Hey, planning on doing my second Japan trip in Feb 2024, with my partner (will be their first japan trip)
We’re pretty much wanting to do the standard Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto circut, with an trip to Sapporo for the snow festival in early Feb. We’ve figured out in which cities we’d like to stay on which days, and the general attractions we’d like to see.
Here’s our itinerary:
**✈️✈️✈️Fly to Tokyo from Melbourne on 5th Feb ✈️✈️✈️**
Purchased tickets for Feb 5 – Mar 5th 2024, with JAL.
Saw the tickets were 905AUD for those dates, so figured we’d just pull the trigger…
**Day 1 – 4 | 05 Feb – 08 Feb | Tokyo (Asakusa)**
Spending 3 nights all up in Asakusa.
These are some of the activities we’re keen on while based in Asakusa (very rough):
Day 1:
* Settle in, get some CocoCurry (because cravings)
* Visit Tokyo Skytree at sunset, get drinks
Day 2 –
* Visit Senso-ji Temple and Nakamise Street
* Check out Sumida river/park
* Izakayas for dinner
Day 3 –
* Ueno park
* Tsukiji Outer Market
* Team labs (borderless if re-opened, otherwise planets)
✈️✈️✈️**Fly to Sapporo from Tokyo on 8th Feb ✈️✈️✈️**
**Day 4 – 8 | 08 Feb – 12 Feb| Sapporo**
Four nights in Sapporo all up.
Day 4 –
* Arrive in Sapporo
* Eat ramen/drink
Day 5 –
* Check out snow festival
* More ramen (seriously, gonna eat a lot here. Love Miso ramen)
Day 6 –
* Beer museum
* find a hot spring, or onsen
Day 7 –
* Otaru day trip, see the snow light path
Day 8 –
* Another day trip maybe? Honestly, not sure if a day trip or just chilling around Sapporo would be better here
✈️✈️✈️ **Fly back to Tokyo on 11th Feb ✈️✈️✈️**
**Day 8 – 14 | 12 Feb – 18 Feb| Tokyo (Shinjuku)**
Six days in Shinjuku.
Less structured here, going to be trying to visit a lot of resteraunts/drinking a lot/arcading a lot over this segment.
* Check out Kabukicho
* All you can drink Sake
* Hunt down Michelin Star ramen
* Day of Shibuya + Harajuku. Will visit owl cafe and cat cafe
* VR Zone
* Robot bar
* Omoide Yokocho alley
* Samurai Museum
Let me know of any other good activities. Otherwise, this will be mainly the ‘chill’ section of the trip.
Will also try a day trip to Nikko around here
🚌🚌🚌 **Train/Bus to Hakone on 18th Feb** 🚌🚌🚌
We will be sending our big luggage to Osaka here, and using a day pack until we get to Osaka.
Will also make a stop at the Yokohoma noodle cup museum along the way
**Day 14 – 16| 18 Feb – 20 Feb| Hakone**
Staying two nights in Hakone.
Decided to stay here after hearing that there’s a few Tattoo friendly onsens around.
Will hopefully stay at a Ryokan with dinner provided, if budget allows.
Again, itinarary here is pretty unstructured.
* Relax in hot springs
* Check out various shrimes
* Open Air Museum
* Hakone Tozan railway
🚌🚌🚌 **Bus and train to Nagoya on 20th Feb 🚄🚄🚄**
**Day 16 – 18 | 20 Feb – 22 Feb| Nagoya**
Two nights in Nagoya.
Mainly here for Ghibli park, if we can get tickets…
Day 16 –
* Arrive in Nagoya, find some good food (reccomendations welcome)
* Nagoya Castle
* Atsuta shrine
Day 17 –
* Ghibli park (hopfully)
* Nahoya TV Tower, if time permits
If we cant manage to get Ghibli park tickets, will maybe do a day trip to Shirakawa-go instead
🚄🚄🚄 **Train to Osaka on 22nd Feb 🚄🚄🚄**
**Day 18- 22 | 22 Feb – 26 Feb| Osaka**
Four nights in Osaka. Miiight consider taking a day from one of our Tokyo legs and adding it here
Hopefully stay near Dohtonbori.
Day 18 –
* Arrive in Osaka
* Food at Dohtonburi
Day 19 –
* Universal studios, full day. Getting Express 7 pass (learnt from my last failure of a day here)
Day 20 –
* Nara day trip
Day 21 –
* Kobe day trip
(looking at this listed out now, I am leaning towards more days in Osaka…)
**🚄🚄🚄 Train to Kyoto 26th Feb 🚄🚄🚄**
**Day 22 – 25 | 26 Feb – 29 Feb| Kyoto**
Three nights in Kyoto.
A bit unstructured here, not sure if I want to spend less time in Kyoto/more in Osaka
* Torri Gates
* Golden temple
* Philosophers park
* Nijo Castle
* illuminations
* Tea ceremony would be cool to check out
* Nishiki market
* Kyoto Tower
🚅🚅🚅 **Shinkansen to Tokyo on 29th Feb 🚅🚅🚅**
**Day 25 – 30 | 29 Feb – 5 Mar| Tokyo (???)**
5 Nights in Tokyo here at the end of the trip.
Not sure where to stay, want to experience a different area to Shinjuku/Asakusa.
Any suggestions welcome.
Honestly, this leg of the trip will mainly be us winding down. Might do some day trips.
Considering doing Enoshimi island around this time.
Otherwise, it’ll just be finding cool Izakayas/Food places, and souvinier shopping for this leg
**✈️✈️✈️ Fly back to Melbourne on 5th March of Feb ✈️✈️✈️**
Please let me know if there’s a better way to structure this, if you think we should reprioritise.
Am especially keen for day trip reccomendations.
The main things im unsure about
* Should we do another day in Sapporo?
* Should I spend less time in Kyoto?
* Should I spend more time in Osaka?
* Where should we be based for our last leg in Tokyo?
* Nara/Kobe day trips – better to do from Osaka or Kyoto?
4 comments
Michelin-star ramen places are usually bullshit. Nothing special.
More time in Hokkaido in my opinion. If you’re going in the winter, make the most of the winter locations.
– The Asahikawa ice sculpture festival is lovely and so is their snow festival. Worth a day trip. Also has Asahiyama Zoo.
– Day trip to Noboribetsu.
– Day trip to The Hill of the Buddha
– Consider staying in Lake Toya for a night (highly recommend The Lake Suite Ko No Sumika)
– Consider staying in Hakodate for a night or two and even flying out of there instead of Sapporo
If you’re after tattoo friendly onsens, highly recommend Kusatsu Onsen. A 1 hour train ride from Tokyo to Karuizawa (also great), then a 1h20m bus to Kusatsu. Magical at night time in the town centre, but the surrounding street, although a bit touristy, is filled with amazing architecture and street food.
^(Also the only Michelin Star Ramen I can highly recommend is Yukikaze in Sapporo. Otherwise just go to Ogikubo and basically anywhere else)
Borderless is supposed to open this year while Planets might close (as it was a temporary exhibition and they only said it would stay open to at least the end of the year).
Why fly from Sapporo to Tokyo? Fly to Osaka instead and save one way Tokyo-Osaka, just put everything else in reverse order.
Samurai Museum, Robot Restaurant (not bar) and VR Zone Shinjuku all closed.
Nikko day trip would make more sense from Asakusa as you can take the Tobu train from Asakusa direct to Nikko and with the Tobu pass it would be the cheper option.
From Shinjuku you can take a train direct to Hakone, stopping by Yokohama would get you to make a quite odd detour. Just do Yokohama as a day trip from Tokyo.
If you are to say “if budget allows” for ryokan with dinner included, then cut it to one night and do it for sure, if you think you need two days in Hakone, then one more reason to go direct and not go Yokohama the first day.
Shirakawa-go is a bit far from Nagoya, as a day trip from Kanazawa or Takayama it make more sense, but from Nagoya… not for me.
Nara is about the same from Kyoto and Osaka, just compare train from your hotel in both. Kobe is much closer to Osaka.
There is a lot to see around Kansai. You could add day trips to Hiroshima, Himeji, Okayama, Kinosaki Onsen and plenty more smaller places depending on what you and your partner are into. 3 nights in Kyoto might be a bit much if you aren’t particularly into temples and just want to see the major ones…but if you’re keen on that then you could definitely add an extra day there.