First visit to Japan, two weeks itinerary advice

19 comments

1. It looks doable. The rail pass may be worth it if you use JR as much as possible but you might not be able to on some local services.
   Be happy if you only get to do 50% of your plan. For example your Harajuku area day involves a lot of walking and inevitable side-diversions that will happen. Be open to discovering things on the way. I have a lot I haven’t done in terms of major sights because I ended up having more fun just exploring.

2. Kyoto plans (day 8 &9) all over the place. I suggest you check the map and see where these locations are and group them accordingly. Also, highly unlikely you can cover them all.

   And why 2 days each for Nara and Hiroshima? I’d spend more time in Kyoto.

   June is going to be humid and hot, I hope you are prepared!

3. day 8 kyoto: yeah… no…

4. I’d say that in general, you’re leaving yourself no room to discover anything by chance. This will be tight, you’ll have very little real time to do or see things at these locations, and you’ll effectively be traveling *through* these destinations on your way to your next. Days 8 and 9 are particularly brutal and sad to me – some of those destinations are worth several hours a piece, but you’ll be lucky to have 20 minutes. Is it better seeing 10 things in no more depth than you could on google image search, or really getting your mind and heart around 3-5 things in a way you’ll remember?

   My first trip was planned similarly. I, thankfully, didn’t follow that plan. My first day I was pretty wiped out from travel and decided to trim my list of destinations and gave myself more time to explore and soak up the places I was going, and I was really glad I did. After the last year and a half, I’m no longer looking at trips across the world as a given, and in retrospect, I’m really glad I spent time experiencing destinations rather than just *seeing* them.

5. Your day one might end up lame. I seriously could not spend a whole day only in Aki.

   I legit get bored after a few hours, not saying that will be your experience… but very quickly it began to feel like the same two buildings were copy pasted about 30 times and that’s mostly all the area is.

   So just a forewarning that it might not be everything you dreamed it would be.

6. Day 3, the order is absolutely wrong, you won’t finish in Shinjuku gyoen as it close at 5 and it does not make much sense to go to Kabukicho and golden gai in the middle of the day.

   Day 8, there is way too much, in my opinion this is easily two days worth. For sure you would need to re-order and maybe add a day for Kyoto.

   Day 11 is also wrong order, for me Dotonbori is clearly a nightlife area.

   Do not need 2 days to see what you listed for Nara and it does not really make sense to stay there for the night (if that was your idea). Yes, it is possible to spend two days in Nara, but you will have to find something outside of Nara park to make it worth and as far as I know, Nara have the reputation to be dead at night.

   You can also consider stopping by Himeji on the way to Hiroshima.

   With this plan, you could easily stay in Kyoto only and do the day trip to Nara and Osaka. I could understand if you want to experience both Kyoto and Osaka at night, so if you do not mind moving your things, yes it’s an option to change accommodation.

   Rail pass it depend on what you do.

   If you only go one way to Hiroshima and fly out of Hiroshima, then, no pass. If you do this, yes it mean that you will likely have a first connection to Tokyo, but it can make as much sense as to fly out of Osaka depending on where you fly from.

   If you want to fly out of Osaka, then yes it would save a bit of money, only if you can fit Tokyo to Kyoto and return from Hiroshima to Osaka within 7 days (would not make sense to use 14 days pass). In that case it would make more sense to do Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka as you would be closer to the airport. If you can fit Nara within the 7 days you will save about an extra 1200 yen, but you will have 2km extra to walk on that day compared to use Kintetsu train.

7. As others have pointed out, your day 8 is too full. However I also think your day 7 is not full enough. When we visited the bamboo forest, we also did kinkakuji and ryoanji that day. We walked everywhere, so we also discovered a lot along the way.

   I also agree with the others that Nara and Hiroshima only need one day each. You should look into visiting Kobe.

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9. I did that initiary in three months w/o Hiroshima and still felt like I missed stuff

10. I highly recommend doing Fushimi Inari shrine on the same day you do Nara. It’s on the same train line. I have personally gone to Fushimi Inari in the morning, went to do all the Nara things and then stopped by the Inari shrine again after dark on the way back to my lodging in Kyoto. It’s beautiful and nearly completely empty.

    I would also move your Kiyomizudera day to be the same as your Gion day, since they are the same district. Honestly, your day 8 is a bit too much. I would maybe just keep one day just a Gion/Kiyomizudera day.

11. Solid itinerary to start with, personally I would distribute your days in Osaka to Kyoto and Hiroshima and leave Osaka for another trip. I’ve been to Japan multiple times and really didn’t understand the attraction to Osaka from a tourist perspective. If you like the nightlife and speak fluent Japanese – I understand, but if neither of those are in your arsenal, better to spend time elsewhere.

12. Mount Takao might ruin your day – in the sense that it’s further than you might think. I would highly recommend it as I really enjoyed it, but by the time I trained out, climbed it, had lunch, took the cablecar down, and trained back, it was pretty much time for dinner. You could save some time by not climbing it, but where is the fun in that?

    Honestly this whole itinerary isn’t that bad. I’ve seen some other comments being critical, but if you have a rough idea of where each thing just consider everything as possible options for things to do. That way, you can just decide on the day what the best activity to do on the day is, rather than trying to force everything in.

13. I live in Japan now and have been here on vacation 5 times before that. Each time mostly around kyoto. Things I’ve done in Tokyo sum up to maybe a total of 10 days. i really don’t get the fascination with tokyo.
    Instead I always experince something knew going to Kyoto so I would greatly increase the time in kyoto!

    Nara can be done in one day, absolutely.

    I live in Osaka and while I love it here for every day life I don’t really think it makes sense in a tourist perspective, except for shopping (shinsaibashi street, orange street, kitchen street) and according to other people nightlife (not for me but I understand it).

    Overall it seems very packed for 14 days. I’ve not done these mange destinations in the 5 times I’ve been here on vacation. I would suggest instead of power sightseeing, focus on one 1 or 2 areas and thoroughly explore them. Then come back another time and take a different location.

14. This plan is doable, in my opinion.

    Day 1 – I would assume you arrive on Day 1? Then yeah Akihabara can be done – Manga, toys, electronics, gatcha machines, maid cafes (if you dig that)

    Day 2 – Yeah doable. Hop over to the other side into Cat street and continue your journey to Shibuya.

    Day 3 – If you want to start this day late, it’s ok because the stuff you are interested in are better at night, except the Gyoen of course (about 2 hours I reckon).

    Day 4 – Asakusa has more than just Sensoji, if you like the shitamachi feel. You can spend the whole day there experiencing a different side of Tokyo. But yeah, doable with Ueno (Ameyoko, park, museums). Might want to start early.

    Day 5 and 6 – you have to start early.

    Kyoto – if you can, spend more days in Kyoto. Lots of temples to explore. But yeah your 2 days are doable.

    Osaka is also doable.

    Nara can be done in 1 day.

    Miyajima and Hiroshima city sights can be done in 1 day.

    I am assuming you start early for all days at 8am?

    Lastly, the pass is important if you want to travel long distance (Tokyo – Osaka – Tokyo is enough to cover a 7-day cost). You have to work out the travelling cost to see if it’s worth it.

    Have fun!

15. Look, right now the sumo matches are going on, highly recommend going! You don’t need to know Japanese to enjoy a day, trust me, it’s great fun

16. Kamakura (I copied this from an erlier comment so you may add your own points)

    Get off the train at Kita-Kamakura, station is right next to Engaku-ji temple. Hike to Zeniaraibenten shrine and back to town center, you can see Daibutsu on the way back and maybe visit Tsurugaoka-Hachimangu. From Kamakura station you can take Enoden train to Enoshima island, don’t forget to stop by at Hase-dera (Hase station). Not sure if you’re into anime but this area is the location of “saishun buta yarou”. Special dish of Enoshima is Shirasudon, it might take some guts to eat if you’re not japanese xD. Enoshima has some restaurants, shrines and a cave. On the way back to Tokyo (from Enoshima to Ofuna) i recommend riding Shonan-monorail.

    Tokyo: another day trip could be Nikko. And I would not recommend yoyogi park, nothing special to see there.

    Kyoto: do the following on the same day: Yasaka-shrine, Sannenzaka, Kiyomizu-dera, Gion, Nishiki-Market, Pontocho. it’s all very close to each other and you dont need a bus. total walking time is roughly 1.5 to 2 hours.

17. Just some travel pills: if your are in Kyoto, one of the most famous temple is Fushimi Inari, the one with the orange torii go in the early morning, it’s open h24.

    But you must visit the one that is not too famous: Eikan-do Temple, trust me.

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    And if you want to relax you can go to Hakone where you can find a lot of hotel/ryokan with onsen.

18. If you plotted the areas of Kyoto you’d be going to each day, on a map, Day 8 would look like someone had gerrymandered it, no?

    Why is Nara the last place in Kansai you visit before Hiroshima when it’s the only one that doesn’t have a shinkansen that goes there? Wouldn’t it make more sense to go to Nara after Kyoto and then Osaka after Nara?

    Anyway. If I wanted to fit all those things in, my instinct would be to split it by compass direction. Have one day in the east (Gion, Kiyomizu, and everything in between); one in the north (both pavilions, Ryoanji, and the Philosophers’ Path, but not in that order ofc); and one in the west (Arashiyama, and you can put Nijo Castle in too because the best route back into town from there goes past it). Day 7 is whichever one of those three is closest to your accommodation, you’ve just got there from Kamakura and probably don’t want yet more transport time.

    The remaining two, Sanjusangendo and Fushimi Inari, can be visited on the way to Nara pretty easily. If this leaves you with less time in Nara there is always leaving the option open to go to Osaka later than planned afterwards.

    But as others have said, why plan in that much detail anyway?

19. As I always write when I see this type of itineraries: if you’re like me and plan on doing a bit of shopping for yourself, gifts and whatnot, put Tokyo at the end and not at the start unless you want travel with all that extra baggage.