Hello! I’m looking for advice about our itinerary. Our goal was to hit as many Ghibli inspo spots as we could. We hope to hike and eat a lot, and hoped to see as much of the country as possible.
What do you think about this itinerary? I’m most interested in advice about the first five days
12/16 Arrive in Tokyo. We plan to rest up and visit the Ghibli museum.
12/18 – 12/20 Naoshima by Shinkansen (Noxoxi or Hikari to Okayama, bus to Uno, Then Uno to Naoshima). We hope to see some artists here that are also featured in our home town. And to bike around for a bit.
12/20 – 12/23 Kagoshima (Ferry back to Uno, then bus to Okayama, and shinkinsen to Kagoshima Chuo). We hope to visit onsens, hike, and visit the volcano
12/24 – 12/27 Travel to Yakushima (Ferry from Kagoshima). We hope to hike and rest.
12/27 – Travel to Hida-Furukawa to visit Shinakawa-Go and the Hida area. We will fly direct from Yakushima to Osaka, then take the Shinkisen from Osaka to the mountains.
12/29 – 1/3 Kyoto We’ll take the shinkensen from the mountains. We are really looking forward to this part of the trip. NYE at a temple. We thought it’d be fun to wander around Kyoto while the country is on holiday.
Any ideas on making the most of the first leg of the trip? We could skip Naoshima and stay in Tokyo longer, stop somewhere else, etc. Our idea was to split up the travel time to get to Yakushima (the crown jewel of our trip). We’d also love advice on Kagoshima – is this a fun place to be for three days? This is our first international trip, so any suggestions are welcome.
1 comment
Just wondering if you’d be jet lagged on your first day – and depending on what time you’re reaching and where you’re staying it take a while to get to the Ghibli museum.
Otherwise it seems fine and not too packed. Though I might have misunderstood what you mean, but new year period around Kyoto is very packed.
Personally I think 3 days in Kagoshima is a bit long, but I assume you’d be driving for the whole day to go to Sakurajima(?) and surrounding areas. Then two days at Kagoshima depending on your plan it’s probably not that bad.
Skipping Naoshima or not is entirely a personal preference. For a first trip to Tokyo I’d generally recommend for people to spend at least 3/4 days because it’s a big city. But then most people doesn’t really have Naoshima or very specific areas outside of the big 3 in their itinerary. I know artsy people who couldn’t care less about the big cities and really enjoyed Naoshima, so it depends?