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14 days Japan, which Route?

Kagawa1
Kagawa1
over 9 years ago
4 responses

Hello, i arrive in Tokyo at 13. Nov (mornings) and leave at 26. November (evenings) from Tokyo, too.
It´s the first time in Japan.
We are two students (couple), who dont want to spend a lot of money for travel and so on.
We are interested in old things, like streets in Takayama (i mean this very historical streets, where i think i would be in the past). So i don´t want to see it in Tokio in a museum, i want to see it in real.
But we also want to visit a megacity Tokyo for minimum 4-5 nights (1. or should it be more days?).
I like skyscrapers and beautiful views over cities.
We also want to see Kyoto. It should be nice there. Also we want to take a bath in beautiful onsen (2. is this expensive?).
We dont interest in arts, luxury (expensive things) or shopping for clothes. But to see big shoppingmalls or fishmarket in Tokyo i want to see...
But i think there is so much to see und so many possibilities, to travel in Japan. So i dont know, which cities and places I have to see.
We dont want to see only 3 Cities in our holiday, but 15 cities in 14 days is to much, too.

Are you able, to create us a wonderful route, which places you think, we should visit und then, should we take a RailPass or not, and should it be (7 days or 14 days Railpass?). And can we then go this route all with the railpass?

Thank you for help. :)

Kagawa1
Kagawa1
4 posts
over 9 years ago

New Situation:
We booked Tokio for
13.11 Arrival (morings) Tokio
14.11 Tokio
15.11 Tokio (Nikko?)
16.11 Tokio
17.11 start to leave Tokio
18.11 ?
19.11 ?
20.11 ?
21.11 ?
22.11 ?
23.11 ?
24.11 ?
25.11 to 26.11 one night in Tokio

At 25.11 we can go to hotel nights, too, so that we can travel the day.
So what are your recommendations?
Thanks

avatar
Daniel-san
18835 posts
over 9 years ago
Expert

Hello there,

From your post I gather that you would like to visit traditional Japan and see it's culture.

I've made an example itinerary below for 14 days which you could conisder.

Day 1, Arrival travel to Tokyo
Day 2-4 Stay in Tokyo and see what the metropolis has to offer, such as Tsukiji fish market, The big temple at Asakusa and make a trip to Kamakura to see the big Buddha.
Day 5 Travel to Hakone, this is a very beautiful area basking in the view of Fuji. Here there are numerous Onsen to enjoy (they don't have to be expansive)
Day 6 Explore Hakone.
Day 7-8 Travel to Takayama and enjoy the old village and historical streets.
Day 9-11 Travel to Kyoto, Kyoto is both the historical and cultural capital of Japan and not to be missed.You could also make a trip to Nara from there.
Day 12 travel to Hiroshima and visit Miyajima.
Day 13 see a bit more of Hiroshima and return to Tokyo.
Day 14 Tokyo and return to the airport.

This entire route is covered by the JR Pass. You could also plan your stay in Tokyo at the end of your itinerary if you'd wish to spend some time shopping.

Hope this helps,
Danie

Kagawa1
Kagawa1
4 posts
over 9 years ago

Thanks for your helpful answer.

I have planed our trip to Japan, now.

I must booked this followed route, bc at this dates are these hotels in these cities cheap and availible. Weekends are really expansive in big touri cities!
But all in all i get with the following trip the same all in all traveltime like Tokyo,Takayama, Osaka, Hiroshima, Tokyo.
But now, my girlfired wants to see some great nature of japan, like Kamikochi (but its closed to our time). She wants not full of tourist, beatiful forests to walk, waterfalls or something else. What and When we could do this on this trip. Hotels are already booked...
Furthermore we dont have an onsen. So i have some questions...

What do you think about the trip. Do you have any more recommendations?

13.11 Th. Narita – Tokio half day in Tokyo
14.11 Fr. Tokio full day in Tokyo
15.11 Sa. Tokio full day in Tokio
16.11 Su. Tokio – Nikko – Tokio Trip to Nikko or another full day tokyo or another trip for great nature or onsen!?

then we booked 4 nights in Osaka. The Hotel is 900 meters away from trainstation Shin-Osaka. In Kyoto are hotels very expensive and from this hotel we can go with shikansen in 15 min. to kyoto station.

17.11 Mo. Tokio – Shin Osaka mornings from tokio to Hotel in Shin-Osaka (then go for Osaka, Nara or Kobe or..?)
18.11 Tu. Shinosaka - Kyoto - Shinosaka (full day kyoto)
19.11 We. Shinosaka - Kyoto - Shinosaka (full day kyoto)
20.11 Th. Shinosaka – Kobe or Nara or only Osaka or another full day kyoto or nature or onsen?- Osaka
In Kobe i want to see the big bridge. We want two full days in kyoto, but what would you do with 17.11 and 20.11. Or Universal Studios, but i dont want to wait 1 hour for one actiondrive...

Then we drive in the morning to Hiroshima for one night, so that we are at 11:00 a clock in Hiro. Then we could visit the famous museum. I think it´s better on friday, bc saturday there could be a lot of people. Is the museum enough for this day?
21.11 Fr. Shin Osaka – Hiroshima (museum...)
22.11 Sa. Hiroshima -Takayama we drive at 16:00 a clock from Hiro to Takayama. So it is possible, to visit Miyajima in this time (09:00 to 14:30)? Because we want to see museum and miyajima.

Then we drive at 16 a clock to Takayama for 3 nights. There is a cheap hotel for saturday. We are in Takayama at 22 a clock. I know, a long trip (350 Minutes), but i didnt see any possiblity to get a hotel, which is cheap on this route for saturday.

23.11 Su. Takayama (full day in Takayama)
24.11 Mo. Takayama (and here? Perhaps a day to gero Onsen (40 min with JR) or with bus to Shirakawago, but this isnt included in JR, right? Or its boring a full day in gero onsen? or are the another possibilites for nature, onsen or something else?
25.11 Tu. Takayama - Tokio then mornings go to tokio for last night
26.11 We. Tokio – Narita in the evening back to home.

We think, we need the 14 days JR Pass, or?
Daniel-san, we are very thankful, that you help us.

avatar
Daniel-san
18835 posts
over 9 years ago
Expert

Hi there,

It's good to see that you've put such a good amount of time in planning your trip. I think that your itinerary looks very good. To start with Nikko, this is one of the best side trips to make from Tokyo and one I would certainly recommend.

On the 17th, why not head into Osaka to enjoy the local atmosphere and enjoy some of the delicacies that are sold on the street. You could on a later day make a visit to Kobe and or Nara, such as on the 20th. If you want to visit an Onsen, consider going to Kinosaki-Onsen which is north of Kansai and one of the best onsen experiences in Japan, the train ride does takes a couple of hours but it is a scenic route.

For Hiroshima, you'll have more than enough time to visit the museum after arriving at Hiroshima, it does close around 17.00 so keep this in mind when planning the day. There's also enough time to visit Miyajima the following morning.

There are different beautiful places around Takayama, Okuhida is also a great onsen in the area. The bus to Shirakawa-go is indeed not covered.

Lastly I would return to either Tokyo or Narita city before going home the next day, this will make the return to the airport a lot less stressful and yes the 14 day JR Pass will be great for your trip!

Hope this helps,
Daniel

Kagawa1
Kagawa1
4 posts
about 9 years ago

We have had an amazing trip.
Here a short video with some fast impressions:

http://youtu.be/yoIp8mXfLCc

At the end, we choose Gero Onsen. They had a lot of nice onsens and no tourists! Furthermore we visit the Hida Folk Village in Takayama.
The 14 day JR Pass was a great choice and traveling was very easy.

Thanks :-)

avatar
Daniel-san
18835 posts
about 9 years ago
Expert

Hi there,

That looks amazing!

We liked it so much that we've shared it on our Facebook page.

Awesome stuff!
Daniel


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