Ideally I wouldn’t do this, but I am going to visit my daughter who is in college in Tokyo. she has class so we have to work around her schedule. I arrive November 15 and leave the 28th. We have not made firm plans yet for Kyoto and Osaka. I arrive at 9:30 pm to HND on Wednesday and we will leave for Kyoto or Osaka that Friday evening or Saturday morning then back to Tokyo Sunday evening. We will go to whichever city we didn’t the first weekend the following Friday through Sunday and then I leave on Tuesday 5 pm or so.
We have tickets for Ghibli on Wednesday and plans to go to the Tokyo book fair on Thursday of the second week.
Is this not a good use of my time? Can anyone suggest a better plan given the constraints to be in Tokyo. Skip one of the cities?
Thanks in advance!
13 comments
It will cost you an extra 30 000 yen by person to do a second Tokyo-Kansai round trip.
So it sound as you want to go spend the weekend in Kyoto and Osaka? Like you would go with your daughter and return to Tokyo during the week to see her after class?
That seems quite a waste of money if you ask me, I would only go to Kyoto or Osaka once, even if you stay a couple of days during the week, so you would not see your daughter these days, but on the amount of money you will save… And honesty there is plenty of day trips around Tokyo that would not be as expensive.
Getting to either town from Tokyo takes quite some time and money.
Personally, I would skip Osaka and only visit Kyoto. On the second weekend, you could go for a weekend trip somewhere closer like Nikko or Hakone maybe.
yse domestic flights. Peach air is cheaper than shinkansen
Just go somewhere closer the other weekend. Kamakura? Hakone? Plenty of choices
Considering it would take upwards of 25,000 yen (Hayatoku fares) per round trip just for trains, I would recommend not doing two trips to Kansai.
To be honest, with two days each in play during foliage season, I’m questioning wisdom of visiting Kansai since you’d be either running around at breakneck speed between queues all the time.
Either, as people suggest here, make your own, sane plans (meaning 4 days minimum for Kyoto, because of the season), or make other plans.
Kanazawa has been called “Little Kyoto” and a weekend trip there is much more manageable (though Kenrokuen will be crowded).
bizarre route and waste of time and money imo. if you’re heading west, you might as well do osaka and kyoto in one go.
if you prebought the JR pass before the price increase this month then it would have made perfect sense, since it doesn’t take that long to go back and forth, just like everyone said the cost would be alot.
If you have the money, then go for it. 2.5 hrs one way isn’t a big deal.
Not going to Kansai at all is an option.
Just spend all your time in Tokyo since spending time with your daughter seems to be your priority. If that weren’t true, you wouldn’t even be contemplating this ackward return trip to Tokyo.
There’s enough stuff to do in Tokyo, and if you somehow manage to exhaust everything, there are tons of short day or overnight trips to nearby areas.
I would totally skip Osaka. The city is nice and all, but there’s not that much to do in a short itinerary besides eating, and Japan has absolutely great food anywhere, so I don’t think is worth it. Kyoto on the other hand, is absolutely worth the visit.
Yeah it’s pretty terrible. Osaka and Kyoto are too close to each other to make going back and forth to Tokyo like that make any financial or time sense. Unless you have money to burn you’d be better off doing something else near Tokyo the second weekend.
Kamakura, Nikko, Nagano, Hakone, Kawaguchi-ko are all great weekend getaways that are cheaper and quicker to get to than going back to Osaka/Kyoto for a second weekend.
If you grab a japan rail pass maybe it makes sense.
It’s a bit of wasted time, but since there’s not much you can do about it why not.
very bad idea.