18-day itinerary for trip to Japan

Hello all,
The idea behind this post is to get some feedback on my itinerary. My wife (29F) and I (30M) have a 18-day trip planned from Nov. 14th until December 3rd to Japan. We live in Ottawa, but we will first visit LA and then we will go to Japan. This is our first time in this country. My wife and I like Disney, so we are already dedicating two days to the theme parks. Our rough itinerary looks as follows:

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|Day |Destination|Activities/Things to do|
|:-|:-|:-|
|1| Arrival to Tokyo |Arrival at Haneda Airport/ Check-in at Tokyo Hotel / Grab lunch or dinner / Skytree |
|2|Disney 1||
|3|Disney 2 ||
|4|Tokyo day 1|Shinjuku – Shibuya – Tokyo Metropolitan Government – Omoide Yokocho – |
|5|Tokyo day 2 |Nakano Broadway – Ginza – Sensou ji – Nakamise doori area |
|6|Tokyo day 3 |Day trip to Lake Kawaguchi – Maple corridor – Planning to rent a car if I get my international drivers license|
|7|Tokyo day 4 |Odaiba – whatever we are missing from previous days – Late afternoon or evening trip to Kyoto / Check-in at Kyoto Hotel |
|8|Kyoto day 1|Gion – Higashiyama – Hokan-ji – Kiyomizu-dera – Fushimi Inari Taisha |
|9|Kyoto day 2| Philosophers’ path – Eikando Temple – whatever we can’t complete on Day 1|
|10|Kyoto day 3|Hike Kibune to Kurama Temple and the surroundings |
|11|Kyoto day 4|Arashiyama Bamboo Forest -Late afternoon or evening trip to Osaka / Check-in at Osaka Hotel |
|12|Osaka day 1|Osaka Castel – Dotonbori Street – Namba|
|13|Osaka day 2|If we discover that we are temple and shrine people we could visit Nara |
|14|Osaka day 3|TBD|
|15|Osaka day 4|TBD|
|16|TBD |TBD|
|17|TBD|TBD |
|18|TBD|TBD|
|19|Return trip||

We are unsure if we are spending too many days in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. We are aware that Yokohama, Kobe, and Nara are close to Tokyo and Osaka, respectively, and these cities/towns could help fill up some spare time in Tokyo and Osaka. Is it too much time to spend in Kyoto and Osaka? Any special recommendations that you think we are missing in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka?

We have some unplanned days to visit another city, but we are not sure which one would be a good candidate. We are not particularly interested in visiting Hiroshima. We are not museum people, we are more into window shopping, anime, and theme parks. We are not necessarily interested in visiting Universal Studios. Is there another city in the region that we should visit or that I am missing mentioning that is a must considering the itinerary that I am showing above?

An alternative we are strongly considering is traveling to Seoul for the last 3 days, but I know this might be outside of the scope of this subreddit. Thanks!

1 comment
  1. You can get a train to Lake Kawaguchi from Shinjuku (from memory), if you can’t get a car. Went via train back in 2018 there and wandered along the lake, but was some great views from the train too.

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