Hello everyone! Like so many others, I will be travelling to Japan for the first time on 11/29-12/11. I have never planned a trip at this caliber before so I’m extremely nervous that I will forget something essential.
Below is my tentative (and very messy) itinerary. Attractions at each location aren’t in any particular order. Any item with an asterisk (\*) is there if I have time, not mandatory.
11/29 – Touchdown at Narita @ 5:30pm
\- Train to Tokyo to check in, relax, and explore if there is time
11/30 – Tokyo –
Nakano Broadway
Shinjuku
Meiji Jingu
\*Nintendo store
\*Starbucks reserve
\*Ghibli Museum
I’m thinking about adding another day here and adjust the rest of the days. Is it worth it?
12/1-12/3 – Kyoto
Travel to Kyoto
Kinkakuji shrine
\* Gion district
\*Sanneizaka
Kiyumizudera
Fushimi Inari
12/4 – Hakone
Travel to Hakone at 9am (maybe earlier?)
\- Planning to send my luggage ahead to Osaka and just bring a backpack
Hakone loop
Check into ryokan in Gora
Relax for the rest of the day
12/5 – 12/7 – Hakone/Osaka
Travel to Osaka
Day trip to Nara
Katsuo-ji
Himeji Castle
Osaka Aquarium
Dotonbori
12/8-12/11 – Tokyo
Travel back to Tokyo
Tokyo skytree
Senso Ji
Ueno Park
Akihabara
\*Pokemon store
teamLab
\*Gundam statue
Disney Sea
12/11 early evening
\- Travel back to Narita for flight back home
​
Questions that I have:
1. How do the sending of luggage work? Do you talk to someone at the place you’re staying currently to send your luggage to the place you will be staying?
2. I’m completely lost on which mode of transportation would work best. Suica? Icoca? JR pass viable with this itinerary?
3. I’m looking to get a Goshuincho as a souvenir. Where is the best place to get one early with unique covers?
Thank you so much for any suggestions, critiques, and helpful notes in advance!!
10 comments
Hi!
I would think it would make more sense to go Tokyo to Hakone to Kyoto to Osaka rather than wasting the time going from Kyoto to Hakone to Osaka to Tokyo. You could do Tokyo to Kyoto to Osaka to Hakone to Tokyo, but if you plan to shop in Kansai, I would go to Hakone first.
Odawara (the JR stop closest to Hakone-Yumoto Station) is 30 minutes by shinkansen or 81 minutes by local train from Tokyo Station. It’s close to 2 hours from Kyoto and Osaka. Osaka is 30 minutes to 1 hour from Kyoto by local transport depending on your starting point and ending point within Osaka.
Why waste time going backwards for no reason?
To answer your questions:
1 Yes, most hotels offer this service. You would need to make sure it is offered by your hotel ahead of time. I know there are hotels that don’t offer it, I’ve just never stayed at a hotel that didn’t.
Suica and ICOCA and PASMO are just IC cards. [https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2359_003.html](https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2359_003.html)
They are just prepaid cards so you don’t need to calculate out train or bus fares every time you get on a train or bus. You only need one IC card unless for some reason you want to make them into souvenirs and collect various ones. But you don’t need multiple ones.
Generally, you will take a shinkansen between Tokyo and Kyoto/Osaka. How you get between Kyoto and Osaka will depend on where you are staying in both.
For Goshuin, I would do a search. I know there are past reddit threads as well as websites showing various covers. The covers really can vary a lot.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/eu1v35/looking_for_interesting_and_unique_goshuin_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/eu1v35/looking_for_interesting_and_unique_goshuin_and/)
I think that is the thread.
Have you looked at the map at all? Himeji is not even close to Osaka – and why go to Kyoto just to come back to Hakone which is just an hour away from Tokyo?
You should do Tokyo-Hakone-Himeji-Kyoto-Osaka-Tokyo. Unless of course you’ve made reservations in which case you do you.
Himeji is a nice town but you don’t have time for it so just stop for a few hours, visit the castle and move on.
> 2. I’m completely lost on which mode of transportation would work best. Suica? Icoca? JR pass viable with this itinerary?
Suica is the most popular for a reason. You can get it on Apple pay (or Japanese Android phones) or a physical card. And it’s useful for other things like vending machines. Get one regardless of your JR Pass plans for train and subway lines that aren’t run by JR.
JR Pass you’ll want to do some maths. Put your bullet train trips into google maps and check out the pricing and compare it to the price of the pass for a rough estimate. If you do go with it, please be aware the price is about to skyrocket in October. However you can buy a JR Pass exchange order that’s valid for 3 Months, so if you want to get one, if I were you I would buy a exchange order in September and swap it over for a real pass when you’re there.
Make sure to rent a fat guy
Hi !
Answer to questions no. 2 :
In my personal experience, when I inquired with the hotel staff about their luggage forwarding service, they were extremely helpful and willing to assist. They made sure to confirm that the intended destination was willing to accept the luggage.
Luggage: we just did this. Ask your hotel front desk. It is a lot of handwritten paperwork for them so expect them to take at least 5-15min of your time. Cost was about 1500-2000 yen per bag (it is based on the size of the bag and the distance). For any sizeable distance (eg, not same-city), your bags will take one overnight to arrive so you will need a separate smaller overnight bag for that evening. The hotel will tell you when your luggage needs to be at the front desk to be in time for pickup (eg 10am).
We sent bags from kyoto to hakone because we wanted to day trip in nara before heading to hakone and because getting to hakone is a multimodal trek (bullet train to nagoya, separate bullet to odawara, local train to hakone yumoto, bus to our hotel). So our second to last day in kyoto we took the luggage downstairs before 10am, spent the day/night in kyoto with overnight bag and then the following morning went to nara and then back to kyoto station to connect to our hakone leg. Luggage was in our hotel room at hakone like magic.
We also did it from hakone to tokyo because we wanted to check out, do some hakone museums and then go straight onto romancecar train without having to return to hotel. Spent one night in shinjuku and then the following morning the bags were at the tokyo hotel.
I think your plan is doable, though ambitious. As a solo traveler you will be able to go much faster. Ghibli tix tough to guarantee. I couldnt get it despite being on the website the moment they dropped, multiple days in a row. Had to spring for the Willer tour that guarantees tix.
Keep hydrated ts is exhausting. Reorder your cities from bottom to top or vice versa , if you already made non refundable bookings however godspeed. Get a good backpack to carry a change of clothes and battery pack .
Ghibli museum ticket has to be reserved in advance, on the 10th of the month before you go. It’s a place you will have to dedicate an entire morning/afternoon to do.
I recommend you do ghibli as a morning/afternoon thing, then spend the rest of the day at the park at kichijoji and the shopping areas there.
I would consider cutting a city. Depends on your travel style, but moving cities just costs a lot of time even if the train is only an hour. Packing your bag, checking out, going to the station, waitjng for your train, travel, getting your bearings, walking to your new place, checking in, getting settled, unpacking a bit, having a bit of a rest, and then going out….it’s hours and costs energy.
And moving less will mean you can hang out more with people as well, which is a plus for solo travellers. But again that depends on you.