”. Thanks Dad.
Well of course it was snowing when we left so we were late leaving Toronto. Long flight, land at Haneda, get off the plane and step into the biggest immigration line I’ve ever experienced in Japan. It took FOREVER. And I guess there were so many flights coming in at the same moment that we actually had to wait for our bags.
I did tons of research about where to get our connector (I watched the YouTube video by Haneda airport about ten times just to be sure) so I knew where to go. ANA has a domestic counter to the right when you exit from arrivals. They check you in, take your bags, and send you off to a security gate right across from the desk where you get a bus to your domestic terminal. Make sure it’s the right bus! We were checked in so I was hoping that the plane wouldn’t leave without us at that point and the right bus final came. I was vibrating with stress at this point and hardly registered all the cool underbelly of the airport sights that we were seeing.
Our bus deposited us at the door closest to our boarding gate and we stumbled to our gate to be IMMEDIATELY in line to board. I swear we rolled off that bus and next thing I knew I’m handing over our passes and we are on the plane. The last people. The last people on a completely sold out 777 full of curious commuters who just wanted to get home.
Oh and I guess par for the course in Japan, our luggage made it to Fukuoka with us!
TL:DR A planned almost 3 hour layover at Haneda was very nearly not enough.
The good thing: it’s doable.
The bad thing: order of things to do and see is not ideal with certain days potentially being wasted just on travel.
Yakushima: if the trips ends up being in late May / June, the advice would be to skip the island – Yakushima is one of the wettest places on Earth and this is by far the wettest period of the year.
Kyushu: Considering that you have to go through Fukuoka to get from Nagasaki to Beppu (and transfer between Kagoshima and Nagasaki is at Shin-Tosu, which is 10-15 minutes from Hakata) – there is a lot of going, back and forth. I would probably recommend skipping Beppu and going to one of onsen towns on Shimabara or Setsuma Peninsula (or even Takeo Onsen).
Matsumoto to Kusatsu Onsen: it’s a 5-hour trip with multiple transfers, so if you want to relax in an onsen, or a nice area, you might look at alternatives like Yamanouchi (Yudanaka/Shibu Onsen) or Lake Suwa area.
What are you interested in doing in Beppu? I can give you recs. For a tea farm stay I recommend Sky tea house in Yame-shi. Jiro is amazing.