Senior travellers 12 days Japan

My husband and I have organised a trip to Japan next year arriving at Haneda Airport, Tokyo early on 24 May 2018 and departing from Haneda Airport, Tokyo late on 4 June 2018. A total of 12 days.

Our main places of interest to visit are Tokyo, Hakone/Mt Fuji, Kyoto and Osaka and anything else we can fit in.

We have calculated that it might be best to purchase a 7 day JR pass for the last 7 days of our trip, ie from 29 May till 4 June.

It is our first time to Japan so we need some advice.

This is our rough plan:

24 May till 28 May in Tokyo
29 May Hakone overnight
30 May Kyoto
31 May Kyoto
1 June Kyoto
2 June Osaka
3 June Osaka
4 June Osaka and back to Haneda, Tokyo for flight back to Australia

What suggestions can anyone offer us for this trip including easy places to get to in these areas. Much appreciated.

For Hakone, travel from Tokyo to Odawara and purchase the Hakone Free Pass from Odawara. This covers the return trip from Odawara to Hakone, as well as the complete Round Course in Hakone (and offers some sightseeing discounts). You can then take the shinkansen from Odawara to Kyoto with the JR Pass after leaving Hakone.

Do you have a specific interest in Osaka? If not, I would probably stay in Kyoto only and do a day trip to Osaka, Nara and Uji or inner Nara district on 2-3 days.

Enjoy your trip to Japan!

@Likebike - thanks for the reply and suggestion. We don't know anything about any of the places so if there are better places to see from Kyoto then we will take on board your advice and change the itinerary for a visit to Osaka for the day. Many thanks again.

Thanks @sq (guest)

I agree - Kyoto instead of Osaka.
For Hakone 2 nights is better then 1 - it is beautiful area with plenty to see. I hope you can stay in onsen-ryokan with dinner.

Your trip is heavy on cities.
If you wanted variety you could cut Osaka altogether and do a night or two in a small town (?Kinosaki Onsen?), or somewhere completely different (?Koyasan?).
For me, variety is key, and Japan has so much to offer...

Thanks for your reply @girlwithpearl (guest)

I agree. Forget Osaka unless, of course, you know someone there and you're going to Osaka to see people. The city has very little to offer. Why not go somewhere more interesting and a lot less cliche. such as a stop in central Japan on your way back to Tokyo. You could transfer at Nagoya and go to Matsumoto, for instance, and see the oldest castle in Japan. It's awesome! Perhaps stop along the way in Narai-juku (or Tsumago or Magome, although those two towns tend to be more crowded). Spend a day or two in the greater Matsumoto area and see something that's truly memorable. It'll be a lot more interesting than Osaka or Tokyo. Guaranteed.

@Winter Visitor - Many thanks for your reply.

You can kontact me for more information Kansai and Kyoto ;-)
I live in Kyoto

See you

Jacky

If you are staying that long in the Kansai Region (where Kyoto and Osaka are) and that less in the Kanto Region (where Tokyo is as well as Hakone which is slightly closer to Kansai), you may want to consider flying in and out of Kansai International Airport instead of Tokyo.

You can even consider staying at a resort in Kansai instead of Hakone, so that you can focus on the western part of Japan. Other popular places you can make day trips from Kansai are Hiroshima and Kanazawa and many more.

I agree you probably have too many days in Osaka. It's not going to provide anything really significant that you wouldn't have experienced in Tokyo. It's a great city on it's own, but you already got "massive Japanese city" experience in Tokyo.

I might consider a night or two in Hiroshima (with a day on Miyajima island) instead of these extra days in Osaka. Nara and Himeji Castle are other good side trips in the area.

I would purchase a 7 -day rail pass and activate it on the 29th so you can ride the bullet train to Odawara (Saves 40+ minutes). Buy the cheaper 4000 Y Hakone pass at Odawara to go the rest of the way. You will have to make it back out to Odawara the next day to catch the bullet train to Kyoto.

Thanks very much for all the replies:
@JapanLongtimer
@Uco
@abcsolutionevents
@Me2

... and now for better planning with all this good advice.

This is just a quick post to apologize that I mistakenly thought you were spending only one night in Tokyo before going to Hakone. In that case, it does make sense to fly to Tokyo. Meanwhile, you can also consider flying in to Tokyo and out of Osaka.

By the way, if you love cities I do think it's worth while to spend a lot of time in both Tokyo and Osaka. Each city around the world is very different to a city lover, and you just can spend enough days to see all of what's in there!

24 May till 28 May in Tokyo
29 May Hakone
30 May Hiroshima
31 May Hiroshima
1 June Kyoto
2 June Kyoto
3 June Kyoto
4 June Kyoto and back to Haneda, Tokyo for flight back to Australia

You could substitute Hiroshima for Kanazawa-Shirakawago-Takayama.

Depends what you are interests are.

For your trip as planned, the 7-day pass is more expensive than single tickets.
If you had other places that you are going to add in like Himeji, Hiroshima, or somewhere else, then that is a different proposition. It does depend on what you want to see and where you want to go. Certainly you could spend your entire time in Tokyo or Kyoto, but that doesn't give you the variety that is available with the number of days you have available. Most of the trips I organise are around 2-weeks.
While many people think Hakone is "great", the feedback we get doesn't match that because there are so many other better places and it also makes the travel to/from more difficult for many schedules. Substituting places like Takayama and Nagano for their onsens and mountain scenery and less tourist trap/crowds/queues of Hakone goes down much better.
Also, taking into account your likely travel style (you say seniors - and I'll make some assumptions because most of my customers fall into that category), something like a temple stay would not be on my list of suggestions.

Hello - for the last 5 days of our trip we have decided to spend 3 days in Kyoto and 2 days in Osaka before we make our way back by JR pass train to Tokyo Haneda Airport for our flight home to Australia at 8pm on 4 June. Can someone please advise us whether it would be better for us to return to Tokyo airport from Kyoto or from Osaka. That will determine which order we will spend those last 5 days.

Makes no difference. You will be catching the same train on matter which you pick.

@hakata14 Thanks for taking the time to reply.