Model Itinerary for Japan
Based on a trip in June/July 2010
Work in progress!
Here are details of a 18 day itinerary of Japan, concentrating on Kyoto and Tokyo but with side trips to Hiroshima, Nara, Niko, and a multi-day tour of western Japan based in Toyama. I’ll describe what we did, but also the details you need to get around on your own.
Who is this for? We’re a family of 4, including a 15 year old daughter, and a 17 year old daughter. We include a mix of old and new Japan. I have a do-it-yourself approach to vacations – I avoid pre-packaged tours. So there’s a lot of public transit and such.
We did not pack each day full. The itinerary leaves plenty of down time and generally does not expect you to get up bright and early.
Summary: We used 3 cities as base camps for local and day-trip exploration: Kyoto, Toyama, and Tokyo. We flew in to Osaka and went directly to Kyoto. We took trains between Kyoto and Toyama, and again from Toyama to Tokyo, and finally returned to the US from Tokyo.
Things to do before you go
The itinerary below assumes you Japan: Before You Go before you go!
Itinerary
Click on any hyper-linked day to learn more about our activities that day
- Day 1: Fly to Osaka (KIX). We flew from San Francisco (SFO), and crossing the International Date Line, lose a day, so we arrived on …
- Day 2: Osaka to Kyoto mid-afternoon, and take the airport express train to Kyoto
- Day 3: Kyoto Sightseeing 1: Sanjusoden, Nishiki Market
- Day 4: Nara
- Day 5: Kyoto Sighteeing 2
- Day 6: Hiroshima and Miyajima
- Day 7: Nijo Castle and Gion Corner
- Day 8: Travel from Kyoto to Toyama
- Day 9: Kanazawa
- Day 10: Takayama and Shirakawa-go
- Day 11: Alpine Route
- Day 12: Toyama to Tokyo
- Day 13: Akihabara and Shinjuku
- Day 14: Odaiba
- Day 15: Nikko
- Day 16: Edo-Tokyo Museum, Bookstore
- Day 17: Harakuju
- Day 18: Fly home