Myself and 3 friends will be going to Japan from June 7-21. We are relatively new to international travel. Please share any comments and advice about this itinerary, especially if there are things that we will be unable to do or if there are things we are missing. The city in parentheses next to each day is the city we will be staying the night in.
June 7: Depart USA
June 8 (Tokyo)
-Arrive in Tokyo at 3:25 PM, we will be staying in Kabukicho area
-Take it easy for the rest of the day and don’t go to any far major sightseeing areas due to jet lag and travel exhaustion (we will be on an overnight flight in middle seats)
June 9 (Tokyo)
-Shibuya and Harajuku
June 10 (Tokyo)
-Tsukiji market
-Ginza
-Imperial Palace
-Teamlabs Planets
June 11 (Tokyo)
-Sensoji Temple
-Ueno Park
-Akihabara
-Kappabashi street
June 12 (Tokyo)
-day trip to Hakone or go to DisneySea if it is too foggy to see Fuji
-back to Tokyo
June 13 (Takayama)
-shinkansen to Takayama in the morning, stay in ryokan
June 14 (Kyoto)
-see more Takayama
-shinkansen to Kyoto in the afternoon, we will be staying in Kawaramachi area
June 15 (Kyoto)
-Arashiyama
-Golden Pavilion
-Fushimi Inari
June 16 (Kyoto)
-Nishiki market
-Gion
-Hagashiyama
June 17 (Kyoto)
-day trip to Nara
-back to Kyoto
June 18 (Osaka)
-shinkansen to Osaka in the morning, we will be staying in Namba area
-Osaka castle
-Dotonbori
June 19 (Osaka)
-another day in Osaka
-Dotonbori again in evening
June 20 (Tokyo)
-shinkansen to Tokyo in the afternoon
June 21: Depart to USA
4 comments
A day trip to from Tokyo to Hakone would involve about four hours of travel round trip: doesn’t feel like the juice would be worth the squeeze.
Hi!
I would personally stay the whole time in Kyoto and not move to Osaka. It’s really easy to get between the two. (not the 15 minutes people so often claim, but easy enough that you can be in Osaka until relatively late in the evening and still make it back to Kyoto before trains stop running. I have a friend who lives in Osaka, and have stayed out until after 10 visiting and still made it back to Kyoto easily.
The issue is every time you change hotels you need to figure out what to do with your things, and even if the answer is, just drop them off at the new place, that takes away from sightseeing time.
Perhaps you will not have an issue with jet lag, but I find jet lag turns me into a morning person, for at least the first week of my time in Japan.
I think you are unlikely to see Mt. Fuji from Hakone in June. The Summer tends to have terrible Mt. Fuji visibility because it’s humid. Ignoring the whole humidity thing, Hakone is always a crap shoot for seeing Mt. Fuji (vs. Kawaguchiko.) Kawaguchiko is this place:
[https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6900.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6900.html)
It has the highest likelihood of Mt. Fuji views as it is the base of Mt. Fuji
This is Hakone:
[https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5200.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5200.html)
And despite the picture Japan Guide shows, I’ve been to Hakone many many many times and have never seen Mt. Fuji from it. I have been in what could have been good viewing weather (clear sunny day in March) but I still saw nothing.
You can go between Hakone and Kawaguchiko, but travel between the two is going to take around 2 hours or more. Know which one is the one you want to consider.
If you go to Sea, make sure to download the app ahead of time and read up on visiting Sea by someone who has been there since Premier Pass started.
I would also make sure you know how long it will take you to get to Takayama. I’m not saying don’t go, but it is a long trip to Takayama for around 24 hours there. We really liked Hida no Sato. I also liked Hirayu no Mori, about 1 hour out of town in the mountains. I’d consider Kamikochi again (even further in the mountains) because it poured the entire time when we visited.
I think unless you are rushing through it and not planning to do the entire Fushimi Inari hike, doing Arashiyama, Fushimi Inari and the Golden Pavillon in one day is hard. People will tell you Fushimi Inari has no closing time, and while this is true, it also doesn’t have lights at night and I’m klutzy enough I would hurt myself.
I would go to Higashiyama first, then Nishiki and then Gion. Nishiki Market isn’t really going to open until between 9-10.
I wouldn’t take the shinkansen between Kyoto and Osaka. For one thing, your trip outside of Tokyo is longer than 7 days so a 1 week JR Pass won’t work and you are not traveling anywhere close to enough to make a 14 day Pass pay off. (Though you can get the discounted NEX roundtrip valid for 14 days.)
Even with a rail pass, it can be hard to time for a shinkansen from Kyoto to Shin-Osaka. I happened to do it last trip, but I almost always use a different method.
If you are actually staying near Kawamarchi Station and trying to get to Namba Station, Google thinks the best method is either taking the Hankyu line to Umeda and changing there for the Midousuji line to Namba or walking to Gion Shijo and taking the Keihan to Yodoyabashi and then taking the Midousuji to Namba. Neither option involves JR and both are under 700 yen. If you want to go straight to Osaka Castle, take the Keihan to Temmabashi, and you are a short walk away.
Good luck!
This is the standard golden route itinerary. It’s widely recommended, and for good reasons. I hope you enjoy the trip.
On June 11th, your day might be a little packed too tight, but it depends on how much you’ll like Senso-ji. There’s a lot of shopping in that area, so I spent half a day there alone.
On June 16th, I suggest switching arashiyama and fushimi inari, or at the very least, doing fushimi inari first. The earlier you go to fushimi inari, the less people there will be, and it tends to get busy as the day goes on. Arashiyama also gets very busy, but the shops don’t really open until 10ish/11ish and the bamboo forest is very small, so there’s no point in going there in the morning.
On your second Osaka Day, I suggest Namba Yasaka Jinja! It’s open before other businesses open, so you can do it in the morning, and it was definitely one of my favourite shrines.