Japan Travel Bucket List

Hi all,

Since many of us are stuck inside at the moment and have less to do than normal - does anyone want to share some places they are looking forward to eventually visit in Japan after the human malware problem is solved....

Every person has different choice. But my preference will be
Tokyo Disney Land,Tokyo Disney sea,Osaka universal studios Japan,
Nagoya science museum, Nagasaki Huis ten bosch,Nagoya Legoland,
Osaka Aquarium,Kanazawa 21st century museum,Fuji Q highland etc

Super Nintendo World at USJ! By the time it opens, we'll be allowed to go to Japan.
It was on the cards for our September trip but I doubt that's still happening.

Thank you for doing this. I am pretty much assuming my June trip isn't happening now and I'm glad I never bought airfare. I'm really hoping we can go in February 2021. We had such a great trip this February.

I want to spend more time in Kyushu. I've never given it the attention it deserves and with our trip to Japan now being 10 hours instead of 14, it feels easier to go for shorter time periods.

In June we were planning to go to Karuizawa and maybe day trip to Kusatsu.

My kid has started playing Mario Kart on her Switch so is now excited for USJ as well. She might also finally make her last height line and age requirement so we can go on pretty much everything. I've always wanted to go on Steel Dragon.

If we can go back in February 2021 I want to go to Kawazu for their early sakura. We saw some in Tokyo, but festivals are festivals. My daughter wants to go back to Shiga Kogen. She loved it.

After 5 trips spanning about 18 weeks total, I have seen pretty much all on my check list. I still plan to go back once or twice a year for food, not so much to explore new places. One place I do want to GO BACK is Aomori during Nebuta Festival (early August). I tried few years to reserve a room, but could not find anything in the vicinity of Aomori City. I will keep trying until I become disabled.

https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3755.html

I had to cancel my trip through Nara prefecture and around Gifu which had essentially 8 towns in 14 nights and quite a bit of travel. After all of the drama, and with work being flat out due to cv19 issues, if I could go today I would spend a week in Nara to relax then a week in the onsen towns near Nara, to relax some more.

I cancelled my April trip and re-scheduled for September. I had plans to see Hagi and Shimonoseki/Kitakyushu as well as Odate and Akita-shi for the first time. After the re-schedule, I will add Wakkanai to all those places and perhaps drop Akita city.

Well, I don�ft even know where to start. Although I have traveled extensively there are entire chunks of the country I have never been to:

Most of the Sea of Japan coast, Okinawa, Wakayama prefecture, Aizu Wakamatsu, more of the Alps , more Kyushu and Shikoku and then all these remote places you mention in your posts...

I am currently in Osaka and would have loved to explore again more of Shiga prefecture (Nagahama and around seemed very interesting), but with the lockdown since today it�fs off. For the time being.

Last weekend I went to Kyoto and Nara and specially in Kyoto enjoyed some normally overcrowded places (Kiyomizu dera and Fushimi Inari) in the middle of Sakura season. What a treat!

https://bicycletraveljapan.blogspot.com/2020/04/kyoto-without-tourists...

https://bicycletraveljapan.blogspot.com/2020/04/nara-without-tourist.h...

Only around Osaka I have a bucket list for several weekends: Wakayama prefecture, Sasayama, Nagahama, Miyama, Awaji ...

I think currently I could probably spend at least an other 6 months full time traveling Japan without repeating things I have already seen. As you know I am also much slower traveling than most here and so is my preferred mode of transportation.

Stay safe everyone!

And keep the posts on Japan coming. Very interesting read!

I have a few places on my long list including Iwami Ginzan and the unrelated Ginzan Onsen.
Abashiri and Shari (for access to the Shiritoko National Park) are also on the list.

On the bucket list is Shikoku-where we would be going next week had our plans not been covidded.

We also planned to make a dent in our 'original castles' list, maybe next year.

I love the Sea of Japan coast from Matsue through to Hagi.

Tokyo on a Sunday, to watch Japan at play.

Cherry blossoms at the fort at Hakodate, and up the hill by cablecar at the other end of Hakodate which we missed doing due to inclement weather.

I like watching the shinkansen arriving and leaving Tokyo Station from the viewing deck at the Kitte building.

Lake Biwa-maybe a driving tour around the lake.

The back streets of Kyoto, which are peaceful while the rest of the city is heaving.

But for now we stay home to keep our families, communities and healthcare workers safe.

Beautiful topic!

Postponed our 7th trip to autumn, cannot wait...
My essential in Kyoto - endless evening wonderings on small quiet streets of Gion, Philosopher's walk, temples (not the most popular ones), Arashiyama.

From other places there are several small places what make me wishing to return - Kurashiki, Kibi plain on bike, Himi near Takaoka, Kitsuki near Oita, Tomonoura. Also Takayama is place to go back (been couple of times).

As i had three trips in a row (2017, 2018, 2019) and my daughter had a first year at school this season then we did not planned anything for this year; our "travel fuel tank" was also quite full :-). However, i could not resist to do some virtual planning so i really hope that next year i have a chance to visit Japan again with my family.

My ideal wishlist in no particular order.

1. Yamadera and Matsushima near Sendai. It seems that near Sendai is also a new aquarium.
2. Nyuto onsen and Lake Tazawa
3. Some days on some islands in Okinawa
4. Chichibu
5. Some minor place between Osaka and Hiroshima (Kurashiki, Onomichi etc).
6. Out-of-the box town with a beach to have some seaside rest days.
7. Onsen town like Zao Onsen, Minakami or Ginzan onsen.
8. Less popular temple complexes in Kansai (Uji, Hasadera, little bit outside of Kyoto).

BR,
Lauri

Good to see some people still looking forward to stuff.

I've pretty much finished the major stuff I want to do - but there is still some small places that are of interest to me.

This includes

(1) Iya Valley
(2) Some of the secondary art islands in the Seto Sea
(3) Visiting more of the West Coast of Honshu (specifically driving)
(4) Driving around the east coast of Tohoku

I'm also happy to see that some people want to drive around Lake Biwa - one of my favorite places that I visited on my last (and probably last!) trip to Japan

I will continue to travel to Japan until I can't afford to, either physically or monetarily. I've had the pleasure to travel to Japan 14 times and twice a year these past 3 years, but I can't afford to keep doing that, as airfare from Chicago takes a big chunk of my budget. There are stops I will always do, principally Tokyo, Hiroshima and Onomichi, where I will be for its port festival as many times as I could. I've hit every prefecture at least once. This next trip in September, I will visit the northernmost point of Japan (Cape Soya) and sometime in the future, I hope to hit the southernmost point, wherever it may lie. Unfortunately, I don't drive and my language skills are terrible, but that hasn't stopped me from making many friends there. I won't be able to get around to all the nooks and crannies that make rural Japan so endearing and interesting, but with each visit, I see new places. I don't tire of it and I won't say the next trip will be "my last", lol! I refuse to say that.

It's the sort of place you can keep going back to, especially with the different seasonal offerings. The next trip of ours is the 8th for us, and I hadn't invested too much thought besides USJ because it's where I wanted to spend my 40th. Probably one area I was focused on was Matsue and nearby Sakaiminato. I'm a big Shigeru Mizuki fan.

Kyushu is the only main island we haven't visited yet so that's obviously on the cards. September was not really the preferred time to go there though.

When the kids are more suited to hiking, we'll finally go to Yakushima.

I've made quite a list, and perhaps too much for one lifetime. Also it's not just places, but when you travel that can matter a lot. One day I'd love to see the Awa Odori in Tokushima City, but I've been there in the spring and otherwise found the place pretty lackluster overall.
After so many decades, many of the places that are left are the fruit at the top of the tree. More money and time to get to, and harder to have a lot of sights when more time has to be put in for transport. But I do want to see Yakushima and Sado Is., as well as some more places in the Tohoku Region.

This golden week walking kumado no kodo.
I love to see traditional Japan

Depends on the season with southern destinations in winter and northern in summer.
I've been looking for somewhere interesting that I haven't been but no one place sticks out yet. A few of the places I'm considering at the moment:
1) Hateruma-jima (near Ishigaki)
2) the caves of Okinoerabujima
3) Nishinoshima kayaking (Oki)
4) Haha/Chichi-jima just because my father liked it (Ogasawara Retto)
5) Okushiri-to off Hokkaido (tsunami area)
6) re-drive the Sanriku Coast in 2021 (10 years after)
7) 8-hour course on Rebun-to in July/August
8) Izumi, Kagoshima in the winter when the tsuru are in town.
9) driving around the Kunisaki Peninsula if I'm interested in shrines and temples (most of the time, no)

I usually add a week to any business itinerary to go somewhere but I'm not as enthused as in the past as my last venture ran into literally hoards of East Asian tourists that didn't speak a lick of Japanese.

Thanks for explanation.

There are always more places I'd like to visit, and many I'd like to revisit in different seasons.

My top wish is to someday be able to visit Korakuen Garden in Okayama in the snow. I also want to see the grass-burning festival there. I've seen the garden with plum blossoms, cherry blossoms, azaleas, irises, waterlilies, autumn leaves, and a few of the other events. Snow is so rare there, especially snow that sticks. There are a lot of places I'd like to see with snow, actually.

Others:
-Hokkaido: I went to Hokkaido for the first time this winter. I'd like to go back to see the flowers blooming in Furano/Biei, visit some of the national parks, Matsumae Castle and Goryokaku's cherry blossoms, and what is considered to be the most difficult to reach of the "Top 100 Castles", the Nemuro Peninsula's Chashi sites.

-Tohoku: I love Yamagata Prefecture, so it'd be nice to go back. I want to see the Tanabata Festival in Sendai (it's already been cancelled for 2020). I want to visit the kokeshi onsen that I haven't visited throughout the region. Exploring the coastal area of Akita and Nyuto Onsen. I've not yet been to Aomori or Iwate, so Mount Osore, Hirosaki Castle, Ryusendo Cave, Hiraizumi, etc.

-Kanto: I'd like to see the marshlands in Nikko and Nikko in the autumn. The frozen waterfall light-ups in Chichibu, the Chichibu Pilgrimage, nemophila at Hitachi Seaside Park, maybe Kairakuen outside of the plum season, a bit more of Chiba, Hachioji Castle, Kamakura with hydrangeas, Oshi Castle, and maybe Hakone.

-Chubu: More castles in Nagano, Okuhida Onsen and the ropeway, the Noto Peninsula, Kurobe Gorge and the snow corridor, the Yatsuo's Bon Odori, Naegi Castle, northern Niigata, Sado Island, Takada Castle's cherry blossom festival and light-up, the cherry blossoms at Ichijodani.

Kansai: Kumano Hongu Taisha, Shingu Castle, coastal areas in Wakayama, Akagi Castle

Chugoku: Kagamino (onsen, gorge, waterfall), stay overnight at Yubara Onsen, Shinjo Town's cherry blossom road, Niimi's caves and waterfall, the Katatetsu Cycling Road to Chausayama Castle, Chizu, the gorge and natural bridge in northeastern Hiroshima Prefecture, climb to the top of Mount Daisen, cherry blossoms at Kintai-kyo Bridge, Oki Islands

Shikoku: Kawanoe Castle, return to Iya Valley, Ritsurin Garden's light-up, Kawashima Castle, Ashizuri Cape, Shikoku Karst, the gorge on Shodoshima Island, Niyodo River, whale watching in Kochi, Ioki area

Kyushu: Lots more castles, Yakushima, Oita/Kumamoto (haven't been to either)...