Need your Expertise with my Japanese........Itinerary!
 

Hello
Me and my husband will be going to Japan for 2 weeks. Its partially planned but need you advice!
March 14th Arriving in Hiroshima to visit our son
March 18th-21st take a train to Kyoto stay for 3 nights
March 21s- Go to Mt Koya stay overnight at Shojoshin-in ( thinking about renting a car
in Kyoto and driving to Mount Koya?
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March 22nd to 25th? driving to Takayama (Chubu region)
March 25th to 27th? Tokyo-and flying out from Tokyo the night of the 27th dropping the car off in Tokyo
We would like to rent a car from Kyoto and drop it off in Tokyo as we would like to see the country side and possibly explore through the Chubu region. Do you think this is realistic? Should we drop off the car as soon as we get into Tokyo and then take a train from there\/ If so what train bus package would you suggest as we were planning on taking the train from Hiroshima to Kyoto?
Should we only stay in Mount koya one night?
Where would you suggest we go to in the Chubu region? I was thinking about basing ourselves in Takayama ( and especially if we are driving)and then exploring the countryside
Or should we stay in Tokyo longer?What area would you suggest we stay in Tokyo?
Thank you! Any advice would be most appreciated!
Erin

You need to get this posted in 'Japan' forum not 'japan'. I'd just cut and paste it into a new thread. Tim

Yes, this is a Fodor's glitch. Somehow they duplicated the Japan label, but people searching will see the ones with the capital J and not the ones with the lower case j.

I'll see if they can add "Japan" to the label on this thread.

@deavabeadz, you should repost using just the "Japan" tag. Even though your current post shows tags for both "japan" and "Japan", the post is not showing up when I use the "view by country" "Japan" menu.

I think your post might be getting lost to other fodorites.

Ovenbird, it shows now when I use the view by country "Japan" menu. Maybe it took a while after the "japan" tag was added?

Yes, it works for me now. But I see Erin did repost it with just the "Japan" tag. I hope people will see it now and comment on that thread. Unfortunately I am unable to offer any suggestions to help.

There isn't any JR Pass that would be economical for this trip even if you did it all by train because your intercity trips are spread out. It would be in the ballpark of ¥37,000 over 9 days. That is less than the cost of a 14-day pass and a couple days too long for a 7-day pass. Kyoto- Takayama- Narita Airport plus the JR part of a Koyasan trip would be a bit less than a 7-day pass. Driving any part of the trip would make a pass less worthwhile.

You could drive to Takyama or take the train and rent a car in Takayama. Visit Shirakawgo, Takayama, and drive across the mountains via Hirayu Onsen and Kamikochi to Matsumoto. Take the train from there to Tokyo or Narita Airport.

Here is some info for the area: http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/rtg/pdf/pg-409.pdf

I think it might be a bit cold in Takayama. Bare trees. There is a lot of snow in the region - could be in late March FAIK.

Erin, Good time to travel in Japan. My thoughts are that since you really will only have 10 days less your day of arrival and departure I would simplify my trip. I would omit Mt Koya and also not rent a car but use public transport. Maybe a seven day pass from Hiroshima to Tokyo (there may be other suitable regional passes). Mt Koya is worthy and driving could be fun but with limited time and during a time of year when snow may be in the road conditions of some of these areas I'd save these things for another time. This would allow you to spend more time in Kyoto where the "Hanatoro" will be taking place.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3943.html
Get to Takayama by train and enjoy that area for two days. Then train to Tokyo for an extra day. So 4 Kyoto 2 Takayama 4 Tokyo
My next time in Tokyo I was hoping to stay in the Yanaka area at Annex Katsutaro Ryokan. Just checked and its booked for your dates. Which means you should be making some reservations for Kyoto, Takayama and Tokyo.
Of course this is only my opinion and Mt Koya and a car could be great...
In any case have fun

> "March 18th-21st take a train to Kyoto stay for 3 nights" -- that could mean as little as 2 days in Kyoto. FWIW, I thought 4 full days too little for Kyoto itself, not counting the 2 additional days in Nara. So, you might consider seeing if you can add to your time here.

> "thinking about renting a car in Kyoto and driving to Mount Koya? ... Should we only stay in Mount koya one night? " -- I'm not sure why you would drive to Koyasan. It takes some transfers to get to Mount Koya, but going by public transportation means that you can see the scenery, which is increasingly stunning as you near the top. I was glad to go by public transportation! (Just be sure to take advantage of Japan's luggage forwarding service -- takuhaibin -- so you only need to take an overnight bag with you. :-) I loved my stay at Shojoshinin and hope you do, too. Don't miss Okunoin at dusk and/or sunset. One night on Koyasan will allow you to visit Okunoin and some of Koyasan's most wonderful sites; a 2nd night would give you more time to explore its options. FWIW, one night was sufficient for my priorities on Koyasan; as already noted, I think you would do better to add more time to Kyoto. Just my opinion.

"Should we drop off the car as soon as we get into Tokyo" -- I can't imagine anything that would justify trying to drive in Tokyo if I didn't have to do so!!!

I trust you have seen japan-guide.com -- it has answers to just about any question one could possibly ask about travel in Japan.

Hope this helps!

We spent two nights in Koyasan and were glad we did as there is a lot to see. However, with the time you have available I agree with kja that the time would be better utilised in Kyoto. I also second the comments re travelling by public transport. It takes a bit of time but is a fascinating journey with some amazing scenery.

Some photos of our time six years ago on our blog

http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blo...8720/tpod.html

I agree with Kja and Crellston.

With your number of remaining days/nights, I'd consider excluding either Koya-san or Takayama.

Taking your itinerary bit by bit --

Hiroshima - of course what you do here may be constrained by existing plans with your son, but I want to throw in a suggestion that you spend at least one of your nights in that area on the island of Miyajima. Although you can certainly go across for a day trip, there's something more magical about overnighting there, being able to see the floating gate at different times of day (when the tide is in and when it's so far out you can walk down onto the sand and right up to the gate). If this is of interest, do say so and myself and other Miyajima fans can give you more thoughts on places to stay and things to see and do.

3 nights in Kyoto is pretty low, to be honest. I'd try and find more time here, if possible. I've never come across people saying they gave too much time to Kyoto but so so so many feel they would have liked more time there than they allocated, myself included. We had 5 nights there on our first trip in Autumn 2012 and another 6 nights there on our second trip in Autumn 2013 and I'd happily spend another week there, as there's still so much I want to see and do.

I did love Koya-san and it fits well with a stay in Kyoto. Public transport is great, affords wonderful views, can't think why you'd want to drive.

Although I did enjoy our 2 nights in Takayama in 2012 (which we included mainly because our visit coincided with the autumn festival there, which was wonderful to see) this is the destination I'd suggest dropping from your itinerary. (And if you do keep it in, again, why do you want to drive - the trains are so very easy? I'm not against driving by the way - we hired a car for our Kyushu week as it made it far easier to reach destinations not easy to visit via public transport, or where public transport departures were few and far between).

My suggested itinerary for you would be:

14, 15, 16 Hiroshima (with an overnight in Miyajima)
17 Koya-san
18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 Kyoto
24, 25, 26 (and daytime 27) Tokyo

If you're wondering how Kyoto has enough to justify 6 nights, don't forget that there are not only many many many attractions within Kyoto itself, but that you can day trip to Arashiyama, Uji, Yamazaki, Osaka, Kobe and other nearby locations, while staying put in one Kyoto hotel. Alternatively, you could spend an overnight in either Osaka or Nara (or both).

"we would like to see the country side"

We saw lots of lovely rural scenes from the train...
I do understand one sees more (or at least, passes by more slowly) when driving - it was one of the pleasures of driving in Kysushu for us - but I'm still not sure it makes sense to lose so much time in driving between some fairly far-flung destinations.
YMMV :-D

Thank you so much for all your comments, After reading all this we did some tweaking and feel much better about our itinerary.
I love this site! Thanks again!

yw. What did you come up with?