Hello! I am planning a 3 weeks trip in November and almost all of our itinerary is set up (we're doing a great trip, Tokyo, Hakone, onsen hopping 3 days in Gunma & Nagano, then Kanazawa, Osaka, Naoshima Island, Mt Koya, Kyoto, back to Tokyo).
There's the last part of the itinerary that I'm hesitating on.
Originally, we decided to wake up super early in Kyoto the last day (we have 4 days there), take the train to Nagano and the train/bus to Magome-juku. Then we'd hike to Tsumago, back to Magome, and have booked a little ryokan in Magome. Then go back to Tokyo the following morning through Nagano (we have 2 days in Tokyo before we fly home). I was a little sad not to be able to include Narai-juku in my trip but unfortunately we had to make a lot of choices, and didn't want to be moving every day.
But now, looking at trains, it looks like it's really doable to go from Tsumago to Narai-juku: walking to Nagiso station & then a 1 hour train. So now I'm thinking, could we instead walk from Magome to Tsumago as planned, then walk to Nagiso, hop on a train to Narai-juku, sleep in Narai-juku, and go back to Tokyo the following morning from Narai-juku. After all, walking back from Tsumago to Magome would take about 2 hours anyway.
Any thoughts? Is it doable in 1 day to come very early from Kyoto, walk from Magome to Tsumago, take the train to Narai, visit Narai the following morning and head back to Tokyo in the afternoon? (we have 30L hiking backpacks with us and are shipping bulkier luggage from Kyoto to our hotel in Tokyo directly.)
Is Narai-juku worth the extra trouble? Any help appreciated!
by thesharlinator