21 Day Itinerary rough draft for summer 2023 (most likely June depending on what’s cheapest)- too crammed? Right amount of time? Are these locations good for a first-timer? Thanks

10 comments

1. I think you’ve got a good number of days in each city. If you really want to climb Fuji in June, you could do it, but you got to make sure the weather’s good for it. The huts may not be open, but people still climb it off-season.

2. Teamlabs borderless is closing this august. There is still planets and the chance something new opens up though.

   I would suggest instead of going to nara right away from hiroshima, just going to Osaka and then doing a day trip to Nara one of the next days. Checking in and out of the least amount of places is best in my opinion.

   Also if you really want to climb mount fuji would highly suggest pushing the trip into July. one of the trails opens July 1st, and the other 3, July 10th

3. I think this is a great start to an itinerary. I think far too few people make it down to Hiroshima/Miyajima and it’s definitely worth it. One thing I might change would be to consolidate the Kyoto and Osaka portions, though I wouldn’t necessarily short change it days-wise. I think people often don’t realize how close Kyoto and Osaka actually are, you can take inexpensive local trains between the two cities that take ~1 hour as opposed to needing to take expensive bullet trains. I think the better option, that might also simply things and save a bit of money would be to stake out about 6-7 days at a place in Kyoto, then make an all day trip to Nara, and a day trip or two to Osaka, perhaps spending a night in Osaka. If you’re *not* going to be getting JR rail pass I would push some sort of consolidation even more.

   I’ll pepper some general advice

   -Consider looking at Airbnb in a few places for lodging, I’ve had great luck getting to meet local folks staying in actual homes, and they’ve been able to give great local advice as far as places to go, places to avoid.

   -Since you mentioned spa world, while I definitely recommend checking out spa world (and just onsens in general, I’ve been to dozens now across Japan and they are amazing, from the fanciest all the way down to the $4.50 corner sento), *however*, rather than spending a night in a luxery hotel, if you have the cash consider finding an out of the way ryokan instead. Since you’re going to Takayama there are plenty of small onsen-towns out that way that will have good options.

   -It seems like you have a lot of interests in temples/gardens/shrines (which is great!), I think Kyoto is a wonderful place for that. Consider a day hike to and around Kurama.

   -I’ve put this in a lot of my advice, but for Fushimi Inari, I would strongly consider blocking out as much time as you can justify for exploring Mt. Inari. It’s easy when coming up with these long lists of sights to see to generally estimate like 60-90 minutes for each one, but the truth is that some places you really only need 30-45 minutes, and others are better when you give a lot more time to explore, generally because of size/complexity. The two big places I advise really blocking out time are Fushimi Inari and Kiyomizu-dera. For Fushimi Inari, go either very early, or relatively late in the day and climb the whole mountain (for a decent hiker, it’s not too hard, can be scaled in 90 minutes), take lots of little side paths as there are dozens and dozens of small shrines dotting the entire complex.

   -If you end up getting lucky enough to extend your trip a bit longer, the next city I would add to your list would be Kanazawa. It’s a logical stop between Kyoto and Takayama and is just a delightful city in its own right. Tons of things to see, but with far less of a tourist-y feel.

4. Personally, I would put Tokyo at the end of the trip as that’s usually where most of the shopping will accur.

5. For Mount Fuji, instead of thinking climbing the mountain itself, you could consider just going to a place that have a view on Mount Fuji, like Hakone or Kawaguchiko and you can decide do to a hike around there.

   I think that your park section is a mix of park and gardens, for example Yoyogi park is a park and for me unless you go during cherry blossom season or during the weekend of warmer months for people watching, otherwise it’s a park, not a garden. Would recommend Koishikawa Korakuen for a nice garden.

   TealLab Borderless is closing in August this year, so it wil have to be Planets or something else.

   I would recommend to do Nara as a daytrip from Kyoto or Osaka.

   I do not think you have time in 2 days to visit Takayama itself plus Shirakawa-go and Shinhotaka Ropeway, when accounting time in the bus, both will take a big part of the day. While the ropeway is “in Takayama”, it’s also about 2h away on the bus. So either add a day or cut one of the “daytrip. option.

6. Japan in June is going to be HOT. I hope you’re prepared for humid 40+°C every day.

7. Agreeing with the comment that says leave most of Tokyo to the end, especially if you want to shop. Also Akihabara is not the be all end all of otaku culture either— look into Nakano Broadway, and if you like sports anime or certain games you’re going to want to visit Ikebukuro’s otome road. The KBOOKS there are great for resale goods and are split up by genre (so for example there’s a KBOOKS GAME with like Persona and Fate stuff, though there was more Fate stuff at Nakano Broadway). Ikebukuro also has Sunshine City, home to a big Pokémon center and a planetarium/aquarium if you want some chill time. Seriously even both of the Animates in Ikebukuro are bigger and more varied than the one in Akihabara (but Akiba DOES have the Kotobukiya store which is nice).

   Also my general advice is to look at a map when you are planning your days. Soooo many people in this sub are like “yes I will start the morning at Meiji Jingu and then go to Skytree and then Oedo Onsen Monogatari (it closed last year but people do still bring it up) in the evening and the next day I’ll go to Shibuya Crossing and—“ no please look at a map Shibuya and Shinjuku border each other and Skytree is on the other side of the city… people do this SO MUCH here! It’s wild.

8. If you do end up climbing Mt. Fuji, I strongly suggest you plan an overnight at an onsen to recover. If you do the typical climb schedule, you’ll be down the mountain around noon, depending on how long you stay at the top. That gives you plenty of time to get to an onsen. You’re going to enjoy it.

   Seconding other comments here that you’ve got a pretty good schedule. If you rearrange some of your travel times (e.g. leave a city in the evening, like 6-8 PM), you can probably shorten some of those stays by a day without significantly affecting your activities.

9. Stop in Himeji for an afternoon on the way to Kyoto. You won’t regret it. I personally could not keep up with your pace. A park is a park is a park. Same with shrines except Kyoto. Enjoy

10. Nara is like 40 minutes from kyoto, if you want to day trip it I wouldn’t do it from hiroshima