I’ll be in Japan for 14 days, friend meeting up with me after 2 days so mainly concerned about the 11 days we will be together, both of our first times in Japan, mid 20s. This trip starts in a week, super late planning I know. We will both have a backpack, carry on, and 2 checked luggage. Will probably have 1 checked suitcase empty at the beginning and nest within each other.
**Day 0.1 – Saturday**
* Land at Narita at 3:30PM, take Narita Express to hotel in Shinjuku
* 6:30pm – settle in and walk around Shibuya, photo location scouting
**Day 0.2 – Tuesday**
* 8:30AM – Tokyo International Forum for some photos
* 11:00AM – head to Kawagoe
* exploring/photo walk
* Wood Works Kawagoe to get me some chopsticks
**Day 0.3 – Tuesday**
* 8:30AM – head to Kappabashi Street
* Looking for customized kitchen knives
* 12:00PM – head for Saitama
* Thrifting
* 5:00pm – return to Shinjuku, head to Shibuya for photos
**Day 1 – Tuesday**
* 10:00am – arrive at Tokyo Photographic Art museum
* I would like to go with my friend to this but I’m thinking we won’t leave from Shinjuku until around 3:30-4, leaving not a lot of time for the museum? Might need to just go myself prior
* 2:00pm – Go meet friend who lands at HND at 2:30PM, take the monorail to hotel in Shinjuku, settle in, grab quick snack at konbini.
* 7:30pm – Head to spa in Roppongi area
* Will probably only set to do that for the first day, and walk around our hotel area. Want to end the night early as I’m expecting friend to be exhausted from traveling
**Day 2**
* Start day around 9AM
* Spend day walking around Harajuku, I’m very into streetwear and friend and I both are into thrifting so we should be able to spend a decent amount of time there.
* 1:00pm – Get lunch at either the Shiba Cafe or Pig Cafe
* 2:20pm – More walking around Harajuku
* 4:00pm – Shibuya Sky, look around, grab a drink there
* 6:00pm – Go see Shibuya Crossing & walk around to find a dinner spot
* Grab some drinks and plan to end night before midnight
**Day 3**
* 10:00am – be at The National Art Center when they open
* 1:30pm – be at Cooking Sun Tokyo for a cooking class
* 5:00pm – Walking around Ginza, probably just going to Uniqlo and dinner
* 7:30pm – teamLabs Planets reservation
* Head back to Shinjuku/Shibuya area for arcades
**Day 4**
* Sit down at a breakfast place
* Move what we need for the next day into smaller luggage. Check out of hotel and forward luggage to Kyoto
* 11:00am – Catch the Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko Fuji Excursion train. Currently only 1 last train for this day available on KLook. Might end up having to do a slower alternative
* Check into hotel on Lake Kawaguchiko
* Still planning what to do here but thinking walk around Oishi Park, or just enjoy the sights of Mt. Fuji
**Day 5**
* Check out of hotel
* 12:00pm The plan is to get to Kyoto from Kawaguchiko… not sure what the best option is?
* Right now planning on doing this: Bus Kawaguchiko To Mishima and then Shinkansen to Kyoto
* 5:00pm – Check into Kyoto hotel, settle in, take Kintetsu Limited Express to Nara
**Day 6**
* 6:00am – Head to Arashiyama area, also considering doing the Adashino Nenbutsuji temple instead
* Struggling to figure how to get there early, the time tables I’m seeing out of Kyoto start at 8:40.. how do people get there by 6 from Kyoto???
* 2:00pm – Come back to Kyoto, freshen up, explore Kyoto area around our hotel
**Day 7**
* 6:00am – Head to Fushimi Inari Taisha
* Similar question as above, how would I get there super early on public transport?
* 11:00am – go back to hotel, fresh up, potentially nap, continue exploring and shopping in Kyoto area
* 12:00pm – Nara Park/Kasuga Taisha- Not sure if we will have time for Todai-ji, but if we do before it gets too dark, try to head there too
**Day 8**
* 8:30am – check out of hotel, head to Osaka
* Should we bring our luggage or forward? Not sure yet
* Drop off luggage at Hotel
* 10:00am – Osaka Castle
* 4:00 PM – Umeda Sky for sunset
* 5:00PM – Dontonbori
**Day 9**
* 9:00am – arrive at Osaka Castle (might skip this if the below is too tight)
* 1:00am – check out of hotel, shinkansen to Hiroshima
* 1:30pm – check into hotel, head to ferry for Miyajima
* 3:00pm – Shrine + Torii Gate + Mt. Misen
* As I type this I think I’ll have to skip Osaka castle to fit all this in before it gets too dark at Miyajima
**Day 10**
* 8:30am – be at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, explore the area
* Check out of hotel
* 12:30pm – Shinkansen back to Tokyo
* 6:00pm – Check into hotel at Akihabara, freshen up
* 8:00pm – currently trying to find reservations for a Michelin starred dinner in Tokyo area if anyone has any suggestions
* Will probably stay out late this night going to Arcades or bars
**Day 11**
* Walk around Akihabara
* Go to stuff we saw earlier in the trip and didn’t have time for
* Don Quijote trip
* Pack
**Day 12**
* Leave for airport at 2PM
Additional questions:
* JR pass should be worth it for us right??
* My friend likes activities, I like more exploring and sight-seeing so I’ve only really planned for that stuff, any suggestions for ‘activities’ for the 2 nights we have planned in Kyoto?
* I will most likely be bringing my back pack with camera gear everyday, will there be places that won’t let me bring my bag/camera in?/No locker storage?
6 comments
Consider doing Nara after Fushimi Inari on day 7 instead because you’ll be heading the same direction. Then in the afternoon of day 5 you could go exploring Nishiki market and the nearby shopping streets e.g. vintage clothes shopping.
Day 8 & 9: Maybe you could do the Osaka castle before you check in. I’d say 2 hours is more than enough to explore, but there’s lots of walking to and from the nearby train/bus stations so it would be ambitious to do that before you check out. You might as well do Umeda sky after the castle, although this means you’d need to either drop your luggages at the hotel, store your luggages in lockers or have them forwarded the day before.
Day 1: Have you booked tickets for teamlabs at 5:30? HND – Shinjuku – Odaiba seems a bit tight including customs etc + peak hour on trains. Shinjuku is a LOT & it’s a big station & navigating with luggage is always an adventure! I’d recommend moving teamlabs to another day and just exploring Shinjuku, especially after a travel day!
Day 5: For your travel day in Kawaguchiko – we did the bus express to Mishima station and then hopped on the Shinkansen to Kyoto there. Easy, streamlined & didn’t feel like we were back tracking having to go back via Tokyo! Def recommend.
I’d also personally take your Day 5 and explore Kawaguchiko a bit more. If you arrive and it’s cloudy on day 4 and clear on day 5, big regrets leaving at 9am! Things are also quite spread out in Kawaguchiko – it’s a very different pace to Tokyo. Enjoy the nature! Pushing yourself going to Kawaguchiko-Kyoto-Nara just seems like a lot, personally. It is doable.. but personally think Nara deserves enough time to wander around and not be rushing to the next thing. Most shrines will be closing by the time you arrive (4pm) and it will be dark (4:30-5).
We also booked the Fuji Excursion via Klook a few weeks in advance. Super easy to collect ticket at station and we had reserved seats the entire way and didn’t have to stand. I had trouble deciphering how to get to Kawaguchiko via train because most guides talk about the JR pass (which we didn’t have). I’d buy it again, def recommend as well!
I was in Japan around similar timeframe (mid December for me), and I would look at your itinerary and revise to have all your major sightseeing in before 4-5pm like PP suggested. by 5 it’s already quite dark and not enjoyable anymore. doesn’t mean you can’t go anywhere after 5, but it will be different. For example, Kawaguchi-ko after 5 will probably not provide any sightseeing joy. Others like Arashiyama can definitely be explored at night time. There was a light up Arashiyama event when I went with people singing / playing the shamisen and it was magical. It snowed to boot!
So you can still go out, but also you have to be ok w having a different experience after dusk. I’m not sure what Nara looks like after dark but it’s one of my favorite cities ever and so so beautiful, I wouldn’t short change it coming in at 330.
You said you both will have a backpack, carryon and two checked luggage. Is that total for the two of you or each of you will have that much? Personally I think one carry on and one checke would be the max per person to make it comfortable. Lots of transit/stairs will make it a PITA to have a lot of luggage.
JR pass has gone up in price. To see if it’s worth it or not, try it here
https://www.daisuki.com.br/jrpass_calculator.html
Note that there are many instances you can’t use it (Tokyo metro, different railway companies not JR etc) so that makes it a lot less versatile than one might think
u/Aetholas has a good point: it’s likely to be dark when you get to Kawaguchiko, and Fuji will not be visible.
Harajuku is not a place for ‘thrifting’. There are two decent used clothing shops in the area (named Chicago and Flamingo), but otherwise prices are not low. (As an aside, Saitama is a big place. It’s not clear where you’ll be shopping, but I don’t know of any areas well known for bargain shopping there.
Also, shops in Harajuku don’t open until 10 AM or later, just as is the case with most shops in Tokyo. (Generally, the more trendy or designed to appeal to the young a shop is, the later it opens.)
Finally, you should not go to any animal café. They are terrible places at which the animals lead poor, shortened lives full of stress. They’d likely be illegal in many other countries.
Just came back from my first trip to Japan. 14 days and hit Tokyo, Fuji/Kawaguchiko, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Nara. Lots of walking. Bring good shoes. Luggage delivery helped us out a lot with our checked baggage. Cost between $10-20, but it’ll be really worth it when you need to navigate the crowded subway and JR stations.
Two tips:
1. If you’re doing luggage delivery, make sure whoever is filling out the form puts the hotel name. On our return to the airport, the luggage went to the transport delivery counter at the airport instead of a hotel. If we hadn’t put AirTags in our bags we would not have realized until it was too late.
2. For Shinkansen train from Tokyo to Kyoto, make sure you are at the correct Tokyo station. We bought our ticket at Shinjuku, so we assumed we would be boarding the Shinkansen there. Instead, we made a mad dash to catch a metro to Tokyo and barely made it to our scheduled train.
Here are some suggestions to improve your 11-day Japan itinerary:
**Getting Around Early to Sites Outside Kyoto**
To get to Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari early, you’ll likely need to take a taxi. Public transportation doesn’t start early enough.
**Day 4 Transportation**
I’d recommend taking the bus from Kawaguchiko to Mishima, then shinkansen to Kyoto. Much faster than local trains.
**Luggage**
I’d forward all luggage to Kyoto, just take small bags to Kawaguchiko. Then forward again to Osaka when leaving Kyoto. Carrying less will make transit easier.
**JR Pass**
Yes, with all the bullet train trips planned, a 7 or 14-day pass will pay off.
**Kyoto Activities**
Some ideas – bamboo forest walk, geisha show, pottery/fan painting class, bike tour, sake tasting, calligraphy class, kimono rental for photos.
**Photo Restrictions**
Some temples/shrines prohibit tripods/monopods. Be prepared to check gear if needed.
**Other Tips**
– Reconsider Osaka Castle, very touristy. Aquarium is a better option.
– Add more time in Kawaguchiko, it’s beautiful.
– Research train timetables closer to confirm daily plans.
Overall you have a great itinerary covering the top destinations. Just build in flexibility for any needed changes. Have an amazing trip!