Japan planning thread

[Takoneko]

I’ve just booked the hotels for my third trip to Japan next year and about to start planning the itinerary in earnest.

Japan threads pop up here quite a bit and I think people spend a lot of time on planning for Japan trips. I thought it might be nice to have a shared thread where we can pool questions, tips and share research for anyone who has a trip coming up.

All budgets and styles of trip are welcome, whether you’re going hiking, temple-hopping, skiing or visiting theme parks, maid cafes and arcades and whether you’re going to hostels or 5 star hotels. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to enjoy Japan. It has something for everyone.

We’re a couple in our late 30s and our trip will be mid-budget, probably up to about £3.4k per person with food and spends. We’ve splashed out a bit on direct JAL flights and have upgraded all our hotel rooms to at least king size beds in hotels that are in really well connected locations. They are all mid-range Japanese business hotel chains rather than luxury hotels though. (Candeo, Daiwa Roynet and Sotetsu Fresa). We like Japanese food but we’re definitely more likely to be eating eat in mom and pop restaurants and mid-range Japanese chains than in fancy kaiseki places. Any recommendations for mid range restaurants with relaxed atmospheres would be very welcome.

We plan to use the Sanyo-San’in rail pass in the second half of our trip and would be really interested to share ideas for places to visit with anyone else who is planning on using that pass (or who has used it in the past). At the moment we are thinking Iwakuni, Miyajima, Kurashiki and Onomichi from Hiroshima and Himeji and Uji from Osaka, but we are open to other ideas. I speak passable tourist Japanese and we are ok with going to places that don’t cater to English speakers and muddling through with broken Japanese and Google translate.

@NotDonna - flying with ANA. Will probably do Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and then back to Tokyo for Disney before flying home.

Has anyone done an internal flight between Hiroshima and Tokyo? Is that even possible? We thought we might send our luggage via the transport services and fly back to save time.

We are flying back from Hiroshima to Tokyo so those flights exist. We have a connection onto to our international flight home
as it was the easiest way for us to do the journey home (all booked on one ticket with JAL). From city centre to city centre it may not work out much easier/faster than the Shinkansen when you factor in transfers and time in the airport, so do check that. Hiroshima airport is quite a way out of the city.
It is cheaper than the train if that matters though.

@toodles9 for Disney, we are staying at the park hotels (not actually themed Disney but surrounding/overlooking the parks). They are incredible value compared to Florida. We are travelling light so are happy to move between hotels even in the same city according to what we want to do/nightly prices (often midweek luxury hotels can be very affordable but cost double on the weekend). We are mainly interested in modern Japan, so not that worried about heat as most places in Tokyo and Osaka are air-conditioned and one is never far from a chilled drink. Queuing at the parks will probably be the most uncomfortable thing you encounter so it might be worth buying fast passes. Luckily noone in my family is that bothered about rides, so we are mainly going for the themed landscape, parades and shows. Disney also does late entry tickets so you could choose to go and see the parades/fireworks at night when it's a bit cooler and safe money that way. Many of the hotels surrounding the parks have swimming pools, too.

@QueenMabby One other thing to consider if you are planning on visiting Hakone in summer is whether seeing Mount Fuji is important to you or not. On most days in summer you won’t be able to see the mountain. If you’re not that bothered about seeing the mountain then you can just book a night there in advance, but if your main aim is to see Fuji then I’d just keep an eye on the weather forecast and leave your plans flexible enough that you can shift things around and take a day trip from Tokyo whenever the visibility forecast is good. The mountain is most often visible in winter and rarely visible in summer. The website below is the one I used for checking the visibility forecast.

https://fuji-san.info/en/index.html

Hi 👋🏼
We’re a couple going on our first trip to Japan in May. At the moment we only have flights booked and an idea of some of the things we want to do.
In Tokyo, we would like to do the obvious stuff like Senso-ji, scramble crossing, skytree, shopping, Teamlabs as well as go-karting and some other excursions. How many nights do you think would be good for this?
we have 14 nights in Japan with travel either side and a lose plan at the moment is 4 nights Tokyo, 1 Hakone, 3 Kyoto, 2 Hiroshima, 1 Tokyo before flying home. So in theory we have another 3 nights to play with. Is anywhere too long / short? Any other suggestions (perhaps a bit more off the beaten track, into nature rather than another city)
thanks

@Evamaisie If you want to get off the golden route a bit you could add the three extra nights to Kyoto and Hiroshima and use something like the 5 day Kansai-Hiroshima pass to take day trips by Shinkansen to places like Onomichi, Kurashiki, Himeji etc. Alternatively, if you don’t mind changing hotels you could make overnight stops along the way between Kyoto and Hiroshima.

Thank you! I’ve not heard of those first two places so I will take a look. I had wondered if perhaps we should go to Nikko from Tokyo and try and enjoy more scenery. It’s a bit overwhelming as there is so much to see so it’s hard to know how long to spend in places and what to definitely include!

@Evamaisie It can feel overwhelming but I don’t think you can really go too far wrong. There are so many amazing places to see in Japan. You can’t see everything worth seeing in one trip, but I also don’t think you’ll regret going to any of those places. I don’t think there’s a right and wrong way to travel Japan. Just pick the places that appeal most to you and I’m sure you’ll have a great time.

Kyoto’s over-tourism problem has made it into the daily express of all places.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1993593/kyoto-japan-tourism-overtourism

Can we miss Kyoto on a first visit?

@NotDonna You absolutely can if it doesn’t really appeal to you. Do remember that it probably won’t be that busy outside of the autumn foliage and cherry blossom seasons. If you’re going in summer or February it will be a lot less busy.

Having said that, there’s so many other places to see beautiful things that there is no need for everyone to pack themselves into the same few temples in Kyoto. Kanazawa, Takayama, Kurashiki, Kamakura, Ise, Miyajima and Kawagoe are just a handful of places that you can see temples and traditional/historic architecture. You don’t have to go to Kyoto to experience temples and gardens.

It’s also perfectly fine to be more into modern, urban Japan and pop culture and prioritise that.

thank you @Takoneko we are thinking Easter 2026. We’ll only have two weeks due to still having one child at school. We certainly want to see some history & traditional places. I’m thinking Easter will be very busy though. I’m guessing the Japanese also take holiday then.

@NotDonna Yes, Japan also has school holidays late March to Early April. Our experience was that the first week of April was incredibly crowded. There’s a lot of Japanese tourists but also huge numbers of international (but mostly Asian) tourists.

I don’t think Easter is a pleasant time to visit Kyoto.

Are you also planning on going to Disney? If so, do that in the second week of April on a weekday. We did that and we had really reasonable queue times and it was not at all crowded. We rode every single ride without any paid fast passes. We’d met some tourists the week before in Osaka who’d just come from Disney who said it was hell on earth with half hour queues just to buy popcorn.

Ugh!! Whilst Disney may be interesting I’m really not into queuing. Or crowds. Definitely not my idea of a holiday. Two of mine are neurodivergent so I’m wondering if we leave it a couple of years and go outside school holidays. Unless we really do go off the beaten track.

@NotDonna I’d just go off the Golden Route. You don’t have to go into the deepest countryside to get away from the crowds. Lots of quieter cities are very accessible by rail. We’re going back in April this year. We want to visit quieter places off the golden route this time and our two week itinerary now covers Tokyo, Kawagoe, Osaka, Uji, Himeji, Kurashiki, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Iwakuni, Onomichi and Fukuoka. We are staying in Osaka, Hiroshima and Tokyo and everywhere else is no more than around an hour on the Shinkansen/train from one of our base cities.

Joining as off in April for two weeks with my six year old. So far only part of the trip confirmed is we fly into and leave from Tokyo! I have been before however but not with my daughter..

Aha!! I was looking at something very similar this morning. That is staying in Tokyo, Osaka & either Hiroshima or miyajima. Also thinking of visiting Himeji but will definitely look into your itinerary and perhaps copy 🤣 Ate you there over the Easter weekend?

Thanks for this. We have done Florida in July so I’m thinking it could be comparable?

@NotDonna We are there over Easter weekend. Easter is later in 2025 than it was in 2024, which should be in our favour in terms of crowding.

Do check out the JR West regional passes if you’re going to do a similar itinerary. We’re going to use the Setouchi Area pass, which lasts 7 days and is less than half the cost of a 7 day JR pass. It alap allows you to use the fastest Shinkansen classes which the JR pass doesn’t.

https://www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/ticket/

@toodles9 it's very similar to Florida/Caribbean, I think. The hotels at Tokyo bay are American style, so have 2 double beds per room sleeping 4, so e.g. the 5 star Sheraton is only 1.5 k for a week in August and includes pool, air conditioning etc. and direct access to Disney. For a family of 4 it could make financial sense to stay at the bay for a week and commute into Tokyo - the subway is air conditioned, and it's nice in the summer to stay at a resort hotel at the beach with pool and pool bar 🍸 😀 🌴

@NellyBarney The Tokyo Bay area is really cheap compared to staying in Tokyo. I can definitely see the appeal in summer and why you might be tempted by the far lower prices, far larger rooms relative to Tokyo and facilities like pools. For Disney those hotels make perfect sense.

However, if your main priority is sightseeing in Tokyo then it’s really not a convenient base. Getting to Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku etc from the Sheraton is at least a 1hr 10 min commute. Even Ueno, Ginza, Asakusa, Akihabara etc are at least 40 minutes to an hour away. If you wanted to go to the Ghibli museum it would be 1hr 45mins. I think your plan of switching hotels in Tokyo is probably a better idea than staying out in Chiba for the whole week. Tokyo is very decentralised compared to somewhere like London or New York, which makes commuting into the city from the neighbouring prefectures less feasible.

@Takoneko we'll also stay more centrally for part of our stay but we are not into cramming a lot into our holidays. Holidays, wherever we go, are as much about sleeping in, having a nice long breakfast, reading the newspapers/watching the telly. It's nice to go exploring, but for every day sightseeing/activities we like one day staying in just veggieing. We love watching adverts in foreign countries, and foreign cooking shows. I love a good hotel room with a tv 😂

Thank you. Do you know anywhere you go to a public onsen with tattoos?

@NellyBarney That sounds lovely! I like to be on the go on holidays but am not really into nightlife. I like to spend at least a few evenings in the hotel in my robe, watching foreign tv and eating a picnic of stuff from the supermarket or convenience store that we don’t have at home. It’s how I recharge.

I think some days chilling out in Tokyo Bay will be a good way to balance out a few days in the centre.

I'm considering a trip to Japanese in the autumn. I have never flown that far before.

Those of you that have flown from Uk to Japan ... did you get Jet lag and if so how long did it affect you for ?

I'm keen to schedule things in but feel I might need a day or two to get over the flight !