We are planning to visit Japan as a family leaving in mid-December (returning before New Year holidays). We’ve booked accommodation but I just wanted to make sure that the itinerary was good. This will be our first time visiting so we don’t really know entirely what to expect.
So far we have a rough itinerary of activities for most days so it is currently pretty flexible if we decide to do something else while we are there. Most of the itinerary is organised by areas to explore, but some days have been planned out a bit more specifically.
We were considering a JR pass (specifically the Hokuriku arch pass for the last 7 days) but we weren’t entirely sure whether it was worth it as the pass was around USD$10 more expensive than the costs of the major trains (local JR trains and buses were not considered). At the moment we will probably just get IC cards to pay for transport.
We were also considering a day trip to Hiroshima on the last full day in Kyoto but we mostly decided against it due to high travel fees.
A couple of main questions that we had were:
\-Could cheap vegan dinner be found in Koya-san (eg. FamilyMart convenience store) apart from the temple stay dinner (it was too expensive for the budget)?
\-Would a Tokyo subway pass be worth it based on the rough itinerary?
\-Whether the itinerary was reasonable to complete in the time that we had
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Our itinerary is as follows:
Day 1 – Narita Airport to Ueno accommodation
Day 2 – Eastern Tokyo:
-Tokyo National museum
-walk through Ueno park & Yanesen area
-Ueno
-Akihabara
-evening: Senso-ji temple & shops
Day 3:
-Tokyo DisneySea
Day 4 – Western Tokyo:
-Shibuya
-Shinjuku
-Ghibli museum if tickets available
Day 5 – Central Tokyo:
-breakfast: Tsukiji outer fish market
-Ginza (eg.Uniqlo store)
-Imperial Palace
Day 6 – Eastern Kyoto:
-morning: train to Kyoto
-lunch: Nishiki markets
-walk around Northern Higashiyama:
-Konchi-in
-Nanzen-ji
-Eikan-do
-Path of Philosophy
-Honen-in
-Ginkaku-ji
Day 7 – Nara Day Trip:
-Nara deer park
-Buddha statue
Day 8 – Northern Kyoto (ordered itinerary):
-early morning: Arashiyama bamboo grove
-Okochi Sanso (house)
-small walks around area (eg. over Togetsu-kyo bridge, monkey park, Senkoji temple)
-Tenryu-ji temple
-Togetsu-kyo bridge
-taxi to Kinkaku-ji (golden temple)
Day 9 – more Eastern Kyoto:
-early morning: Fushimi-inari shrine
-walk around Southern Higashiyama area eg.:
-Gion:
-Gion Starbucks
-Kagizen Yoshifusa (traditional sweets)
-Kiyomizu-dera temple
Day 10 – spare day in Kyoto:
(do to anything that was missed etc.)
-possibly romantic railway then Hozugawa river boat ride back
-possibly day trip to Hirosima to see peace memorial & museum
Day 11 – Koya-san:
-early morning: train to Koya-san
-Okuno-in cemetary
-Kongobuji temple
-Temple stay
Day 12 – Osaka:
-train to Osaka mid-morning
-Osaka castle
-dinner: Dotombori
Day 13 – Kanazawa:
-early morning: train to Kanazawa
-Kenrokuen garden
-Ninjadera temple
-21st century museum
Day 14 – Kanazawa/Nozawa Onsen:
-DT Suzuki museum
-samurai district
-train&bus to Nozawa Onsen after lunch in Kanazawa
-walk around streets of Nozawa onsen
Days 15-17 – Nozawa Onsen:
-skiing
Day 18 – Travel back to Tokyo:
-morning: train&bus to Jigokudani snow monkey park
-bullet train to Tokyo
-small things that were missed in Tokyo originally
Day 19 – Tokyo:
-morning: TeamLab Planets
-walk around Odaiba seaside park/other small missed things
-evening: flight out
​
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
