Hi everyone,
I am travelling in October with my husband and 1.5 year old child. We are planning to have a road trip because we really love stopping at random places and hidden gems along the way and also thinking it’ll be easier to bring around all the baby stuff.
We have driven around Kyushu, Okinawa and Hokkaido and with those areas it’s kind of easy to plan a route since it’s an island. This time I want to drive either from Narita Airport or travel into Tokyo and pick the car up there. I was thinking towards Gunma or Izu peninsula. We have been to Fuji Five Lakes area so don’t necessarily need to stop there.
We will have about 8 days for our road trip. Any suggestions for route or any other area that would be a good road trip destination? There are too many places to go so it would be great to have some ideas to narrow it down! Thank you in advance
4 comments
What’s your reasoning for picking up the car in Tokyo than at Narita airport? You really don’t want to drive in Tokyo. It is not fun.
I just came back from a 6 day trip from Narita / Gunma / Nagano / Narita. I picked up the car directly in Narita, the trip to Gunma is around 3 hours. We stopped at Saitama overnight between Narita and Gunma because we wanted a more chilled driving experience, but 3 hours should be doable for many people, especially as most of the trip will be on the expressway.
Whatever you do, avoid driving into Tokyo lol
I can suggest 2 areas…
Izu has some great views with soaring cliffs, beaches, villages if you like the coast as I do. I’m heading there today for 4 nights. Renting a car from the very bottom in Shimoda.
Or take shinkansen to Nagano and then rent car from there, and go onsen hopping. We just got back from Kusatsu onsen, and driving around mountain areas is fascinating, there’s so many faded villages and buildings from days gone by. It’s a very contrasting experience to the insanity of Tokyo.
We rented a car and drove family of four around southern Chiba province and stayed at a nice Airbnb house near coastal Katsuura that I could recommend. Kids played at several beaches and visited Mt. Nokogiri.
I did drive the car back to return it next to Shinjuku station around 6-7pm on a Monday and I didn’t think the traffic was an issue at all.