Traveling late August - early September

Hey all,

I'm planning to visit Japan on the next 29th of August to the 9th of September but I keep having doubts when it comes to weather.

Reading about the typhoon season, freaked me out a bit. Having to cancel a lot of plans because of the rain or transports that shutdown,etc. Also, is it still a time of hot and humid weather? I'm coming from Dubai, where I'm quite used to hot and humid but I know that kind of weather becomes a pain in the ass to explore cities.

Would you suggest to go ahead or leave it some other time?

the typhoon season, freaked me out a bit.

I was in a same boat, and a few years ago postponed my visit to Yaeyama islands until Oct , thought the typhoon season would finish by then. I was wrong, could be unlucky, had to cut the visit short due to the upcoming typhoon.
Last Aug, we were running away from Typhoon Jebi while we were in Yokohama, and traveled as far as Hokkaido, thought I was safe. Again I was wrong, the Jebi caught me in Sept at Marukoma onsen at 03:00, a scary moment.
My experiences taught me to always be prepared to expect the unexpected.

If you have a choice of when to travel to Japan, then you would most likely choose spring or autumn. But not everybody has that luxury of choice. If you are stuck for August/September, then you make the best of it by going prepared. Even when you travel in spring/autumn, there are always chance of some other form of natural disaster that can strike. If you try to avoid every possible disaster, then you will never leave your house. Wait..., then a lightning can strike your house, or a plane can crash into your house. You are doomed!

In general, if you keep to the Kansai region and further north your normally pretty good. I've been in bad typhoons in Taiwan and find the ones in central Japan quite tame. The same is not true down south. In general, give yourself one extra day at the end by possibly staying in your airport city to give you some flexibility.

The last typhoon I suffered in Japan I was driving in Wakayama prefecture through some pretty narrow and windy roads (Kumono Kodo) BEFORE the typhoon. For some reason, typhoons seem to travel fast around Honshu and are often gone in half or a full day. In general, I don't travel during a typhoon and give myself a day in case something goes wrong. This does not include Okinawa or southern Kyushu which I do not have enough experience during this time.

Note that Tohoku and Hokkaido would be absolutely beautiful (weather and temperature) at this time and has the smallest chance on suffering from typhoons. Tohoku also has reasonable transport links with amazing places to visit but without the crowds of Kyoto or Osaka

I think typhoons you can gworkh around. At maximum they should affect one day of your trip of you are exactly where it hits. (I was in Osaka last year when typhoon 21 made landfall and die to the damaged airport bridge got an extra week in Japan paid by KLM. And I had some other typhoons while living in Tokyo (all quite tame) and while traveling through Japan by bicycle). So I think the advise from the PP to put days at your departure destination at the end makes sense. If something comes up during the trip you can still comfortably make it.

What I would be concerned about is the heat. I havenft been to Dubai so canft compare. But late August is still very hot. Ifd say weather gets better from around 20/Sep. For me.

As PP said traveling to Tohoku and Hokkaido in the time period you have should be fantastic. I went to northern Hokkaido with my bicycle in the first week of September and it was perfect. Northern European summer like.

Enjoy your trip to Japan!

Thank you all for your answers.

I do have the flexibility to just go somewhere else, thatfs why I can still consider this, or else I would just get prepared and go for it.

With all this feedback, Ifll just plan this trip for other time of the year!