Canada or Japan?

[AliasGracie]

I would love to go to Canada and visit all the places in Race Across the World , or as many as is possible. What is the best way to do this? Use an agency to plan it all and book hotels and car hire, or a tour that is planned by them, or do it all myself? OH is nervous about driving despite the fact that he's used to driving abroad.

Other option is Japan.

I did Japan independently that is with no tour guide etc etc However my daughter lives there and speaks the language so that was helpful . But after a while I could do loads on my own, this was Tokyo however which you don’t want to visit. But other parts were also easy, public transport really good. Went out of Tokyo a lot and it was all amazing, stayed somewhere with an onsen and views of Mount Fuji - it was all wonderful. Clean, safe, pretty.

The Kumano? They have a website that’s quite good.

https://www.tb-kumano.jp/en/kumano-kodo/

We aren’t doing the proper pilgrimage but are spending some time down there on the Kii peninsula on our next couple of trips and I’m really excited. Accommodation was very inexpensive.

I mostly just use booking.com for booking hotels but other options probably work equally well.

The difficult bit is choosing where you want to go. Once you’ve made a decision, booking accommodation is easy. Public transport doesn’t need to be pre-booked in most instances.

We’ll just be taking a regular train to Ise from Nagoya (where we’re stopping for a few days to visit Inuyama Castle and Gifu city) in October. Google maps is really good for showing transport options.

Very interested in both these places. Great advice.

Japan is really easy to do independently. Easy to get round by train - there is lots of English everywhere. Food is fantastic and cheap, and hotels, even the very cheap ones will be clean and safe.

I highly recommend Shikoku if you want to see more rural Japan.

I've never been to either, although I have family in Canada. But I'd choose Japan all day long. It looks so beautiful and obviously really different in terms of food, culture, history etc. And whilst I love gorgeous scenery, I'm not that keen on "great outdoors" sort of pursuits which I (probably stupidly)associate with Canada.

If

Chat GPT or other AI is a great starting place for this sort of planning. Also online blogs of people that have done it, and just google searches.

i can’t work out what you think would be tricky to book or plan independently? Maybe if you explain that we can help?

The Yen just keeps on falling, which is making Japan very reasonably priced. Totally different places, though. Personally I would do Japan first because it's likely to get much more crowded in the future, especially as there's a kind of spat between Japan and China at the moment that is reducing the number of Chinese visitors.

We’ve been to both, Canada 3 times and Japan twice. Absolutely loved them
for different reasons. Canada was awe inspiring from a natural wonder point of view, Icefield parkway, Banff, Dinosaur provincial park, Vancouver Island and Whistler are all stunning! The lakes are also fab. Food good but it is expensive.
Japan is phenomenal too. We have been to Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima and Kyoto on our first trip, loved them all. Second time we went to Hakone. Osaka, Ishigaki in the Okinawa Islands, Takayama, Kanazawa and Gifu in the Japanese Alps so very different to the first trip but we loved them both. The trains are amazing, scenery fabulous, people and culture amazing and don’t get me started on the food and shopping!! We are planning another trip.

it really does depend on what you want but Japan will be much cheaper! Wherever you go it will be phenomenal

ETA We planned all of these trips ourselves, especially easy to do now with AI, put in travelling group, time
of year, kind of hol you want, budget, type of traveller you are etc and it’ll start building a trip !

Agree. Japan is amazing. I have been in Canada and liked it too but Japan is unique.

Japan it is then. I need to plan the route...