Hi all,
We’ll be spending 23 days in Japan from mid April and wanted to check whether the below itinerary would make sense. As it’s our first time in Japan and we don’t want to overpack our days and rush the experience, we’ve decided to only focus on Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto with daytrips to Himeji, Uji, Nara, Hakone, Yokohama and potentially also Nikko.
The goal of this trip is mostly food oriented, then culture and nature afterwards. As such, there are a couple days where we haven’t figured out yet where we would like to start our day due to potential long queues at those popular restaurants.
Since a part of our Tokyo itinerary would fall in the Golden Week, how bad would the queues be at those popular restaurants? For example, if you would have to wait 1h on any given weekday, would it be 2h or 3h now? Or would it be even less as Tokyo is less crowded during Golden Week (find it hard to believe tbh)?
Any tips on the below itinerary are very much welcome! Thanks in advance!
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* Day 1
* Land in Tokyo and get the necessarily stuff all done and set-up
* Travel straight away to Osaka and check-in hotel in Shinsaibashi
* Spend the evening in Shinsaibashi
* Day 2
* \[First half of day TBD\] // *Neighbourhood will depend on the restaurant we plan to visit for lunch*
* Shinsekai
* Day 3
* \[First half of day TBD\] // *Neighbourhood will depend on the restaurant we plan to visit for lunch*
* America-mura
* Dotonbori
* Day 4
* Kuromon market
* Namba
* Shitennoji Temple
* Umeda
* Day 5
* Himeji daytrip
* Day 6 (last full day Osaka)
* Univeral Studios Japan
* Day 7
* Check-out (luggage will be forwarded to Kyoto)
* Uji
* Check-in hotel in Higashiyama
* Spend the evening in Gion
* Day 8
* Arashiyama
* Arashiyama Bamboo groves
* Jojakko-ji
* Gio-ji
* Monkey Park Iwatayama
* \[Second half of day TBD\] // *Open for suggestions here*
* Day 9
* Higashiyama
* Kiyomizu-dera
* Hokan-ji
* Kennin-Ji
* Kodai-ji
* Yasaka Shrine
* Chion-in
* Shoren-in
* \[Second half of day TBD\] // *Open for suggestions here*
* Day 10
* Fushimi Inari shrine
* Nara
* Day 11 (last full day Kyoto)
* Nishiki Market
* Anything from Nijo Castle, Kinkaku-ji, Ginkaku-ji or Shijo-dori / Other things that we might have missed / Anything we want to visit again
* Day 12
* Check-out and travel to Tokyo
* Check-in hotel in Akasaka
* Spend the evening in Akasaka
* Day 13
* Meji Shrine
* Yoyogi Park
* Harajuku
* Shibuya
* Day 14
* Tsukiji Market
* Tokyo station
* Ginza
* Day 15
* Ikebukuro
* Shinjuku
* Gyoen Park
* Golden Gai / Omoide Yokocho
* Kabukicho
* Day 16
* Toyosu
* Odaiba
* TeamLabs Planets
* Day 17
* Asakusa
* Senso-ji
* Akihibara
* Day 18
* Yokohama daytrip
* Day 19
* Hakone daytrip
* Day 20
* Potentially Nikko daytrip
* Day 21
* Nothing planned yet. Will take this free day to visit neighbourhoods / restaurants we have missed or want to visit again
* Day 22
* Nothing planned yet. Will take this free day to visit neighbourhoods / restaurants we have missed or want to visit again
* Day 23
* Departure day
2 comments
Day 9 is difficult, you have seven temples/shrines five of which are 9-5ish. Sure Kiyomizudera opens at 6:30am and Yasaka is 24/7 but this is not a lot of time per temple.
On Day 7 I would go to Nara instead of Uji, then Day 10 is Fushimi Inari + Uji. This reduces overall time spent on the train.
I find it hard to believe Tokyo will be less crowded during golden week to the extent that queues for famous restaurants decrease meaningfully. Also pasting a relevant comment I’ve made before and will continue to preach:
> Unless you are chasing Michelin stars or a specific shot for instagram/tiktok or reserved one of those places that do one seating per night (so the table is waiting for you), it’s never worth going to these in peak season. The baseline quality of cooking in Japan is very high, and you’re better off going to random shops (that are only marginally less tasty than the place requiring 2.5 hours in line) and using the saved time to do more touristing.
> Another strategy is to eat at off-peak times, I usually do a small breakfast so eating lunch at 11 and dinner at 5ish (after the temples close) works perfectly for my schedule and for queue minimization.
Skip Himeji, to us it felt like a true waste of time..