My partner(26M) and I(26F) are going on our second trip to Japan and we’ll be going to Hakone and Kawaguchiko for the first time as part of a two week trip in late September. It feels squeezed in, so we’re wondering if this plan for Kawaguchiko and Hakone is too packed/unreasonable.
9/22 Friday; Shinjuku>Kawaguchiko:
– Take an early bus from Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko, Check into ryokan hopefully before noon, and have a lazy exploring day around the lake. We plan to book a room at Ubuya so we want to have a good amount of time to spend in it.
9/23 Saturday; Kawaguchiko>Hakone:
-Have breakfast at Ubuya and be out the door 9/10am.
-Take the bus down to Gotemba station and train to our Hakone accommodation near Hakone-Yumoto station to check in. This leg I anticipate will take 2.5 hours so we’d probably be settled in Hakone by 1pm realistically.
– After 1pm, we will just spend the afternoon doing the Hakone loop. We may skip the pirate ship and Open air museum since Owakudani and ropeway are the main things we want to check out.
– Depending on what time the Ryokan dinner is (I heard they even do 5pm dinner for some reason) we may opt out of dinner to have more time to explore.
9/24 Sunday; Hakone>Kyoto:
– not sure if we want to do a ryokan breakfast in Hakone. We might opt out to leave earlier.
-Out the door early morning and head to Odawara where we take the Shinkansen to Kyoto for the rest of our trip.
Day 9/23 worries me a bit. Can you do the Hakone loop in that amount of time?
Thanks in advance! First post in this sub 🙂
5 comments
>-Take the bus down to Gotemba station and train to our Hakone accommodation near Hakone-Yumoto station to check in. This leg I anticipate will take 2.5 hours so we’d probably be settled in Hakone by 1pm realistically.
As someone who did exactly this – don’t. Take the train back to Tokyo, and catch the RomanceCar to Hakone. The train/bus combo from Fuji to Hakone can run slower and actually take longer if you miss the bus between the locations, not to mention that the road is very twisty, the bus isn’t really a luggage stowage bus, and there are multiple stops.
The best thing you can do is bus back to Tokyo and swap to the train to Hakone to ensure you’re there by 1pm.
Ubuya will not allow for early check in. When we stayed there in 2019, they didn’t begin check-ins until 2:45PM or so. I would plan to do things around the lake first (like the ropeway etc) before making your way to the Ryokan for 3PM
For me personally that would be too much moving around. I would choose to do 2 nights in one of the locations and skip the other. Changing where you sleep every night is very tiring…
I’d say no, you can’t do the loop in that time frame. Hakone shuts down pretty early, as you note with the early dinner time at the ryokan. I’d pick one- Hakone or Kawaguchiko and spend both nights there. It’ll be more fun, more relaxing, and less time spent moving and packing / unpacking
At least 3 days trip. That’s why they sell Hakone-Fuji 3 days pass.