When it is not too cold in the places we want to go, but at the same time, where prices are not too crazy and there are not too many crowds… I was wondering what your opinions are for the best time to visit then. 🙂 I’ve watched some videos on Youtube for when to go, and they all have varying degrees, but the basic gist I got was I would like to avoid Golden Week (end of April to beginning of May) as well as the heart of cherry blossom season (end of March to beginning of April). However, I know cherry blossom season can vary, so I’m wondering when prices will start to rise/fall again?
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The trip will be with my husband and I. And though we are coming from a cold place (northeast region of the US), I would rather it not be too, too cold when we go. It would be nice if we could go during plum blossom season, but I am not sure how crowded it will be then/if prices will be a lot higher.
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Here are some of the places we were considering doing during our two week trip (subject to change):
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\-Tokyo (at least a week here) for various stores, food, anime nerd stuff
\-Osaka for food, aquarium, team labs
\-Kobe for food, onsen, chinatown
\-Kyoto for temples and gardens, deer park
\-Hiroshima for musuems and rabbit island
10 comments
First two weeks of April are ideal. I like the cooler weather vs the hotter and humid weather. Right now it’s just getting to be too sunny, hot and humid to enjoy walking too much.
The best time to go weather wise is also when everyone else is going to be traveling there. That’s just the way it is. If you want to go during spring but not during peak cherry blossom season or golden week then mid April seems to be the time you’re looking for. But it will be busy.
Honestly I’ve travelled to Japan a few times already.
I’m here right now again.
April is the best time. People are just uninformed about golden week.
It’s just as crowded as always. I think cherry blossom is way worse
If you plan on doing amusement parks etc try to avoid the spring break week when kids are off school – it seems like people in this sub had a really rough time. I went to USJ and Disney in mid-late April after the spring break and although busy it was totally fine.
We just did April 12-25th and I didn’t find it as crazy as things looked just a couple weeks prior. We got what I thought were good hotel rates everywhere. We actually still saw Sakura in full bloom at Oshino Hakkai (Fuji Five Lakes) and it only rained one day our entire trip! I was seeing 300+ min wait times at USJ at the end of March, and wait times were pretty low when we went on April 18th. There were still long lines everywhere, but that’s just Japan. I mainly saw locals and not as many tourists as I was expecting! I packed lots of long sleeves and regretted it because it was way warmer than we thought it would be (especially while we were walking everywhere). I think we hit the sweet spot between the Sakura peak crowds and golden week. I’d recommend it for sure! Granted it’ll be slightly different each year, so it’s hard to plan for!
We have just come back and I think the gap between the peak of cherry blossom and golden week – which is when we were there – works well. So dates from about April 8 onwards. We still saw plenty of blossom because it lingers on and yes it’s quite busy, but certainly not impossible. The weather was good. Some warm days in the south and inevitably a bit of rain but perfect weather for sightseeing really.
It turned out that our trip was during peak cherry blossom season. It was fine.
Find a time that works for you and go with that. If you make your reservations we’ll in advance for accommodations then that should be fine as well.
I booked our accommodations in December/January for the end of March.
In terms of crowds: I found tokyo crowded but, then again, for a city region of over 37 million the busy districts will never not be busy.
I have no experience with Golden week but that one seems challenging – busy for accommodations and tourist-y destinations.
If you travel between April 7 or so and April 27, you’ll be in between the cherry blossom and golden week periods. If you are coming from the US north, nothing will feel cold for you during that time
Regarding pricing for accommodation, book in advance. My group of 3 left a few nights open between two cities so we could stay longer in one if we felt the need and got stuck with nothing open and had to travel really far out to find somewhere to sleep.
Every other place worked out at about $50aud a night for 3 of us.
Thank you everyone for your replies and advice, I appreciate it very much! 🙂