Sorry in advance for formatting, I’m on the phone.
I’ll start with the itinerary and then explain, since I posted already and it got taken down cause of lack of itinerary?
Day 1
Arrive to Narita airp around 23.00, spend night there (it’s only a few hours)
Day 2
Take early flight to Sapporo Visit Sapporo. Checking in hotel, visiting T38 Observation Deck, Tokeidai, Susukino, Ramen Yokocho.
Day 3
Visit Sapporo: Nijo market and Noren Yokocho, Odori park, Tv Tower, Sapporo Bier Garden and museum.
Day 4
Go to Otaru in the morning and visit the canal, Chuo-bashi, Temiyasen Kaijo. Take train to Noborimetsu, we’re thinking around 6pm
Day 5
Noborimetsu – Hell Valley: Oyunuma river, relaxing at some onsen (I have a few tattoos, any advice/recommendations?)
Day 6
Train to Hakodate early in the morning, around 7
Visit Hakodate: Hakodateyama
Day 7
Visit Hakodate: Hakodate Asaichi, bay area, Motomachi, Goryokaku if we have the time.
PTrain to Morioka in the evening (around 3h).
Day 8
Visit Morioka: bank of Iwate, eating some noodles, Hoonji temple. I had it on my radar already, and recently saw the NYT listed it as a place to visit on this year’s list, but I’ve been checking blogs and I wouldn’t say it looks spectacular. What’s your take on it?
Train to Sendai in the evening (about 1h).
Day 9
Day trip to Matsushima: maybe visit on a bike? bay area, green plaza, Kanrantei tea house, main street, Godaido temple, Fukuurajima bridge, Zuiganji temple. Back to Sendai.
Day 10
Visit Sendai: Sendai Asaichi, shotengai, Zuihoden mausoleum, Aobayama park, Miyagiken Gokoku. I’m not sure we can fit all of it, but as much as we can. Then taking an evening train to Osaka, as late as possible (almost 5h).
Day 11, 12
One day we’ll visit Osaka (Osaka castle, Dotombori, eating some okonomiyaki, Umeda Sky) and the other Universal Studios (mainly Mario world and Harry Potter). 1st day is a Sunday, park is open for longer but it’ll probably be more crowded. What do you recommend?
Day 13
Visit Osaka: Tsūtenkaku tower, den-den town. Train to Tokyo as soon as possible, around 3h to Shibuya.
Days 14, 15, 16: Visit Tokyo. We visited last time already so we are not concerned about this part of the trip, but a rough itinerary could be:
Day 14
Odaiba, Asakusa (senso-ji, already visited), Omoide Yokocho street, playing some Taiko no tatsujin.
Day 15
We want to take some photos of Mt Fuji. If wheather is not good this day, we can swap with day 14 or 16. Lake Kawaguchi, lake Saiko and Chureito Pagoda look the most interesting. It would be cool to visit them all but if not possible, which do you recommend?
Edit: we’re also thinking of doing this on day 13; departing from Osaka fairly early and stopping in lake Kawaguchi and the pagoda, to not retrace our steps once in Tokyo.
Day 16
Team labs museum, shopping in Shibuya, seeing some pokemon center, nintendo store, Kabukicho in the evening.
Day 17
Visit Tokyo: Square enix cafe, last minute shopping in Shibuya. Plane back home in the evening
Good evening fellow Japan travellers,
My bf and I will be visiting Japan from oct 25th to nov 11th. We have the plane tickets to/from Narita airport and an airbnb in tokyo from nov 7th to 11th that we cannot change. So those two things are set, and we are deciding on the rest of the trip. We live in Spain and it’s highly unlikely we’ll go back to Japan in the foreseeable future (too many other places we haven’t been to; we’re going back now cause Airbnb gifted us the stay in Tokyo).
On our 1st visit a few years ago, we visited Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Takayama, Shirakawago, Tokyo, Nikko, Kamakura and Yokohama also in 2 weeks, so aside from Tokyo, which we love, we’d like to focus on different places.
When we first started planning this time around, we talked about going north, but I would love to visit Universal Studios in Osaka, so we thought either we: a) could go just north (either just Hokkaido or that and things between Hokkaido and Tokyo), b) south (Osaka, Shikoku island and Tokyo), or c) a mix (north, Osaka and Tokyo). We’ve currently decided on the last one (I’m not sold on Shikoku, and USJ looks really good) but I’m worried it will be too much travelling and not enough time on each spot.
Interests: honestly, a bit of everything. Our last trip was a dream. We’re into nature but also big cities. We usually do the smaller towns-hikes first and end our trips in big cities to relax, do some shopping, etc. We love the temples, tradicional spots. We love the nerdy stuff, videogames, some anime, etc. Love the food, specially ramen (I’m vegetarian though). I have tattoos. We’re in shape and don’t mind walking a lot and keeping a pretty tight schedule so we can fit more things.
Since it’s peak fall, we’d love to see some autumn leaves.
We’re planning on taking a backpack each and travelling as light as we can, although: 1. I like my clothes, 2. we have a lot of photography equipment (professional cameras, tripods, etc.) and 3. Since it’s late October – early November, I’m worried it will be cold up north and we’ll need thick clothes, so I’m not sure we’ll be successful on that.
But my main concern is about moving around – staying balance: if we do this itinerary, we’ll basically visit cities and middle sized towns from Sapporo to Tokyo, spending little time in each. I’ve seen itineraries recommend things like Dewa Sanzan or Shiretoko National Park that look amazing, but we would need to spend more time in each place to fit hikes and visiting spots that are not in the city. I’m worried we’ll focus too much on urban spots and miss on the authentic, but Im not sure what spots are the weakest in the current itinerary if we wanted to change anything. Any advice?
If it’s a lot, we could always change the plan and do b) although, like I said, Shikoku doesn’t look as spectacular to me. We would rent a car and drive around it for about 6-7 days, then go to Osaka then Tokyo. What’s your opinion on Shikoku?
Any tips will be welcomed. Thank you for reading.
Edit: feel free to point me to any threads regarding a Sapporo-Tokyo train route. I used the search tool but couldn’t find any.