3 weeks in Japan - planning an itinerary
 

Hi, we're very excited to be planning our first trip to Japan, and we're doing our best to develop a well-balanced itinerary.

We'll be skiing in Hokkaido for the first week, and then we'll fly from Sapporo down to Tokyo for two more weeks of backpack-style travel.

This is the itinerary for the backpacking portion of the trip as it stands at the moment, based on the reading we've done and the feedback we've received from others.

Day 1 – AM: Sapporo to Toyko, o/n Tokyo
Day 2 – Tokyo to Koyasan, o/n Koya-san
Day 3 – Koya-san to Hiroshima, o/n Hiroshima
Day 4 – Hiroshima
Day 5 – Hiroshima to Kurashiki, o/n Kurashiki
Day 6 – Kurashiki to Kyoto, o/n Kyoto
Day 7 – Kyoto
Day 8 – Kyoto
Day 9 – Kyoto (day trip to Nara)
Day 10 – Kyoto to Takyama, o/n Takyama
Day 11 – Takyama to Tokyo, o/n Tokyo
Day 12 – Tokyo
Day 13 – Tokyo (day trip to Nikko)
Day 14 – Tokyo – depart afternoon


Are we trying to pack too much in to our two weeks? Should we do Kurashiki and Hiroshima as day trips from Kyoto? Or drop from the itinerary perhaps? Any advice welcome! thanks

You are packing it in, but not too much, imo. The distances between places are not that great.

I recommend visiting Noboribetsu Onsen in Hokkaido.

Am wondering why you don't just fly into Osaka and go to Koya-san from there. Or simply fly to Hiroshima. JAL has (had) a nonstop from Sapporo New Chitose Airport to Hiroshima.

Basically, you have a Tokyo to Hiroshima and return itin with a stop going out and a couple stops coming back. Only thing is that Koya-san is the best stop going out. Kyoto- Koya and Koya- Hiroshima are two of the longest legs on your trip and Koya-san is not exactly on the way. You'd have to make a couple some transfers to get there and back. I'm thinking Takayama and Kurashiki outbound and Kyoto, Nara, Koya-san on return. But your itin is fine.

If you just fly from Sapporo to Hiroshima then you will save all of the train travel from Tokyo to Hiroshima.

What I meant to say was:

&quot;Only thing is that Koya-san is <b>maybe not</b> the best stop going out.&quot;

But, I'm willing to take that back. I haven't been to Koya-san yet, but from what I remember of my research I think it is not simple to reach from Kyoto/Osaka, so I would plan to set out for there from Kyoto or nearer than Tokyo. But check the travel times.

It's pushing 1AM here in CA and I'm making mistakes. Also meant to say that Tokyo-Koya was one of the longest legs of your itin, not Kyoto-Koya.

But flying to Hiroshima would save you several hours of prime time.

Thanks for your advice mrwunrfl - appreciate it.

I take your point re the flights, makes a lot of sense. Only problem is that we locked our flights in ages ago as we got a super cheap deal, and I'm not sure that we have any flexibility in changing the flight back from Sapporo. But I'll definitely look into it. Cheers.

That's interesting: what kind of super-cheap deal? Is your Tokyo- Sapporo- Tokyo ticket separate from your international one? Or is it a single ticket with Tokyo a stopover on return from Sapporo to home?

Tokyo as a stopover I believe. Tied in with booking 'early bird' accom in the ski area, so there are some conditions attached

You'll be able to get full use of a 14-ay JR Pass, including the trip to the Sapporo airport on Day 1. If you want to check the schedule for that trip at hyperdia.com then use &quot;New Chitose Airport&quot; as your destination.

You ought to work in a couple hours for a stop in Himeji to see the castle. Morning of day 6. You don't really need to spend two nights in Hiroshima.

hmm, I had considered Himeji actually...but wondered about the logistics.

Is it far from Kurashiki? Is it just a case of jumping off the train on route (and perhaps storing our backpacks in a locker at the station?) before re-boarding in the afternoon to get to Kyoto?

And if you don't think two nights in Hiroshima are worthwhie, where would you suggest we spend the extra night?

We'll defintely be getting the 14 day pass as you mentioned in your last post - so extra train travel isn't a problem.

It's 45 to 60 minutes from Kurashiki to Himeji and about 60 minutes from Himeji to Kyoto.

Yes, you can just hop off the shinkansen at Himeji station and store your backpacks there. You can walk to the castle. There are also lockers just past the ticket booths inside the castle grounds, but IIRC they were small. I did see some people trying to go into the castle with big huge backpacks, the kind that are 4 feet long and thick. I don't know what they did with that stuff but they had absolutely no hope of carrying it up to the top of the castle.

You might want to use the baggage delivery services available in Japan in addition to koin rokka at the stations (e.g. with that itin, I might stash stuff at Tokyo station on Day 1 (Shinagawa more likely) and then dropping more stuff at Kyoto or Shin Osaka on the way to Hiroshima. Or ship stuff from Hokkaido to Hiroshima, or to Kyoto, or just straight to Narita Airport to wait for your tip home. Lots of options to keep your load light by only taking a few days worth of stuff on most of the intercity trips.

You might consider staying the night of Day 4 on Miyajima. That day, you could see the main sights of Hiroshima and makd to short trip to get to Miyajima at 4PM or 5PM. Or just go to Kurashiki that evening.

The second night in Hiroshima might be worthwhile if you are a baseball fan and the Carp are in town that night.

Have you figured out how you are going to get to/from Koya-san?

Lots of food for thought re luggage - thanks! I like the idea of leaving some ski related stuff at Narita - certainly don't want to be lugging that aroun with us. Other than that though, we'll be travelling pretty light.

Don't know much about Miyajima, will check it out.

Re the baseball - is it the season? Would love to see a game but had thought that the season might start a bit later in the year?

And re Koya-san - nup, haven't sorted that bit yet...it's on the list of to-dos. I know that it's not particularly straightforward but figure after a week of being based in one lodge (when we're skiing), we won't mind a bit of phaffing around when it comes to travel in the second week.

When is your trip?

Mid Feb

No j-ball until end of March, I think.

Phaffing, huh? Is that what that is? I guess that I have phaffed and will phaff again. It is that phaffing of yours the first couple of days that I was thinking about.

Day 1 you will take the train, or maybe bus to train (if you are in Shikotsu-Toya N.P. or similar place), to Sapporo airport then fly to Narita or Haneda, then train into Tokyo. Next day take shinkansen to somewhere then one or two local trains and maybe a bus and ropeway to Koya-san. NEXT day, take the ropeway, bus, local train, whatever to Shin Osaka and then the shinkansen to Hiroshima. That is a bit of phaffing. The phaffing after that is ok, even adding Miyajima, since the distances are not that great. Maybe just but the bullet and phaff your way by shinkansen to Hiroshima on day 1 and then do light phaffing after that. Actually, the more that I write on this subject the more that I am aware that I may be overestimating the amount phaffing involved in your Days 1-3.

should be &quot;bite the bullet&quot;, above

ok, stop biting your bullet and enough of your pfaffing now. I don't ever want to see you pfaffing around here again. We have enough pfaffers around here already.

What a wonderful word. I wonder if I can use it in Scrabble and get away with it.

oops, I meant phaffing. I should at least spell it correctly if I am going to use it in Scrabble.

We had a week in Japan and took the bullet train from Tokyo to Hiroshima, with a 2-3 hour stop in Himeji. Definitely stop at Himeji. It was lovely, not crowded, interesting, easy to get to from train station -- should not miss it!

We had only one night in Hiroshima area and spent it on Miyajima. This was my favorite place in Japan. Gorgeous. We stayed at Momiji-so -- they picked us up at the ferry pier and took us to secluded ryokan. Dinner was waiting, as was hot bath. The next morning we hiked around Mt. Misen, visited the famous red torii gate, then took the ferry back to Hiroshima and spent the afternoon at the Peace Museum/Peace Park. Bullet train back to Tokyo that night. A quick trip, but great.

emd, I'm glad to have been able to assist with your scrabble pursuits. No guarantee that it's in the dictionary though, so beware the aggressive player who challenges you on it!

mrwunrfl, really keen to get to Koya-san, so we may well have to put up with the phaffing. Will see how things pan out. At this stage we're intending to pre-book accom in Tokyo and Kyoto but wing the rest - so the schedule can still be a little flexible...do you think this is okay? We've never been ones to pre-book everything (though have been warned against not doing so in Tokyo particularly).

Actually, that brings me to another question: budget accom in Tokyo. Am sure that this has been done to death on this forum, but if you've got any pointers we'd be keen to hear them. Seems to be a few options out Ueno way - but is this too far out? The plan at the moment is to go budget in Kyoto and Tokyo but maybe splash out a little once or twice elsewhere...

By the way, have now checked out Miyajima - sounds like somewhere we will definitely visit - so thanks for the tip guys.