Looking for advice on planning an osaka & kyoto trip for me and my gf for cherry blossom season 2024. We have 6 days, with the 7th day used to travel back to tokyo for our flight out. We really want to fit in hiroshima and possibly nara but there’s so much to do with so little time.
Please let me know if you would change anything or have any recommendations!
Things we currently want to do/things our itinerary currently includes:
Osaka –
Day 1: gram pancakes, shitennoji, shinsekai market, abeno harukas
Day 2: Namba Yasaka Jinja, Expo ’70 Commemorative Park, Dotonbori, Retro bar space station, teamlab botanical garden
Day 3: Universal Studios
Kyoto –
Day 1: Fushimi Inari-Taisha, kyomizu-dera, philosophers path, pontocho masuda, (split into 2 days?)
We also want to see a sumo match in osaka; stay at a ryokan; go to a sake distillery; visit yoshino mountain and nara, and spend a night in hiroshima for the peace museum.
Some of my questions are:
1. How would you guys spend your time in that area (more/less days in specific city, places that we absolutely have to see or skip that are on my itinerary?)
2. Would you try to fit in a time to stay in Hiroshima to see the peace memorial? (it’s important for us to visit but have to figure out where to fit it in)
3. What ryokan would you guys recommend in those cities?
4. Should we start our trip in kyoto or osaka, and any other changes you’d recommend?
5. Would you recommend the JR pass for this trip?
6. Should I treat Kyoto & Osaka as a single destination? Stay in one place and take day trips to the other?
7. Should we head back to Japan a day earlier, leaving us with 5 days?
Thank you guys so much!