Japan - Will We Get Lost?
 

Two couples looking to go to Japan in probably Nov 2018.

I have seen some posts on the JR pass which I will read more about and I've seen some comments that luggage forwarding which I'm not quite sure I understand. We'd like to keep our itinerary relatively simple to navigate and don't know if the below will work. As with all newbies to Japan we would appreciate any feedback.

Day 1: Arrival in Tokyo
Day 2: Tokyo
Day 3: Tokyo (Day trip Nikko - National Park)
Day 4:  Tokyo
Day 5:  Tokyo (Day Trip Kamakura)
Day 6:  Hakone (Hot spring resort area near Mt. Fuji)
Day 7: Hakone
Day 8: Takayama (Area in the mountains of Central Japan with a beautiful small old town area)
Day 9: Takayama
Day 10: Shirakwa-go/Gokayama/Kanazawa (Explore the UNESCO World Heritage towns of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama areas. The area is known for its beautiful thatch roof houses. Spend the night in Kanazawa)
Day 11: Kanazawa (A city on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu Island that is known for its traditional crafts, seafood, geishas, and one of Japan’s top three landscape gardens — Kenrokuen.)
Day 12: Kanazawa
Day 13: Kyoto
Day 11: Kyoto
Day 12: Kyoto
Day 13: Kyoto
Day 15: Kyoto
Day 16: Kyoto
Day 17: Hiroshima
Day 18: Hiroshima (Visit the nearby island of Miyajima. The area is known for its floating Torii Gate.)
Day 19: Osaka
Day 20: Osaka
Day 21: Depart

Yes, you will probably get lost at some point. Not a big deal. Your itin descriptions sounds a bit like a tour. Is it?

November is a very good time to go. What day would Day 1 be?

It is a workable plan. You won't need a JR Pass because of the time you have in Kyoto where it will not do you much good. If you moved Hiroshima to be after Kanazawa then a 7-day pass might work.

Here is a description of luggage forwarding:
www.japan-guide.com/e/e2278.html

That does sound like a tour description, but is very doable on your own. No reason you should get lost with decent guidebooks and maps, although a smart phone with a data plan is a great security blanket. But what if you do get lost? That can be interesting. And if you carry a card from your hotel you can always take a cab back.

It's natural to think you want maps with place names in English, but they won't help when you are confronted by street signs and subway maps in Japanese. Take a Japanese map as well (your hotel will have one), or a bilingual one if you can find it.

You don't need to understand the Japanese: just pattern-match on a significant character or radical in the name of the place you want.

Should be a great trip! You might get lost, though there’s no reason you should. And if you do, it’ll just be part of the adventure. ;-)

Luggage-forwarding is called takuhaibin; here's the info:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2278.html

Many people visit Nikko as a day trip; I was glad to spend a night there so that I had time to include Kegon-no-Taki, a bit of Lake Chuzenji, and a hike of part of the Kanmangafuchi Abyss.

I seriously regret that I didn’t give Kanazawa enough time. If I had to do it again, I’d give it at least 3 nights.

You might consider shifting a night or two from Kyoto to Nara. Many people visit Nara as a day trip from Kyoto, but there is plenty to see and do there – more than enough for 2 full days.

You might consider spending a night on Miyajima. It is much more enjoyable after day trippers leave.

I don’t hear very many people praising Osaka, so unless you have a particular reason for visiting it, you might want to consider alternatives.

At least some guidebooks have maps with both English and kanji.

Hope that helps!

I don't see that you have accounted for travel time. I'd suggest that you re-write your itinerary, showing when your travel, as it will help you see just how much time you have in each place. For instance, we had two full days (three nights) in Kanazawa and wished we had more.

Toward the middle/end of November you should have beautiful fall colors (koyo).

We used taxis in Kyoto, had our hotel write the names of the places we wanted to go on a card, and it worked perfectly. The only place we got lost was inside Shinjuku Station.

Well I confess we took pieces from 2 different tours and stitched them together. We're hoping it will give us a good variety of sights. Opinions ?

I appreciate the link to the information on luggage forwarding.

Will probably be our only trip to Japan and realize we won't get to see everything and picking one thing over another is a challenge!

Great comments Thanks

Forget the tours. Read some guide books and decide what YOU want to see. You have loads and loads of time to plan if you're not going for a year and a half.

IMO, your plan does have a nice variety.

I've already suggested some tweaks, but I'll suggest one more: You might want to consider spending a night on Koya-san -- it really is quite an experience, and unlike anything else on your itinerary.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4900.html
If you decide to include it, note that one's choice of temples apparently makes a big difference. I was very pleased with Shojoshin-in, which a number of other Fodorites have visited and which still gets great reviews:
https://www.japaneseguesthouses.com/...n=Shojoshin-in

BTW, I think you are likely to have only a few hours in Shirakawago, but you can see examples of the thatched-roof houses from that area ("Gasshō-zukuri") in the outdoor park in Takayama, Hida-no-Sato.

Kathie is right about figuring out what your travel days are.

My guess is that each city listed is the place where you will spend the night.

That would be days 6, 8, 10, 13, 17, and 19?

That would be days 6, 8, 10, 13, 17, and 19 - are your travel days?

Thanks for your suggestions kja.

Everyone is right that we have some time to plan so this is a draft that we're thinking of doing on our own - if we don't feel too intimidated by getting around on our own.

Travel days are TBD. We actually hate spending only one night in a spot so hence another reason I call this a draft. Right now other couple is out-of-pocket on a cruise so I'll follow-up with them and see if we can pin down a little more.

I just spent five weeks in Japan on my own. I speak/read no Japanese. I had no problems - but I did find my smart phone useful for buses, as I have elsewhere.

I traveled without a smart phone. With the possible exception of Tokyo, I thought it extremely easy to get around. Bullet trains, and many local trains, are signed in English and there are announcement in English. Kyoto and Nara are laid out on a grid, and so particularly easy to navigate.

Tokyo can be a bit challenging, as few streets are named and the system for numbering addresses is a bit obscure. BUT good guidebooks tell you exactly what subway station -- and which exit -- to take, and there is English signage in most of the subway stations to help you find the exit you need.

Most of us found getting around in Japan on our own surprisingly easy.

My first trip to Japan I managed fine without a phone (well, I had some issues with the Tokyo subway), and I am sure I could so again, but a smart phone is very useful for buses. It tells me which bus, and when it is due to show up. It shows me exactly where the bus stop is. I can follow the route so I know exactly when to get off. It even tells me the fare, which on Japanese buses is a big help. And since I have T-Mobile it doesn't cost me any more to use it abroad.

It's useful for trains, too, but for some reason it doesn't know a thing about ferries, so it's always worth double checking.

I didn't mean to suggest that a smartphone wouldn't be an advantage -- I'm sure it would be. I was just pointing out that it is not <u>necessary</u> to get around successfully. :-)

thursdaysd, what were you using to find buses? Google maps?

Yes, I agree, I have T-mobile as well. :)

The maps app on my Android phone, which I expect is google maps.

Probably...thanks, thursdaysd - I never really looked for buses on it - will try next trip....

I have an app for Kyoto buses but it's really slow and pretty useless on the phone....

Just click on the bus icon instead of the car or the pedestrian.

We love Google Maps for buses, and also use it on our phones (android) when we travel, including Japan on our last trip in April 2016.

We used it recently for Hong Kong, which was a lifesaver as we could not find any printed bus maps - when we asked we were told there were too many bus routes to put on a map - well if cities like London can manage it, there's no excuse. But we found wifi access often enough that we were able to find buses via Google Maps, and hopped on a few during our week.

We were worried about getting lost ahead of our first trip in 2012, but we needn't have stressed. Firstly, for all the train trips, I used Hyperdia to not only note down exact times, but also exactly which platforms the trains would leave from and arrive into - particularly handy where we needed to make a change. And they were always on time, so we never missed a connection, not even the tight ones.

Announcements on trains and buses in tourist destinations were made in English as well as Japanese, and we'd written down the names in Japanese anyway, just in case we needed to recognise them visually. But station names were always shown in both English and Japanese, even at tiny rural stations.

It's a wonderfully easy country to navigate and people are extremely helpful if you do need assistance.

The only thing we struggled with was addresses in Tokyo, here an address is not street number street name format but three digits which tell you the chome (block), street and building number BUT the building numbers are often NOT in numerical order! It's a nightmare. Here is the one place we really really needed Google Maps / internet access. We had rented a wifi dongle for this purpose and thank goodness!

Frommer's has the clearest explanation of the difficulties of navigating Tokyo that I've seen:
http://www.frommers.com/destinations...ow/city-layout
and also has a very useful section on strategies for finding one's way around without getting lost (or at least, not too often):
http://www.frommers.com/destinations...getting-around

BUT, again, it is manageable -- in all honesty, I did not get lost <b>even once</b> in Tokyo, and I traveled there without a smartphone or other access to the internet. Places that tourists (and others!) visit know that the address system in Tokyo serves essentially no useful purpose for the vast majority of people -- even those who live in Tokyo! -- so they present information on their web-sites that allow people to find them, as do guidebooks.

You don't need two days (or nights) in Osaka.

Knowing your interests would help . . .

Apologies if I'm repeating advice already given, have speed-skimmed the thread.

I agree with BigRuss, two nights in Osaka is a lot. There's not a lot to see. Dotonbori can be seen in 10 minutes unless you're into bars and nightclubs, but it's pleasant enough to stroll around of an evening and have dinner there. Other than that, while there are sights you can see, there's nothing I felt was "do not miss" level. I liked the food market (but not as much as Nishiki in Kyoto or the fabulous Omichi in Kanazawa), there was a pretty temple halfway between Dotonbori and Sakai knife district, the knife museum and shop itself was hugely disappointing. So I'd give one of those nights over to Kanazawa giving you three nights two days there.

For Hiroshima and Miyajima, depending on what you want to do and see in Hiroshima you could do it in a single night but making use of the full days preceding and after. I'd recommend staying the overnight(s) on Miyajima rather than Hiroshima itself.

Go to Hiroshima early morning on the first day, spend a few or hours there -- we did the morning and lunch -- then get the ferry across mid afternoon to Miyajima for your overnight. That gives you the rest of the afternoon evening there, plus as much of the next day as you like before crossing back to the mainland and heading on to Osaka.

You will not get lost. It's all doable. We traveled independently with two elementary school children and did fine.

You can do some side-trips from Kyoto, too, but don't fix them yet. Definitely, include a day trip to Nara.

I suggest that you take advantage of the service that delivers your suitcases to your next hotel destinations, days ahead, if necessary. Very affordable and very convenient. Especially for Hakone, you should not carry any suitcases because a part of visiting Hakone is doing the Hakone loop. We arrived at our ryokan in Hakone doing the loop. If we had any suitcases, that would be very inconvenient. We just had a backpack and a big bag with just enough for 1.5 days. All our suitcases were already at our next destination, waiting for us. You can actually pack them by destination at home and send them to their destinations right from the airport. For example, upon arrival in Tokyo, we shipped a suitcase with our business clothes to Yokohama, which we were going to visit 10 days.

The only time I got lost was the first couple of times exiting my subway station in Tokyo. I simply went with the flow rather than observing which of the probably 8 exits I needed. I'd come above ground expecting to see my Starbucks and it was nowhere to be found! Other than that, I found Japan MUCH easier to navigate than I thought it would be. I'm heading back next month and am not concerned in the least. Even with the crush of humanity for sakura.