Hi everyone!
Hoping to get a little food for thought – I’m solo travelling to Japan in September and have planned out the back half of my holiday, basically 2 days at Tokyo Disney Resort staying in Tokyo Bay and 4 days in Tokyo staying in Shinjuku, flying out on the fourth day at 5pm. However, I’m a little stuck with what to do the first 3 days or so. I land in Tokyo at 1pm and my initial plan was to travel to Osaka by bullet train and spend 3 nights there, looking somewhat like this:
17th Sept: Arrive Tokyo, bullet train to Osaka
18th Sept: Kyoto bus day trip (I had found a bus tour that covers Fushimi Inari, Arashiyama and Nara, but I feel like that’s a great deal of ground to cover in one day and it wont be that enjoyable as a result. Thinking I would be better off picking two out of the three to visit on my own and be able to explore at my leisure.)
19th Sept: USJ or Osaka shopping, exploring etc and then photo tour in the evening.
20th Sept: Morning in Osaka and then travel back to Tokyo by bullet train
However, I’ve given it some thought and I think the Disney resort is enough of a theme park experience for me this trip so I’ve decided I’m going to give USJ a miss. I’m also finding there are some things in Kyoto I really want to do, eg visiting Fushimi Inari, Arashiyama and a traditional bookbinding class. The things I’m really interested in doing in Osaka are a photo tour one evening (As I’m solo travelling I’m keen to have an opportunity to get some good photos taken, preferably in the evening to make the most of the neon lights and streetscapes, and my evenings in Tokyo are spoken for already so Osaka seemed like a good compromise as I’ve already found a photographer I like) and of course a visit to Dohtonbori. I’d love to fit a visit to Nara in as well but I understand I might be biting off more than I can chew with the time I have (it’s an excuse for another trip, right?)
With that in mind, my plan starts to look more like this:
17 Sept: land in Tokyo, travel to Osaka, Dohtonbori in the evening?
18 Sept: Travel to Kyoto for self guided day trip to Arashiyama or Fushimi Inari, photo tour in Osaka in the evening/Dohtonbori again?
19 Sept: travel to Kyoto, bookmaking class until 12pm, afternoon in Nara (or whichever of the two landmarks I didn’t visit yesterday instead of Nara?)
20 Sept: morning in Osaka, shopping etc, bullet train in late afternoon/early evening to Tokyo
So, looking at this revised plan, would I be better off booking accommodation in Kyoto instead of Osaka and just doing an afternoon/evening trip (or trips, potentially) to Osaka for my photo tour once I’ve spent the day in Kyoto? Or is it much of a muchness considering the travel time on the bullet train (I will have a 7 day JR Pass for this leg of the trip.)
I am wary of striking a balance between doing too much and feeling like I have missed out on things, so I think a lot of my overthinking comes from anxiety in that area! Plus I’ve never travelled alone before and am trying wherever possible to make things as easily navigable as possible in a new environment, however I tend to overthink things at the best of times, so any wisdom from those more knowledgeable than me would be much appreciated! Thanks!
2 comments
Hey,
I’m doing the solo travelling experience in Japan right now and here are my opinions:
1. Osaka vs Kyoto as home base : since you have the jr pass it doesn’t really matter, it’s 15 min with the bullet train between both cities. It comes down to where is the better hotel you find.
2. In Osaka, dotonbori is a great place but give some thought to visit also Osaka castle It’s magnificent.
3. If you visit Nara, do it in the morning, the deer are more interactive at that time and there are less people early in the morning. I would say give it a 1-2h then go to Kyoto or Osaka to complete your day.
4. This is just an opinion I’m throwing here but for Tokyo, since you are only there for 6 days, unless you are a big fanatic of disney, I would miss out on Disney and use those 2 days to visit Tokyo, Tokyo is a huge city and there is a lot to see.
Osaka all day.
Usj and 2 days of Disney is more of a 3+ week combination. If it is your first time in japan, I’d pick 1 day of the three at most because you are going to have complete throwaway days due to laundry/jet lag/rainy days.
If you want to just do theme parks that just happen to be in japan, you can always throw in:
Nagoya- Nagashima Spa Land, Legoland, Ghibli Park
Kyoto- Toei Kyoto Studio park
Tokyo- Fuji q, seibuen amusement park, Harry Potter Park in June 2023, Tokyo dome Park