Staying Tenmonkan or Kagoshima-chuo?

Hi,
Staying in Kagoshima gave me two options of stay areas. Tenmonkan or Kagoshima-chuo.

I will be coming from Kagoshima-airport, leaving to Kagoshima airport for Yakushima and back, and heading on to Miyazaki and back, and to Hakata from Kagoshima.

What area would you recommend? I am not the type staying out all night etc. Never stayed in Kagoshima before so hard to know.

Tenmonkan seems far from the ferries as well for walk or so. Tram would be better, or from station train or tram...

Depends on what you plan to do in Kagoshima. But both are only a few minutes away from each other by tram. Tenmonkan is the older shopping mall district.

As a practical information, it will be convenient to know this.
the JR Kagoshima-Chuo station area is much farther than the Tenmonkan area from the pier.
In the first place, from the Chuo station area to the Tenmonkan area, if you walk, it will take you 15-20 minutes (or when you take a tram, you need 10 minutes). And next, from the Tenmonkan area to the port (Minami-futo, South pier), it will take you another 15-20 minutes on foot.
In other words, from the Chuo station area to the pier (and vice versa), on foot all the way, it will take you, roughly, at least 30-40 minutes.

Don't walk when there is a flat fare of 170 yen to ride the trams.

Basically, Kagoshima-chuo is more convenient for the transportation. Most airport buses go first to Kagoshima chuo then Tenmonkan, probably because Kagoshima-chuo is the hub of the transportation system in Kagoshima. Of course, Kagoshima-chuo is also more convenient for JR trains (Shinkansen and local commuter trains).

However, I would choose hotels by the user reviews in Tripadvisor and Hotel booking sites. What I would choose are Richimond, Dormy-Inn, JR-Kyushu hotel etc based on the reviews.

Do you plan to take high-speed boat to Yakushima or airplane? If you choose flight, you can take bus from Kagoshima-chuo or Tenmonkan. If you take boat, you can take shuttle bus (160 yen) which starts from Kagoshima-chuo (鹿児島中央駅), stops at Tenmonkan (天文館). Get off at Kousokusen-Terminal (高速船ターミナル).

http://www.iwasaki-corp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/88a1727ac9a3843...

I will be going by plane to Yakushima. As you said the airport bus stop in Tenmonkan as well. Not exactly sure where in Tenmonkan though.

Maybe it is just a matter of stay fee. I thought I should go do some sightseeing outside of Kagoshima at first but not sure as most areas seem to be way out of doing a draytrip from 10.00 directly after arriving from the airport..

If you dont know what the Tenmonkan area is. You might as well just stay near Kagoshima-Chuo then.

Alright. Well out of curiosity, what could Tenmonkan be compared with, like Ginza or Shinjuku or something like that? I kmow Kagosima have historical connections with the end of samurai era in 19th century so maybe it is not as old as other cities like Tokyo, Kyoto etc...

Tenmonkan is like any of the 100s of city malls dotted across the country. Shops, food, entertainment etc.

Some similar examples:-
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3406.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5156.html