Anyone been to Japan with teens?

[HolidayHappy123]

Hi all

I'm looking for help with planning a trip to Japan. Current itinerary is:

Tokyo 4 nights
Hakone 2 nights
Kyoto 4 nights
Osaka 2 nights
Tokyo 1 night (before early morning flight home)

Is there any where I should add by dropping one or more nights in Tokyo/Kyoto?

And which places did your teens love?

All recommendations gratefully received.

Thanks.

This is roughly my itinerary but I’m undecided on Osaka. Also, have you looked to see what the price difference is in flying out of Osaka rather than travelling back to Tokyo? Who are you planning to fly with and do you mind me asking your budget?

I’m stuck flying BA as I’ve booked the flights on Avios so there’s no option to fly out of Osaka.

My budget is pretty huge so best not mentioned on MN or the trolls will be out in force.

I’ve added Osaka as it’s on 45 mins from Kyoto. The kids want to do Universal and I hear it’s a foodie paradise.

You could just stay in Kyoto and do one or two day trips to Osaka. Less faff packing and unpacking all over again.

While in Kyoto for 5 nights, we had a day trip to Osaka to visit Universal Studios and the Tezuka Osamu Museum (had an anime artist do a family portrait) and another day trip to Nara.

Enjoy Japan!

Edited to say DS loved the Akihabara district in Tokyo (being a huge anime fan) and enjoyed our stay in an onsen-ryokan in Hakone, wearing the hotel-provided yukata and soaking in the hotel’s hot spring.

You could add a day in Hiroshima (peace museum is harrowing but very moving) and a daytrip from there to Miyajima island for pretty mountain views & walks, instagrammable shrine in the water and tame deer everywhere.

Nagoya for the relatively new Ghibli park if your teens are big fans.

I’d say one night / two days in Hakone may be plenty. One of the big things there are public baths/onsen and teens may not be keen on getting naked in public or even in the company of their parents. (Though there is a more cheesy onsen where you keep your swimmers on.)

Check out Reddit as they have a couple of very active Japan trip planning forums, where lots of people post itinaries and trip reports.

That’s almost exactly our itinerary- including Universal in Osaka. Do go there, we preferred it to Kyoto, which is great for culture but definitely the least teen friendly place, with the exception of the Manga Museum.

I would say don’t add any other places as you need lots of time to stare and shop and just hang out. You can also do Nara as a day trip from Kyoto very easily.

Have moved onto computer so I can type properly!

Definitely don't take any time from Tokyo, it's really full on and there is so much to do. Harajuku is great for shopping, if a bit touristy a la Camden Market; also look out for branches of Daiso, which is like a pound shop but we were obsessed with, Don Quixote, which just sells a crazed miscellany of stuff including 1000 flavours of KitKats, and Tokyo Hands which is brilliant for all sorts of tech bits and other things teens like. Also some of the really cheesy stuff like the Robot Cafe and at least one cat cafe.

We loved Osaka, and yes is a foodie heaven. We found food in Kyoto quite hard work, it's a bit enclosed and stand-offish in comparison. Although there were some great noodle bars at the station.

Hakone is great to do, but quite touristy. We solved the teen embarrassment problem by having a hotel room which had its own small bath in addition to the big communal ones - teen stayed in room, we went native.

If you can get tickets, the Ghibli museum is amazing, and they have also opened a theme park since we were there. Universal was also very good.

Thank you so much. This all sounds amazing. Am off to research.

Ours is similar

Tokoyo 3 nights
Onsen 2 nights
Kyoto 4 nights
Hiroshima 2 nights.

Following with interest. Did anyone try the high tech Haunted House experiences ie Onryou Zashiki or similar?

notes 📝 from recent trips:

Osaka
Kyoto
Nara
Tokyo

… we also included Pokémon centres.

Osaka

Hotel Ibis Osaka Umeda
Namba Station
Dotonbori nightlife foodstreet
Takomasa Dotonbori Main Store
たこ昌　道頓堀本店
Takashimaya 大阪高島屋
Teppanyaki Minami
Sennichimae Doguyasuji Shopping Street 千日前道具屋筋商店街
Misono Namba 宴会場 味園
Kuromon Ichiba Market黑門市場 黒門市場
Hipparidako-meshi (Hyogo)
Kakisen: Takomusu (Osaka)

Universal studios Osaka
J-Hoppers Osaka Universal
JR Ajikawaguchi MRT
universal.j-hoppers.com/

Kyoto

Terrace Kiyomizu Kyoto Hotel
Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺 (dragon temple near hotel)
Gion Ryokan Q-beh book 6 months in advance q-beh.com/
Kōdai-ji Temple 高台寺
Yasaka Shrine 八坂神社 (entrance to Gion)
Keage Incline 蹴上インクライン
Ginkakuji Temple(Silver Pavilion) 銀閣寺
Philosophers’ Path
Higashiyama Jisho-ji 東山慈照寺
Kinkaku-ji 金閣寺 (Golden Pavilion)
Ryōan-ji 龍安寺
Tenryu-ji 天龍寺
Sagano Scenic Railway trolley train 嵯峨野観光鉄道トロッコ列車
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove 嵐山 竹林の小径
Kōsan-ji Temple 高山寺 (far out)
Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple 愛宕念仏 1200 carved stone statues
Nishiki Market 錦市場

Nara 🦌

Tōdai-ji 東大寺

Tokyo
sequence SUIDOBASHI hotel
Ghibli Museum 三鷹の森ジブリ美術館
Komaba Museum
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building No. 1 32nd Floor Staff Cafeteria 東京都庁第一庁舎32階職員食堂
Godzilla Head js ゴジラヘッド GODZILLA head
8bit cafe (エイトビット カフェ)
Minato City Local History Museum 港区立郷土歴史館
A Happy Pancake Ikebukuro 幸せのパンケーキ池袋店
Komeda's Coffee コメダ珈琲店 東京ドームシティミーツポート店, melon soda, breakfast
Marugame Seimen Tokyo Dome City 丸亀製麺東京ドームシティbasic noodle chain
Hibiya Park 日比谷公園
Tokyo DisneySea 東京ディズニーシー
Hokusai すみだ北斎美術館
Akihabara Electric Town 秋葉原電気街
Kikanbo カラシビ味噌らー麺 鬼金棒 神田本店 popular spicy noodles
A Happy Pancake Ginza 幸せのパンケーキ 銀座店
CoCo Ichibanya カレーハウス CoCo壱番屋 ＪＲ秋葉原駅昭和通り口店 Katsu Curry
Haneda Airport 羽田空港
Sogenji Temple 曹源寺 water goblin temple
Marugame Seimen Tokyo Dome City 丸亀製麺東京ドームシティnoodles
Kissa Laundry 喫茶ランドリー 本店

My teen grandchildren reckon the best place they visited, in 3 weeks in Japan last November, was The Cup Noodle Museum https://www.cupnoodles-museum.jp/en/osaka_ikeda/
They had a blast, as did their parents.

I’ve not been but DH has been to Japan several times. I think if I were to go I would really want to do Hiroshima, harrowing as it would be. I’m not sure I could go all that way (as a tourist) and not see it.

also - Tokyo Banana flavour kitkats are incredible!

We went for three weeks in Nov/Dec last year. Here is our itinerary.

My teens loved everything but especially Nara, the boat ride in Kyoto, TeamLab Planets (but I would do borderless if it is open), DisneySea, Takayama. They got bored of temples quite quickly

Also travelling to Japan for 2 weeks with 2 older teen boys after exam season so late June/early July. My rough itinerary is

Tokyo - 5 nights
Kyoto - 3 nights
Hiroshima - 1 night
Omishima Island - 1 night
Osaka - 2 nights
Tokyo 2 nights

I have Hiroshima sorted and 4 areas of Tokyo to cover in the full days we have there. However I can't decide what to do in Kyoto as there seems to be so much. I would really appreciate it if anyone who has been could give me a clue of what not to miss and what not to bother with in the 2.5 days we have there.

Not started on Osaka yet so any ideas welcome.

One DS is very into anime and has some ideas where he wants to go but will prefer to do that on his own. Generally they do like to visit museums and art galleries but also want time just to wander.

I love your itinerary @itstrue going to copy that format so we all know where we are.
TIA

You could do an internal flight from Osaka if it matches up. We did Osaka first so did uk to Tokyo then the internal flight to Osaka. It's cheap too and we went to the airport closest to the city.

We did roughly the same without Hara.

We loved every second.

Make sure you are researched and prepared to get your universal tickets. (Nintendo World) and tickets for everything else.
We used Fiver too. Look it up

Also look at Wanderlog. It's an itinerary planner. We paid for the premium service and it's worth every penny. We could store all our trip info on one place and share it between each other. It's brilliant

Kyoto there is a manga museum too, just to add to your overload. But in truth I didn't like Osaka so much; there are lots of temples and that is it and after two days we had seen enough temples and so went to Nara and talked to the deer instead.

But also, beware of overscheduling. The things we liked best were what we found wandering around, in particular shops, from the places in Tokyo which sold the fake food for restaurants to Daiso - and gachapon, food halls and the streetscape.

Out of interest how much do these trips cost please. They sound amazing, also perhaps a silly question but is there earth quake season

We had an idea to open one gachapon every day. We took turns choosing, it was surprisingly enjoyable. This might sound like something you would do with little kids but I was with my adult children. They were really into it 😅

@wiltonian thanks for that. DS2 is a big manga fan so I'm sure that will appeal to him. I am conscious of overscheduling as it is something I can be guilty of in the last few years. I am trying to build in a few chill days.

@RazzleDazzleEm I'm not sure what the total cost will be yet but am expecting a big bill. We are pushing the boat out as expecting it to be our last holiday with teens as they will soon want to go off on their own. Japan is the first stop on a multi country tour and DH had BA points which we used on the flights out and back which has made a massive difference.

I love Wanderlog. Been using it for a couple of years.

Our budget is around £30k excluding flights but it's possible to do it first a lot less.

For anyone that’s been to Nintendo world, is it as equally jam packed as our theme parks? For some reason I expect it would be more civilised than our dreadful excuses here. We are forever talking about a family trip to Japan, 3dc all really keen to go and from the looks of it there is something for everyone although the itineraries look very jam packed and quite exhausting tbh! Not sure dh and I would appreciate doing so much on holiday and would definitely need a couple of more chill days 😂

@Mumski45 I've always wanted to go and just wondering what big costs are, do you think you are also 30 grand?

Where else are you combining it with