Im heading back to japan in November
Used to lived around the Nagano area, and was in japan for 3 weeks in March/april so ive done a lot of the regular tourist trail, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto Kanazawa, Nara etc
Im looking at taking the bullet train to to Fukuoka for a chunk of my trip in November in hopes of getting some tickets to the Sumo tournament held there when they’re released in september
Can anyone who’s been there recommend whether we stay in Fukuoka and day trip out to Nagasaki, Beppu etc or should i be aiming to stay in those places for part of the trip? any recommendations for things to do in that area are most welcome or would you recommend a whole different area of japan to spend a chunk of time in?
6 comments
I just got back from Fukuoka and it was amazing. I spent most of my time visiting the islands.
If you are going to Beppu, stay the night there as the onsen thing is a big part of going there. I would pass on the big hotels along the water that claim a view of the sun rising over the water while you soak in their rooftop onsen. It seems that every single time we have stayed at one, it’s cloudy and poor view of the sunrise. That coupled with all the big Chinese and Korean tour busses and crowded buffet dinners make a pretty average experience. Instead find a Ryokan to stay in where, you may not have the possible view, but nice quiet time and better food.
Yufuin is another option for onsen, a bit quieter, a touristy shopping street and everywhere seems to have a nice view of Yufudake.
I’ve stayed in Fukuoka twice (and went to the sumo tournament each time). Last time I visited Nagasaki and it was a nice and straightforward day trip that I enjoyed. I think it was ~2 hours by train.
I really liked the Fukuoka Art Museum. Its exhibitions were quite varied and very engaging and I enjoyed it more than I expected to. Don’t see a lot of folks on here mention it as a Fukuoka thing to do, so thought I’d mention it.
There was also a really significant Christmas market that was interesting to visit in November 2022. I imagine it’ll be back for 2023.
Take the train to Nanzoin. There’s a cool Buddhist temple there and a MASSIVE Buddha statue. Great 3-4 hour trip.
Please, let us know if make Fukuoka as your base 🙂
I’m also thinking of going back to Japan in Oct and I prefer choosing at least two cities as a base and travel slowly 🙂
I’m currently travelling through Japan and my wife and I made Fukuoka our initial stop for a week back at the end of May/start of June. Initially we thought it would act as a base to see other places but we ended up doing fewer day trips than we thought and really enjoyed staying in and around the city.
We stayed in Hakata which is an easy walk or subway to Canal City, Tenjin (which has great bars, restaurants, and shops), and Ohori Park. It’s also got the main station so day tripping to Nagasaki is very doable (as others have said, it’s roughly 2 hours and we did it in a day. We also weren’t overly enamoured with Nagasaki so we were glad that we only went for a day).
We did a trip out to Itoshima where we hired bikes and cycled around the islands/peninsula and we also went out to Uminonakamichi seaside park which was equally brilliant. You could also do day trips to Kumamoto, Beppu, and Kagoshima if you wanted to but we decided to spend more time in Beppu and Kagoshima as part of travels so didn’t do that.