TLDR; Is flying in/out on weekends worth the premium to avoid crowds?
Currently planning to go during Sakura season 2024 so nothing is set-in-stone but I’m learning as I go!
Great advice I hear repeated often is “go here on a week day to avoid worse crowds”, but currently we planned to go from a wed-wed two week vacation.
I then considered changing flights from sat-sat to have maximum weekday time in Japan to avoid crowds and spend the one weekend out of the big cities to a ryokan/onsen stay.
The price difference is massive! The original weekday plan is around 2,300 USD for 2 people while the weekend flights are 3,500. I know flight prices fluctuate but I don’t see them every being comparable.
Is it worth it to pay the extra cost for the tickets if it means we can beat the crowds? We can afford the premium if it means a smoother and more enjoyable vacation but it’d definitely sting if it was a pointless precaution.
Thanks for any advice!
EDIT:
Thanks for everyone’s advice! No, I don’t plan to do only cherry blossom activities. It’s just a bucket list to see them once. I understand it’s a force of nature and changes yearly so hopefully my end of March to late April trip will allow me to see them at least one day! Even if not, I will still enjoy my trip.
And I don’t mind crowds as long as they don’t prevent me from doing activities. I’m not big into photos so no worries about missing out on those opportunities.
20 comments
Not worth that much. And do you plan to only go check the flowers every day you are in Japan?
Just avoid places famous for Sakura during the weekend
I just went during sakura season 2023. It was crowded at any major tourist location regardless of weekend/weekday.
You can never avoid crowds in popular areas and seasons like sakura. You can mitigate that by going earlier than everyone else. Japan is popular so there will always be a bunch of people everywhere.
Just FYI Sakura season is very short, especially if a storm comes through. In general the longer you stay the better to give you a weather window to see peak Sakura.
Sakura season will be crowded regardless, changing your flights won’t change that. Rather than focusing on weekday and weekend, I’d focus on less popular places. There are so many places to see Sakura. The “famous” ones are always too crowded. It’s funny almost every canal has a stretch of Sakura that’s just as scenic as meguro river. Japanese tend to be picky about peak Sakura that’s the main time you will see most crowds.
Worth bearing in mind that a lot of workers take or are given time off to enjoy Hanami (cherry blossom viewing) during weekdays. When I’ve been in Ueno/Yoyogi park during Hanami there was always crowds of salary men and women carrying crates of beer.
Sakura is a busy time of the year for domestic tourists as well as international. You kind of have to accept that it will be busier than usual at that time of the year.
If you are US based, you may be able to save some money on flights, if you are willing to connect through California. There is a relatively new airline that has flights from LAX, SFO and SJC to Tokyo. It’s called Zip Air Tokyo. It’s a budget airline, so you’ll pay for all of the extras, but it’s still like half the price of a lot of other carriers.
Personally, I don’t think it’s worth putting in significant money/effort to avoid crowds. During g sakura season, I did not find there was a big difference between weekend and weekday crowds. If you plan on doing things that other people like to do, I would just accept the fact that you’re going to encounter crowds.
What I did to reduce the impact of crowds:
* If I had the option of going somewhere in the morning to beat the crowd, I did.
* For common Japanese foods like ramen, I usually avoided the places that were famous among tourists and went with Tabelog reviews instead.
* I found that you could often get somewhere like 45 minutes before they open and wait less than you would if you got there right when they opened.
* I rarely got in line to get pictures with famous landmarks and would be ok with people being in the shot.
Sakura season is such a massive time for both tourists and nationals, there’s just no way to avoid the crowds, I don’t think there’ll a difference between mid-week to weekend, and definitely not enough to justify that jump in price!
That said, early bird catches the worm!! Most festivals get lively at night, so you’ll find the parks much quieter if you’re the first on the scene than if you get there early afternoon. Also, in peak Sakura season you might be surprised where you find the blossoms, so wandering away from hotspots you might be lucky finding quieter but just as lovely areas.
Also the Sakura prediction calendars are not perfect, so don’t be shocked if the forecast changes after you book everything.
I went to Japan this March, landed early March and left March 24th. I purposely made this schedule so I would be out of Japan before all the Sakura tourism crowds. The Sakura in the area came out earlier than expected and I actually got to see a popular park’s cherry blossoms in full bloom the day of my flight.
No, it is not really worth it. I would rather spend the difference while in Japan.
I think no need to change your flight plans. It will be difficult to avoid crowds during that time of the year.
I too plan on visiting during the Sakura 2024 season. Looking at everyone’s comments it’s going to be hella crowded in any case. Best of luck to us haha
Impossible to avoid crowds for sakura. Biggest tourist season and every japanese person goes aswell
I mean it’s going to be busy here, it’s a busy season and you’re coming at peak tourist season plus prime Sakura only lasts maybe a week at most unless rain knocks them out of the trees sooner. It’s not just every other tourist who is visiting but locals as well and they take sakura season seriously here with blankets and snacks and drinks lol. There’s not really any avoiding it, just visiting where you want to go as early as you can and hoping to find a spot or see what you want to see.
When is the peak Sakura date? Doesn’t it fluctuate?
During cherry blossom season you’re never going to avoid crowds. Just go ahead and take the cheapest flight
I did sakura season this year. We were there for two weeks so experienced weekend and weekday (and a public holiday!) and tbh there wasn’t much difference in busy-ness. If you really want to be away from crowds I’d advise going out very, very early or late (we did a few temples at night, just as an example). Kyoto in the Kiyomizu-dera area on a Sunday was the only time it was unbearably busy (it took us almost 20 minutes to do a 7 minute walk at around 2pm) but other than that it wasn’t that bad being in the crowds.
I went during Sakura this year and, sure, there were a lot of crowds. But the silence and order of Japanese people was great and was the first time I didn’t mind the crowds. Prices however were very high and also availability of everything (hotels, restaurants) was a problem sometimes (but I stayed for a month and moved around last minute so that was my fault for not planning ahead)
For what it’s worth – in Japan there are crowds in every metropolitan area. Consider this: Tokyo’s Metropolitan region has over 37 million people in it. The core city of Tokyo itself is over 13 million.
Regardless of when you arrive there are going to be crowds.
Saving ~1,200 USD on flights means that, potentially, you can allocate that money to some incredibly memorable moments in Japan – like a high end onsen for a couple of nights. I did something similar – went to an onsen (run by an American of all things in Nagano) in the middle of our trip and we got all the extras – it was so worth it.
We were there during Sakura season this past year (2023) and the onsen break itself was amazing.