Itinerary check for first time visitor. Roughly 10 days total. Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima.
Due to budgeting I won’t be going until 11/24 so plenty of time.
Day 1: Flying from UK aim to arrive at Haneda for around 9am, grab pocket wifi of some kind and get whatever rail card is best for me, get on the Tokyo rail line to accommodation around Shinjuku. Get settled and have lunch nearby. Then head over to the Studio Ghibli museum and be there until near close. Dinner nearby and aim to wander back potentially to aim towards Sky tree for the night view.
Day 2: Grab food from nearby combini then get on the train line to Ashikaga flower park, spend a good chunk of time wandering around. Back on the train line for dinner before heading back to accommodation.
Day 3: Food from combini, walk to Imperial palace spend a few hours walking around, get on train line and head to Gyoemmae-gyoen garden, spend a few hours and hop back on the train towards the sky tree, wander, then walk back to accommodation.
Day 4: Take the shinkansen to Kyoto. Drop off bits at accommodation, get some lunch and head towards the Fushimi inari shrine via rail line, spend the rest of the day wandering round then getting some dinner before heading back to accommodation.
Day 5: Food from combini and walk to kiyomizu dera spend the morning wandering around, then head towards the Imperial palace via rail to spend a few hours. Afterwards I’d head towards Arashiyama bamboo forest to have a wander then the rail back near accommodation for dinner.
Day 6: Food from combini, head towards Osaka castle for a few hours before afternoon via rail, then head towards nara park for the rest of the day, either getting dinner around or before getting back to accommodation.
Day 7: Food from combini, take the shinkansen to Hiroshima. Drop bits off at accommodation, grab some lunch and head towards the memorial and wander around for the rest of the day, grabbing dinner somewhere before heading back to accommodation.
Day 8: From the Hiroshima station head towards Miyajimaguchi station to get onto the JR ferry for the Itsukushima island and spend the day around there.
There’s only really 1 other place I wanted to go to but it was quite far out of the way and not alot I’ve seen to do around it either.
Should I add another day to the Kyoto/Osaka/Tokyo travelling?
I’ll be travelling by myself but I’ll always have a decent sized bag for any snacks and liquids. Aiming for first week in November as trying to avoid any warm weather as with plenty of walking I tend to sweat fairly easily.
I haven’t got the exact time frames of how long it’d take to go from A to B but have a good idea, accommodations will probably be a mixture of hotels/air bnbs, anything to look out for?
Thanks in advance for any help
2 comments
Day 1, with accommodation in Shinjuku, you know that Ghibli Museum and Skytree are like on opposite sides of Tokyo, it’s not really the combination I would recommend, especially when you plan Skytree on day 3 too.
Day 3, that’s the first time I see someone massacre the name of that garden like that. It’s Shinjuku gyoen. You are probably reffering to the subway station Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station.
Usually you would need 2-3 days to see the highlights of Kyoto, 1-2 for Osaka. Yes you could add days to either. Tokyo, well you barely listed anything, I coud easily see things to add 2-3 days minimum in Tokyo.
Honestly, 10 days is at the limit for me between doing only Tokyo or Kansai and doing both. Doing both with Hiroshima, might be a bit beyond my personal limit. It’s kind of rushed and not much time in each place. If you think you will go back to Japan in the future, I would honestly consider doing Tokyo only or fly direct to Osaka and do Kansai and Hiroshima only.
so first thing when reading this that hit me was “food from conbini”
I get it, we all have to keep a check on budget. but man, your flying to the other side of the world to experience a lifetime trip, and then you want to sample the (even if it is compared to what we get here pretty good) prepacketed ready mate snacks?
A onigiri here or there, or a fried chicken or a sandwitch, thats also an experience, but please keep your eyes peeled for all the things that you can experience, even outside 7-11 and familymart
so I can see, you have a 10 days, and you have scheduled 1.5 days in Kyoto. So thats where I would suggest you put the other two.
day 4: there may be better ways to see fushimi inari and to spend a half day, if we look at the other days first
day 5: thats a bad plan. might I suggest a full day in higashiyama
day +1: that would be a possible arashiyama day
day +2: that could be a nijo/imperial palace/more higashiyama/kinkakuji day. or you use it for nara, maybe fushimi and uji as well?