Hey! We now have a rough idea of our itinerary to Japan, some days are pretty detailed but others we’re either still figuring them out or we want to leave them as “chill days” to relax more and do whatever. We’re going in Spring 2024.
I’m gonna omit the details for Kyoto and Osaka because I’m mostly worried about our length of stay in Tokyo and if we’re risking getting bored or burnt out there.
# Tokyo (March 13th-19th):
* **13th**: Land. Get set up, check-in and explore near hotel.
* **14th:** Shibuya
* Yoyogi Park and Meiji Shrine
* Hachiko Statue, Nintendo store
* Takeshita street, Mega Don Quijote
* Shibuya Crossing and Shibuya Sky
* **15th:** Shinjuku
* Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden
* Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
* Pokemon Center Mega Tokyo (very far from everything else, but not sure on what other day to put this).
* Probably best left for the evening: Golden Gai, Omoide Yokocho and Kabukicho.
* **16th:** Day trip to see Mt. Fuji. Basically the plan is to go to Lake Kawaguchiko. Not sure how tired we’ll be, we haven’t planned anything else here for the day or evening.
* **17th:** Ginza & Imperial Palace
* Tokyo Station.
* Ginza and Central Tokyo (Imperial Palace and East Gardens).
* Tsukiji Market.
* TeamLab Planets.
* Wondering if this day needs more?
* **18th:** Tokyo
* Ghibli museum.
* Inokashira Park.
* Capybara Cafe? I heard wild animal cafes should be avoided so we’re looking for something else to do near the Ghibli museum.
* Golden Dragon Dance (only on March 18) – Senso-ji Temple, Asakusa. Public event happening in Senjo-ji that we’ll try to catch in the afternoon.
* **19th:** Train to Kyoto
* **20th-22nd:** Kyoto
* **22nd-25th:** Osaka (1 day trip to Nara, and 1 day trip to Hiroshima/Miyajima).
* **26th:** Back in Tokyo
* We’ll arrive in Tokyo and have basically nothing planned for the late afternoon or evening. Thinking we can just take it easy or go to Akihabara in the evening to see neons and lights (there is a full Akihabara day later).
* **27th:** Asakusa
* Nakamise Dori.
* Senso-ji Temple (we’ll have been here for the dragon event of the 18th but these 2 days feel like too much to combine).
* Explore the shops in the underground streets of the station.
* Sumida Park.
* Tokyo SkyTree.
* Kirby Cafe.
* **28th:** Roppongi Hills
* Roppongi Hills then Mori Tower.
* Sky Deck at the Tokyo City View.
* Meguro River Cherry Blossoms Promenade depending on the bloom of the sakuras.
* **29th:** Day trip. Don’t know where yet, either Hakone, Kamakura or some other place. If Hakone, we might spend the night in a Ryokan.
* **30th:** Tokyo
* We’re thinking of trying to watch a Sumo match.
* Themed cafes here? Like cat or dog cafes which I hope there are some ethical ones?
* Ueno Park. Not much else this day but we might be tired from the day trip before or just wanna take it easy in Ueno.
* **31st:** Akihabara
* Final Fantasy Eorzea cafe.
* Monster Hunter cafe (literally in the same building as the above so I thought I’d group them).
* Square Enix cafe/merch store (the one in Akihabara, not Shinjuku). There’s too many cafes on this day so I’m thinking I might just stop by the merch store of this one, especially since I’m going to Artnia the day after.
* Exploring Akihabara. It’s a Sunday so I heard it should be more fun without cars.
* Super Potato.
* Arcade games maybe?
* **April 1st**: Tokyo
* Last day for shopping, doing things we missed, seeing more sakuras depending on bloom.
* Artnia (Square Enix shop) in Shinjuku.
* **2nd**: Leave.
I left some questions and comments throughout the itinerary, but here’s some more:
1. Are we spending too many days in Tokyo? I feel like it’s a city that has SO MUCH to do, but I’m also worried of getting burnt out or bored of it, so we broke the Tokyo days into 2 parts.
2. I feel a bit anxious leaving Akihabara for the very end of the trip because that day has many things I wanna do and I don’t wanna miss them. I put it there because it’s a Sunday and because we wanna do shopping during “Tokyo part 2” instead of the beginning of the trip to reduce luggage space.
3. Any days that you think could be merged or removed completely to make room for other things?
Really any other suggestions or comments are much appreciated, thank you!
18 comments
Looks good. If you get tired of Tokyo, you can easily replace one of the Tokyo days with Enoshima or Nikko which are pretty close by. If you are going to Kawaguchiko by train, you probably want to reserve the Fuji Excursion well in advance (I don’t know how much in advance, but probably 2 weeks or more). Or change trains quickly at Otsuki station. Left side is the best.
If possible, change your Kyoto visit to end by 20 March. The school year ends in Japan on about 20 March, and the place will be even more jammed than it usually is because both foreign and domestic tourists will be out and about. The situation will be exacerbated if the cherry blossoms are blooming. (I visited Kyoto during cherry blossom season once when the yen-dollar exchange rate was far less favorable to the dollar than it is now, and the cherry blossom spots were so crowded it was difficult to walk.)
Unless you are a zoosadist, avoid all of the animal cafés, including those ‘ethical’ ones with rescue dogs or cats. The places are bad for the animals and only exist because Japan has both lax animal cruelty laws and very high barriers to official interference with private or commercial affairs.
I spent an entire month in Tokyo and felt like I had only scratched the surface.
Looks good. Fond memories of my friends and I sipping champagne with strawberries at the Meguro River in the evening during cherry blossoms. Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden when in bloom is stunning.
Without knowing what interests you it’s hard to comment. Seems like you worried about Akihabara so move it up and if you need to go back , you’ll have time. I like beer, so I’ve been on both Kirin and Sapporo tours, as well a many craft places in Tokyo. What interests you?I would recommend eating Kushi Katsu in Osaka and Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima. Yes to a Sumo match, if you know something about Sumo.(I enjoyed it).
Definitely seems too much to me. Of course you can still enjoy yourself in one place for 2 weeks, but I think with that much time you could also choose another place to visit to break things up a bit.
I’m also planning to go to Japan in Spring 2024 for 21 days (solo traveler) so I’m going to see what people say in general for this post.
Honestly pretty damn anxious about the whole public transportation cause it looks so complicated compared to South Korea (just came back from a 3 weeks trip 3 weeks ago).
I’m thinking about doing 7-7-7 for Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka but I feel like it’s a LOT for Kyoto & Osaka. Been working on day trips to explore the most i can with the time i have oof
Staying overnight in Hakone or even in Nikko might be good to break up the Tokyo every day. Also I think by not staying outside major cities you’re missing the charm of Japan a bit
For an alternative, spend a few more days in Kansai and see Hiroshima/Miyajima?
May I suggest a day visit to Mount Nokogiri
[https://digjapan.travel/en/blog/id=11718](https://digjapan.travel/en/blog/id=11718)
About a 2.5 hour train ride from Tokyo, probably less with correct connections. Even with the cable car it is quite the hike but there is an ice cream shop at the top!
Afterwards catch the Tokyo Bay ferry to cross over and catch the train back to Tokyo. If you time it right, catch a perfect sunset from the ferry
I feel like leaving Akihabara at the end is a good idea if you plan on buying a lot of stuff. That way you don’t have to lug everything around. Also you can use the 1st to go back if you want to do more things there. I also recommend visiting Den Den Town in Osaka. My husband and older son liked Den Den Town a lot and wished they had more time there.
There are plenty of day trips you can do from tokyo, so always an option to do those later in the trip if you like. I think a night at Hakone would be great, there is a lot to do there.
In my experience, some of your tokyo stuff is a lot e.g. you have a full day for akihabara, while that was a half day for us, we did shinjuku and shibuy in one day, etc but if you keep yourself flexible you can always move stuff around.
Just got back from a 16 day trip. We did Kyoto, Osaka, nada (day trip), Tokyo 3 days, then hakone 2 days, then back to Tokyo for the remainder. It was perfect skipping Tokyo for the end.
Edit: the last 3 days of Tokyo, we went to Yokohama for a day trip. The historic Chinatown there was really cool. Plus gundam factory
Honestly Tokyo is huge, I doubt you’ll feel like you’re spending too much time there. If you have spare time, I would recommend you also check out the Odaiba area, and since you mentioned you like Akihabara you can also check out the Ikebukuro area, there’s a lot of anime themed shops as well (Animate, Sunshine city)
There are very few ethical animal cafes in Japan.
There’s plenty to do in Tokyo and lots of places you can day trip to if you find yourself getting sick of it so I wouldn’t worry. I would however change the day trip to kawaguchiko and separate day trip to hakone plan. Roll those into consecutive days so you overnight in hakone and then in kawaguchiko or vice versa. They’re not that far apart and there are transport passes that will allow you to do that. It doesn’t make sense to trek from Tokyo twice to do those separately.
I spent 6-7 days in Tokyo in April. I was walking all day from 8am till almost midnight every day and I still couldn’t see everything I wanted to see. Tokyo’s huge.
Never enough, we are here again now for three weeks and it’s third time in the last year , five months apart each time.
I am going around the same time! You mentioned something about wild animal cafes should be avoided, can you say why? I just want to adjust my itinerary if needed!