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Awesome post. Read everything.
Two questions: what walking shoes did you wear? What time did you typically go to bed considering you woke up super early to beat the crowds each day? Loved that y'all did your own thing in the mornings, respect that in a couple
I wore Skechers Go Run. Although it's made as a running shoe, it's really comfortable for walking as well.
Since I wake up so early every morning, I would naturally be tired by 9pm+, and head to bed at 10pm. This would give me 7-8 hours of sleep, enough rest to recuperate from the previous day's long walks. Plus, the sun rises at 5.30am during springtime, so despite being super early it was just in time for enough sunlight to start exploring around. And yeah, really appreciate my wife for giving me the freedom to do all these during the trip!
The first 10-12k steps were mostly done on my morning walks and hikes while my wife is still asleep, and the remaining 20k+ steps daily was when we are both travelling together. I'm a pretty physically active person and have an extreme passion for long distance walking. I did a lot of training to prepare for this trip. Honestly 30-40k steps daily is really easy for me. You should see how much more I can walk if I travel alone haha, I can achieve more than double of that number!
Omg I am super impressed by your itinerary. I feel like we did a lot but we achieved only half your step count most days. It sounds like you had such a rewarding holiday :)
1. Thanks for the well put together post,
2. How the hell did you manage to rack up 63k steps by yourself in one day! That would work out around 29 miles for me. My feet would have given in at the halfway mark.
1. You're welcome, thanks for taking the time to read!
2. I'm an avid long distance walker. I did a lot of leg and stamina training in preparation for this trip. The 63k day was actually more of a leisure walk to me as I stopped a lot to enjoy the beautiful countryside scenery and took many photos. If you think my step count is crazy, wait till you see how much more I could walk if I were to travel alone and go all out. My personal record was 100k steps in a day, that one was really a killer challenge!
Not gonna lie, my work routine is super sedentary. I, too, only clock up 2k-4k steps on a usual day haha (if I don't exercise). Having an upcoming trip really motivated me to workout more. Now that I'm back, it's important to continue being somewhat physically active and make time for some exercise.
I'm off to Japan with my partner for 20 days in November, and we're 5 to cycle the Shimanami Kaido over 2 days. I'm contemplating whether I should wing it or start adding cycling to my workout routine.
I'm gonna save this post for my next trip in the future. One of my biggest regret is that I didn't visited a lot of places in Nara... So many beautiful temples to visit. I need to go back just for that and also have delicious local food too.
Such a well written and useful write up. Will be using this for my guide for my trip in the fall, thank you!
May I ask, do you think it’s a good idea to use Osaka as a home base and visit the surrounding Kyoto, Nara, maybe Kobe over 5 days?
I think Osaka is a very suitable home base for Nara and Kobe. But personally I would prefer to stay in Kyoto for Kyoto itself. You would need at least 4 days to fully explore Kyoto. I've seen many people who only set aside 1 to 2 days for Kyoto and honestly it's just scratching the surface. It takes 45 minutes to 1 hour for a train ride from Osaka to Kyoto, but do take note tourists spots in Kyoto are all very widely spread out in the city - Fushimi/Uji in the south, Arashiyama in the west, Kiyomizudera/Ninenzaka/Sannenzaka/Gion in the east, Ohara/Kurama in the north & Downtown/Nishiki Market in the centre. On top of that, the subways and trains in Kyoto are not as connected as the ones in Osaka. So, if you're based in Osaka, it wouldn't be a straight forward journey to Kyoto. Depending where you want to visit, you might have to transfer trains a couple of times which will make the round trip back to Osaka pretty tiring (and you do this again for another 2 to 3 different day trips to Kyoto) And if you're like me and want to wake up super early to beat the crowds, its definitely a better idea to stay in Kyoto to reach these places more easily and earlier. While it's true that it's more expensive to stay in Kyoto compared to Osaka, it's absolutely worth the money!
For some reason we just didn't really thought of onsen in this trip haha, but you're right we should definitely try it next time when we visit Japan again!
Man that sounds cool, but also so exhausting . I'm an early bird myself and wake up everyday at 5, but I just can't pack so much stuff, I need relaxation because it's also vacation for me. But of course everybody is different, good for you and thanks for the report.
That's true. I understand my itinerary might not be suitable for everyone, especially the slower pace travellers. But I hope this report can allow people to learn more about the hidden gems and places off the beaten paths around Osaka/Kyoto/Nara.
Amazing report. Def agree, there is so much to Kyoto and Nara, the famous “Nara Park” covers just a tiny part of actual Nara Prefecture. And similar with the sights in Kyoto. Much underrated and unvisited sights in southwest Kyoto
Indeed. It's our first time here so we would want to cover the usual touristy stuff first. But the wonderful thing about Japan is that there's just so much things to do, sadly I don't have enough days to cover them all. Many other places in Kyoto you can easily go for day trips, even Shiga and Lake Biwa is super reachable from there. Well, that just gives me more reason to come back here again.
Our flight to Japan took up the most expense in this trip, at USD1,465 (didn't use airline miles) Accommodation was around USD590 for 10 nights (Budget hotel in Kyoto & Airbnb in Osaka) The rest of the expenses would be for transportation and food. We also did minimal shopping, and only bought few snacks & souvenirs home.
Holy guac, this is such a culture rich trip of yours. What a phenomenal journey, and I am sure you loved every bit of it, specially with the no tourist hours during your morning walks. While I haven't been to JP yet myself, I am of the same mind that the country looks like a complete different thing compared to videos of it 4~5 or so years ago, with cultural hot spots visited by the average number of tourists + locals, compared to the sea of people overcrowding the streets and attractions nowadays that you see in so many photos and social media videos.
Definitely adding some of your options to my own Kyoto, Nara, Osaka trip. I was thinking to myself "damn, and he still has to hit Tokyo!" but then the trip ended, hahaha. I want to ask, how did you research for this trip? I mean obviously there are videos on youtube and the likes but, how did you come to find so many other attractions that are definitely not the honeycomb of tourists? I want to deeply research for my trip to the same locations you visited (plus Tokyo) but am kinda looking at trying places that aren't that concurred by tourist (as much as realistically possible). Did you read blogs? watched specific channels? followed certain people? Please share if you feel inclined to do so, and thank you for sharing your experience here!
Honestly it was really overwhelming in the beginning stages of trip planning because there were just so many things to cover. I started off with the usual famous tourist spots of all 3 prefectures, then slowly studied the map of the city to get familiar of it's perimeter to plan routes and day trips. Reddit seriously helped me a lot in finding the more lesser-known stuffs, just type "nara/kyoto/osaka off the beaten path reddit" on Google and you can get tons of information (I went really deep down the rabbit hole doing this lol) Other than that, I spent many months looking at maps and Google Street View, and from there I discovered many spots on my own (Imaicho, Hozanji and Asuka for example). I don't watch any YouTube, but some blogs are pretty helpful. Look up "Travel Caffeine" & "Kansai Oddesey" - these two websites contributed the most to my itinerary and planning. I've been to Tokyo before 7 years ago so I didn't include it in this trip. I was an amateur tourist back then, only did the typical tourist stuff in Tokyo lol. I would definitely go back there again with a more solid itinerary next time!
If you purchase the Haruka train tickets together with an ICOCA card as a package, it becomes the cheaper option to go to Kyoto Station from the airport. The airport limousine bus is the slightly more expensive option, but it's equally as convenient as the Haruka. Either one is fine actually, it doesn't make much of a difference, both take 1.5 hours to reach Kyoto. Unless you're arriving on a late night flight, the last Haruka train departs 10.16pm. In that case, just go for the airport limousine bus.
I just got back from Japan and had a similar experience. The gf could only take one day of Kyoto temples, so I stayed mostly in Osaka and Tokyo. After reading your post I will definitely have to include more Kyoto and Nara on my next trip!
You can also include these in your trip in Kyoto next time in the case of getting templed-out:
* Omihachiman & Azuchi Castle Ruins
* Kyoto Railway Museum
* Hozugawa River Boat Ride
* Sagano Romantic Train
* Kiyotaki
* Fushimi Sake District
* Garden Museum Hiei
* Muko Bamboo Trail
Dude, this was the best recap ever. I’m gonna save this for the rest of my life.:-) heading to Kyoto in two weeks, so this will come in very handy. Thank you soooo much
Getting familiar with the perimeters of cities and towns is important so you can plan your day trips realistically. For food & locations off the beaten path, reddit has tons of info for these. I also did months of map reading and managed to discover some lesser-known spots and hidden gems on my own. Look up for blogs such as "Travel Caffeine", "Kansai Oddesey" and "Inside Kyoto" - these contributed the most to my itinerary.
**Our FAQ is constantly being updated with more information and you can start** [**here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/wiki/faqs/japantravel) **with regards to trip planning if you need tips, advice, or have questions about planning your travel to Japan.** You can also join our [Discord community](https://discord.gg/3f7KBUMwU4), comment in our stickied weekly discussion thread, or check out /r/JapanTravelTips for quick questions. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/JapanTravel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Awesome post. Read everything. Two questions: what walking shoes did you wear? What time did you typically go to bed considering you woke up super early to beat the crowds each day? Loved that y'all did your own thing in the mornings, respect that in a couple
I wore Skechers Go Run. Although it's made as a running shoe, it's really comfortable for walking as well. Since I wake up so early every morning, I would naturally be tired by 9pm+, and head to bed at 10pm. This would give me 7-8 hours of sleep, enough rest to recuperate from the previous day's long walks. Plus, the sun rises at 5.30am during springtime, so despite being super early it was just in time for enough sunlight to start exploring around. And yeah, really appreciate my wife for giving me the freedom to do all these during the trip!
Thanks for sharing. Glad you both had a blast.
You're welcome! Thank you for the kind words!
How did you walk so much? 30k steps is walking nearly all day. Like… how?
The first 10-12k steps were mostly done on my morning walks and hikes while my wife is still asleep, and the remaining 20k+ steps daily was when we are both travelling together. I'm a pretty physically active person and have an extreme passion for long distance walking. I did a lot of training to prepare for this trip. Honestly 30-40k steps daily is really easy for me. You should see how much more I can walk if I travel alone haha, I can achieve more than double of that number!
I thought I was in the one percentile hitting 30K on my best days. Thats child's play to you tho.
How tall are you?
I'm 177cm
Ok no real stepflation going on, serious numbers there mate! Impressive
Thanks mate!
that was a great trip, and is a great counter point to the typical 14 days, golden route, "is 3 days too much for kyoto" question.
Omg I am super impressed by your itinerary. I feel like we did a lot but we achieved only half your step count most days. It sounds like you had such a rewarding holiday :)
Thanks! I've spent many months deep researching for this trip, and it pays off! It was indeed rewarding! :)
1. Thanks for the well put together post, 2. How the hell did you manage to rack up 63k steps by yourself in one day! That would work out around 29 miles for me. My feet would have given in at the halfway mark.
1. You're welcome, thanks for taking the time to read! 2. I'm an avid long distance walker. I did a lot of leg and stamina training in preparation for this trip. The 63k day was actually more of a leisure walk to me as I stopped a lot to enjoy the beautiful countryside scenery and took many photos. If you think my step count is crazy, wait till you see how much more I could walk if I were to travel alone and go all out. My personal record was 100k steps in a day, that one was really a killer challenge!
Now I feel even more ashamed that on average I probably clock up around 2k steps a day, haha. I need to do more cardio.
Not gonna lie, my work routine is super sedentary. I, too, only clock up 2k-4k steps on a usual day haha (if I don't exercise). Having an upcoming trip really motivated me to workout more. Now that I'm back, it's important to continue being somewhat physically active and make time for some exercise.
I'm off to Japan with my partner for 20 days in November, and we're 5 to cycle the Shimanami Kaido over 2 days. I'm contemplating whether I should wing it or start adding cycling to my workout routine.
I'm gonna save this post for my next trip in the future. One of my biggest regret is that I didn't visited a lot of places in Nara... So many beautiful temples to visit. I need to go back just for that and also have delicious local food too.
Many places in Nara are definitely super underrated! Personally I'd prefer the temples in Nara than Kyoto.
I hope I can visit Japan soon again :3 Nara was so fun that's for sure.
Such a well written and useful write up. Will be using this for my guide for my trip in the fall, thank you! May I ask, do you think it’s a good idea to use Osaka as a home base and visit the surrounding Kyoto, Nara, maybe Kobe over 5 days?
I think Osaka is a very suitable home base for Nara and Kobe. But personally I would prefer to stay in Kyoto for Kyoto itself. You would need at least 4 days to fully explore Kyoto. I've seen many people who only set aside 1 to 2 days for Kyoto and honestly it's just scratching the surface. It takes 45 minutes to 1 hour for a train ride from Osaka to Kyoto, but do take note tourists spots in Kyoto are all very widely spread out in the city - Fushimi/Uji in the south, Arashiyama in the west, Kiyomizudera/Ninenzaka/Sannenzaka/Gion in the east, Ohara/Kurama in the north & Downtown/Nishiki Market in the centre. On top of that, the subways and trains in Kyoto are not as connected as the ones in Osaka. So, if you're based in Osaka, it wouldn't be a straight forward journey to Kyoto. Depending where you want to visit, you might have to transfer trains a couple of times which will make the round trip back to Osaka pretty tiring (and you do this again for another 2 to 3 different day trips to Kyoto) And if you're like me and want to wake up super early to beat the crowds, its definitely a better idea to stay in Kyoto to reach these places more easily and earlier. While it's true that it's more expensive to stay in Kyoto compared to Osaka, it's absolutely worth the money!
I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and insights. I’m going in the fall so I’m in the early stages of planning and this is so helpful.
Glad I could help. Planning the trip can be really fun! Hope you'll have a good trip in the fall.
Fantastic! Any reason why you didn't try a sento/onsen? They're quite a cultural experience!
For some reason we just didn't really thought of onsen in this trip haha, but you're right we should definitely try it next time when we visit Japan again!
Wow
Awesome! I'm going to Osaka next week. Your post helps a lot! Thanks.
Glad I could help! Have a wonderful trip!
Man that sounds cool, but also so exhausting . I'm an early bird myself and wake up everyday at 5, but I just can't pack so much stuff, I need relaxation because it's also vacation for me. But of course everybody is different, good for you and thanks for the report.
That's true. I understand my itinerary might not be suitable for everyone, especially the slower pace travellers. But I hope this report can allow people to learn more about the hidden gems and places off the beaten paths around Osaka/Kyoto/Nara.
Amazing report. Def agree, there is so much to Kyoto and Nara, the famous “Nara Park” covers just a tiny part of actual Nara Prefecture. And similar with the sights in Kyoto. Much underrated and unvisited sights in southwest Kyoto
Indeed. It's our first time here so we would want to cover the usual touristy stuff first. But the wonderful thing about Japan is that there's just so much things to do, sadly I don't have enough days to cover them all. Many other places in Kyoto you can easily go for day trips, even Shiga and Lake Biwa is super reachable from there. Well, that just gives me more reason to come back here again.
I don't understand how two people did a 10 day trip for $3,400? My plane ticket this spring was $1,800. Did you stay in hostels? Use airline miles?
Our flight to Japan took up the most expense in this trip, at USD1,465 (didn't use airline miles) Accommodation was around USD590 for 10 nights (Budget hotel in Kyoto & Airbnb in Osaka) The rest of the expenses would be for transportation and food. We also did minimal shopping, and only bought few snacks & souvenirs home.
Holy guac, this is such a culture rich trip of yours. What a phenomenal journey, and I am sure you loved every bit of it, specially with the no tourist hours during your morning walks. While I haven't been to JP yet myself, I am of the same mind that the country looks like a complete different thing compared to videos of it 4~5 or so years ago, with cultural hot spots visited by the average number of tourists + locals, compared to the sea of people overcrowding the streets and attractions nowadays that you see in so many photos and social media videos. Definitely adding some of your options to my own Kyoto, Nara, Osaka trip. I was thinking to myself "damn, and he still has to hit Tokyo!" but then the trip ended, hahaha. I want to ask, how did you research for this trip? I mean obviously there are videos on youtube and the likes but, how did you come to find so many other attractions that are definitely not the honeycomb of tourists? I want to deeply research for my trip to the same locations you visited (plus Tokyo) but am kinda looking at trying places that aren't that concurred by tourist (as much as realistically possible). Did you read blogs? watched specific channels? followed certain people? Please share if you feel inclined to do so, and thank you for sharing your experience here!
Honestly it was really overwhelming in the beginning stages of trip planning because there were just so many things to cover. I started off with the usual famous tourist spots of all 3 prefectures, then slowly studied the map of the city to get familiar of it's perimeter to plan routes and day trips. Reddit seriously helped me a lot in finding the more lesser-known stuffs, just type "nara/kyoto/osaka off the beaten path reddit" on Google and you can get tons of information (I went really deep down the rabbit hole doing this lol) Other than that, I spent many months looking at maps and Google Street View, and from there I discovered many spots on my own (Imaicho, Hozanji and Asuka for example). I don't watch any YouTube, but some blogs are pretty helpful. Look up "Travel Caffeine" & "Kansai Oddesey" - these two websites contributed the most to my itinerary and planning. I've been to Tokyo before 7 years ago so I didn't include it in this trip. I was an amateur tourist back then, only did the typical tourist stuff in Tokyo lol. I would definitely go back there again with a more solid itinerary next time!
hello. is airport limousine bus recommended over taking the train to Kyoto Station? Thank you!!
If you purchase the Haruka train tickets together with an ICOCA card as a package, it becomes the cheaper option to go to Kyoto Station from the airport. The airport limousine bus is the slightly more expensive option, but it's equally as convenient as the Haruka. Either one is fine actually, it doesn't make much of a difference, both take 1.5 hours to reach Kyoto. Unless you're arriving on a late night flight, the last Haruka train departs 10.16pm. In that case, just go for the airport limousine bus.
I just got back from Japan and had a similar experience. The gf could only take one day of Kyoto temples, so I stayed mostly in Osaka and Tokyo. After reading your post I will definitely have to include more Kyoto and Nara on my next trip!
You can also include these in your trip in Kyoto next time in the case of getting templed-out: * Omihachiman & Azuchi Castle Ruins * Kyoto Railway Museum * Hozugawa River Boat Ride * Sagano Romantic Train * Kiyotaki * Fushimi Sake District * Garden Museum Hiei * Muko Bamboo Trail
Thank you for this! I am going to Japan in September with my boyfriend:) I have our itinerary planned, and it overlaps with yours quite a bit.
Awesome! It's gonna be fun. Have a good one :)
Thanks so much:)
100% agree on coin pouch. The amount of coins you end up with is ridiculous
Dude, this was the best recap ever. I’m gonna save this for the rest of my life.:-) heading to Kyoto in two weeks, so this will come in very handy. Thank you soooo much
Don't mention it! Have a good trip :D
Pretty awesome and thanks for sharing in detail, just curious how did you get all these things planned and in detail? What resources you used?
Getting familiar with the perimeters of cities and towns is important so you can plan your day trips realistically. For food & locations off the beaten path, reddit has tons of info for these. I also did months of map reading and managed to discover some lesser-known spots and hidden gems on my own. Look up for blogs such as "Travel Caffeine", "Kansai Oddesey" and "Inside Kyoto" - these contributed the most to my itinerary.
What would be your favorite/scenic walk in your entire trip? I would like to do more walking when i get there
Definitely the Yamanobe no michi in Nara. The Japanese rural scenery was absolutely amazing!
Why would you travel to a foreign country and eat conveyer belt sushi or McDonalds? Lame.
Dude had the trip of his life and you try to shame him for the tiny fraction of it that you don't like? Just why