Do I understand correctly that your plan now is 5 nights Takayama/Kanazawa, 1 night Miyajima, 1 night Nara, then Koyasan?

I'm considering that. Is that crazy? With the closing of the museum, I'm not sure how much time we'd need to see everything else. Can anyone advise me on how much time to allow for just the park and not the museum? Also, how much time should I allow to get to Miyajima from Hiroshima? I'd like to get there by late afternoon before it gets dark. Maybe instead of staying the one night in Hiroshima I can add an extra night in Nara. Or an extra night in Tokyo. If I'm reading their website correctly, the Meiji Shrine Autumn Festival is 11/1 - 11/3. That might be something we'd be interested in? I've booked two tickets with FF miles, departing 10/31, arriving in Tokyo 2:00 p.m. I haven't booked our return yet. I've made a reservation at Mume in Kyoto for our last 4 nights. If we stay a 5th night in Kyoto, we'll have to move to a different hotel as they are booked up already! They seem very helpful. I played around a bit on Hyperdia last night. So many choices, it's a bit confusing. Once I iron out my itinerary, then I'll start figuring out all the different options of transportation and passes.

Thanks, kja, I'll see if I can find that book on Amazon.

Russ, sounds like a great plan to alternate luggage destinations. That will be extremely helpful. I loved your trip reports, by the way.

Laurie

Another thought....maybe we should go directly to Miyajima to spend the night, and then return to Hiroshima early enough to visit the park before continuing on to Nara?

Here is what I would do in your place

Tokyo - 3 nights
Takayama - 2 nights
Kanazawa - 3 nights
Miyajima - 1 night
Nara - 1 or 2 nights
Koya-san - 1 night
Kyoto - 4 or 5 nights (depending on what you do in Nara)

Tokyo is worth two full days in my opinion. If you have not seen them already, Japan guide has suggested itineraries for both Tokyo and Kyoto. I found them very useful. Here are the links:

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3051.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3950.html

You can get from Kanazawa to Hiroshima in 4 hours - 4.5 hours. This will give you 3-4 hours for lunch and the Peace Park and still get to Miyajima before dark. You can take a ferry from the Peace Park to Miyajima, which takes just under an hour.

I found Miyajima more magical after the day trippers left, so you can spend your evening in town and around the shrine and temples, and then go up the ropeway to the top of the mountain the next morning, heading out for Nara after lunch. If you spend 2 nights in Nara, you can get there late in the day, then spend the entire next day exploring, and then leave early for Koyasan the following day. Alternately, you could head to Nara earlier and spend one night, adding a 5th night to Kyoto.

Thanks, Russ. Sounds like a good plan. Hope my energy holds out! I'll be back with more questions soon.
Laurie

"You can get from Kanazawa to Hiroshima in 4 hours - 4.5 hours. This will give you 3-4 hours for lunch and the Peace Park and still get to Miyajima before dark."

I'm a little less sanguine that russ_in_LA. I wanted 4 or 4.5 hours for the A-Bomb Dome, Peace Park, and Peace Museum, including time to get to and from the train / ferry stations, but <b>not</b> counting lunch. If only half the museum is open, you might be able to cut that by an hour; if you want lunch, you might need to add time. The problem is that If you decide to stay in a ryokan on Miyajima, which I recommend, you might well need to be there by 4 or 5 p.m. And I think that means you would need to leave Kanazawa at a VERY early hour. Maybe that works for you..... But then next day, if you want to see any of Miyajima, you won't be able to leave until afternoon, and that means -- I think -- that you wouldn't reach Nara until rather late.

For your itinerary, I liked your plan to spend a night in Hiroshima and a night in Miyajima, or to spend 2 nights in Miyajima with a day-trip to Hiroshima. That gives you plenty of time for both cities and for your transportation and probably even a stop in Himeji in one direction or the other.

As stated before, for my purposes, I thought it best to go from Miyajima to Koya-san to Nara through Uji (and a stop at Fushimi Inari) to Kyoto.

And I'll also quibble a bit with Russ about the japan-guide itineraries for Tokyo and Kyoto -- I liked what they covered, but thought they substantially underestimated the time required.

I agree that Tokyo easily merits at least 2 full days. But as I said above, it's the most easily re-visited of your destinations. I would rather short-change a city with a major international airport than a place that I can only reach by going through that city. JMO; YMMV.

kja makes some valid points. There are of course dozens of variations, and no wrong answers, so you'll just have to decide where you want to focus your time.

As for the Tokyo and Kyoto itineraries, I agree that the timing is overly aggressive. I used them for deciding what things I wanted to do, and it what order, but not how long I wanted to spend doing them. In general, I felt the timing of the Tokyo itineraries were not too far off, but the Kyoto ones took twice as long as the time they have allotted.

Russ's sense of the timing of the japan-guide itineraries is consistent with mine. And FWIW, I'd say the same about the JNTO itineraries -- I took twice as long, on average, for the Kyoto walks, and just enough longer for the Tokyo ones to need to adjust on the fly.

I think we can all agree that you will have a wonderful experience no matter what you decide.

Go here: http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/rtg/
and click on "Hiroshima & Miyajima"

Not crazy, but your new plan is busier than the original one . Consider that it will involve ~6 hours of travel time to get to Miyajima, 4 hours the next day to Nara, then 2.5 hours next day to Koyasan, then 3 hours next day to Kyoto. That means luggage issues and schedule pressure for four consecutive days. I think that a second night in Nara would be well spent.

Thanks for all your input. My tickets are booked, and this is what I'm thinking at this point.

Tokyo - 2 nights
Takayama/Kanazawa - 5 nights
Hiroshima/Miyajima - 2 nights
Nara - 1 night
Koya-san - 1 night
Kyoto - 5 nights
Fly out of Osaka

While I wish I had an extra night for both Tokyo and Nara, I don't know where to get it. The only flexibility I would have would be to take a night away from either Hiroshima/Miyajima, Kanazawa, or Kyoto. We only have 4 full days in Kyoto so I hate to do that, and I agree that 1 night for Hiroshima/Miyajima might be kind of rushed, even though most of the museum is closed. I could omit those two nights entirely and devote an extra day to Tokyo and Nara, but Miyajima looks so special, I hate to skip it. It also seems like the consensus is 5 nights minimum for Takayama/Kanazawa. Should I take one night away from Kanazawa and do 2 nights in Nara?
Hope all your holidays are going well!
Laurie

The itinerary editing process is usually painful for me, since some sacrifices are usually necessary, but it looks like you did a good a good job of balancing your priorities with the logistics. The only thing I would add (because it does make the trip so much easier) is when, and to where, I would ship luggage. As usual, others might have a different take, but based on my two trips, this is what would make sense to me.

Tokyo - 2 nights - ship luggage to Kanazawa, take overnight bag to Takayama
Takayama - 2 nights (you might consider stopping in Shirakawa-go on the way from Takayama to Kanzawa)
Kanazawa - 3 nights - ship luggage to Nara, overnight bag to Nara
Hiroshima/Miyajima - 2 nights
Nara - 1 night - ship luggage to Kyoto, overnight bag to Koya-san
Koya-san - 1 night
Kyoto - 5 nights
Fly out of Osaka

Looks like a great trip to me!

Sorry for the typos, here is a corrected post (how I wish we could edit after the fact):

Tokyo - 2 nights - ship luggage to Kanazawa, take overnight bag to Takayama
Takayama - 2 nights (you might consider stopping in Shirakawa-go on the way from Takayama to Kanazawa)
Kanazawa - 3 nights - ship luggage to Nara, overnight bag to Hiroshima and Miyajima
Hiroshima/Miyajima - 2 nights
Nara - 1 night - ship luggage to Kyoto, overnight bag to Koya-san
Koya-san - 1 night
Kyoto - 5 nights
Fly out of Osaka

I agree that you've done a nice job of balancing things -- should be a great trip!

So I'm back to planning my November trip to Japan and had a couple of logistical questions regarding getting to and from the airports.
We arrive at Narita Airport at 2:00pm on a Tuesday. I've booked two nights at Cerulean Tower Tokyu Hotel because I see that the Limousine Bus goes there directly. Since we only have one full day in Tokyo, I was hoping to exchange our JR voucher at the airport and make train reservations for the rest of our trip so that can be out of the way. We will also need to pick up our limousine bus tickets. Do I need to worry about the limousine bus filling up? Is it okay to first get our JR Pass out of the way and then get our bus tickets or should I do it the other way around? I have no idea how much time is involved getting our pass and making the reservations. I also don't know where anything is relative to each other or which terminal we arrive at.

My next question is, we will be spending our last night at Hotel Granvia near Kyoto Station. I'm trying to decide which would be a better option for us as far as getting to Osaka Itami Airport, the shuttle (which is more expensive) or the limousine bus? We will have luggage to deal with and want to make sure there's enough room.

Thanks so much for your help as I work through these details. I really appreciate it.
Laurie

I can't comment on tickets for the limousine bus, having never used it but for the JR Pass it really varies depending on how many people there are queueing in the JR office at the time. I think that would be hard to predict so, depending on how many reservations you need made, it could be 30-45 minutes. If it's empty, as it sometimes is, you might be out in 15.

On our first trip, it took us a long time to queue, exchange our vouchers for the JR Passes and then have all our reservations made. I'd written all the reservations I wanted down in a Word table that I printed out on a single sheet. That made it as quick as it could be for the staff member making the seat reservations and printing the tickets. I provided departure and arrival stations, exact date and times, name of the trains - all of which is available on Hyperdia.
___

On your itinerary.

I agree with you that Miyajima is special and not to skip it. We did a single night on Miyajima BUT we came to it from Osaka, which meant we could arrive into Hiroshima fairly early morning, spend 3 to 4 hours there (including park, dome, museum and lunch) and then head to Miyajima. It took about 1.5 to 2 hours to do that transfer as I recall it was nearly an hour from the peace park to the nearest station to the ferry and then a short wait for the ferry and I think 20-25 minutes crossing. We arrived mid-afternoon giving us time to check in, have a wonder around before early dinner at the ryokan and another wonder in the evening. We had time for a little more exploration in the morning before leaving as we had to get all the way to Tokyo next. I would have certainly enjoyed more time on Miyajima, two nights is perfect, especially if you don't get in till later and you need to leave reasonably early on departure day.

I would absolutely not reduce nights in Kyoto. 5 is good, there is so much to see and do there.

Whilst some elements will feel a bit tighter than you want, your itinerary feels like the best balance you can do with the number of nights you have, so I'd go for it.

That should be a wander around though it was full of wonder!

Curious about the shipped luggage concept. We travel with only a 22 inch rolling suitcase and small backpack each which is easy to cart on trains. Will we have a problem taking them with us in japan?

blackmons, I recommend that you keep it simple at the airport: get off the plane and get on the limo bus. You can get your JR Pass and seat reservations at JR Shibuya station. Information Center (South), 10:00-18:30.

I'd probably just take the limo bus to Itami. You could ship some of your luggage to the airport. How much will you have?

dgunbug, that is a reasonable amount of luggage. You won't have a problem as long as you can carry it up and down a long flight of stairs (am thinking of a small JR station out in the country with two tracks and a pedestrian bridge to get from one platform to the other). But you will likely find an erebeta or escalator. But even at a little station there is a %50 chance that you would not need to use the bridge.

Our experience at the Narita JR office was that we could get our voucher but not make our train reservations for the rest of the trip because there were too many people in line. I'd wait until you get to Tokyo to do both.

Getting on the limo and heading to our hotel sounds a lot better than dealing with the JR pass when we're jet-lagged and sleep deprived. Great suggestion. We'll just wait until we get to Tokyo and get them at the station the following day. Even if we get completely lost, we won't be on a time crunch and maybe we can even figure out where we're supposed to get our train the next day to Takayama. Thanks so much!