Itinerary check for Kyushu

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1. Spent a whole month in Kyushu without a car and even without a pass (despite changing city almost daily), just do not assume that you have to get a pass.

   Personally would only do one night at Kurokawa onsen. There is just so much you can do in smaller onsen town, you will likely not spend the whole day in the onsen and I would rather do kaiseki in two different town/ryokan to have something a bit more different (and also it’s a lot of food two days in a row).

   Takachiho gorge from Mount Aso is not that easy. You will have to take a train to Tateno, then a train to Takamori and a bus to Takachiho… that is if you can align them all on the same day. Doing it one way is complicated enough, you won’t do round trip in a single day. Either remove Takachiho or plan it better.

   You can co Aso to Kagoshima by train only. Feel that you are kind of skipping over some interesting places like Kumamoto.

   Going to Yakushima an do Shiratani Unsuikyo on the same day will require taking an early ferry, better find a hotel close to the ferry terminal.

   Yakushima is known for flying fish, I tried an it was good. Note that Yakushima without a car is possible, but you have to do research on bus time as some destination are really not frequent and missing a bus might mean at best waiting hours and at worst being stuck there. I did it without car and ended up meeting someone at Ohko-no-taki who offered me a ride and I was able to go to places that would be really hard to impossible without a car.

   Miyazaki without a car is possible. Takachiho is ok if you wake the bus from Kumamoto or Nobeoka, or alternatively somewhere between like Takamori, however, you need to time it properly with the bus schedule. Would recommend staying for a night around Takachiho shrine to see the Kagura performance.

   Stayed in Hyuga for a night, the area closer to the ocean like umagase is really beautiful, but require a ton of walking, would be much easier to do with a car or maybe bike rental (there is some parts going uphill, so that can be a bit difficult at time).

   Miyazaki city itself did not had that much interesting place. Aoshima island is quite interesting, but does not take that much time. If you want to do Udo-jingu on the same day it’s possible, but a bit of a pain considering the infrequent bus.

   Obi, in Nichinan, was an interesting castle town, but going this way you will be stuck going back to Miyazaki to take the train to Kagoshima.

   You could consider going to Ibusuki after Kagoshima, it’s a onsen town that have sand bath. You could do a ryokan with meal there instead of the double Kurokawa onsen. Some of the Ferry to Yakushima also stop by Ibusuki, so that would be an option, but depending on the schedule it might make the day 1 hike in Yakushima more difficult.