Two weeks. One shinkansen line. Everything worth booking on it.
Which Fuji day trip actually reaches the fifth station. What a Shinjuku food crawl costs before you sit down. Whether Nara fits into an Osaka afternoon. Reviews of the tours, tickets and experiences you can book across Japan.
Fuji, the Kyoto circuit, a Shinjuku counter and a sumo stable.
The five bookings a first trip through Japan tends to hang off. What each costs, and what the travellers who took it came back saying.
01Mountain dayMt Fuji and Hakone 1-Day Bus Tour Return by Bullet TrainFuji fifth station and the Hakone ropeway in one run, home on the bullet train before dinner.
02The Kyoto circuitPERFECT KYOTO 1-Day Bus TourFushimi Inari, Kinkaku-ji and the bamboo at Arashiyama, driven in the order that dodges the coaches.
03Dinner, thirteen stopsShinjuku Food Tour (13 Dishes at 4 Local Eateries)Thirteen dishes across four Shinjuku counters, most of them places you would walk straight past.
04Gone in tournament weeksSumo Show Experience with Chicken Hot Pot and a PhotoA sumo show with chanko hot pot afterwards. The nearest thing to a tournament on a night there is not one.
05An hour on the floorTea Ceremony in a Traditional Tea House in KiyomizuTea whisked properly in a Kiyomizu tea house, with somebody explaining why the bowl is turned.
Tokyo and Kyoto do most of the work. Four more earn a night each.
A capital that runs on trains, an old capital that runs on temples, a food city that closes late, the mountain everybody photographs, a city that rebuilt itself, and an island with its own weather. Six bases, and the best day out from each.
Tokyo rewards a plan for the first two days and none at all after that.
All of Tokyo →
The city is thirteen separate downtowns stitched together by the Yamanote line. Book the timed things first, eat where the queue is Japanese, and leave the last evening open for whatever Shinjuku suggests.
- 11-Day Tokyo Bus Tourfrom $129
- 2TOKYO SKYTREE® Admission ticketfrom $13
- 3teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry Ticketfrom $25
teamLab, Skytree and the slots that vanish
teamLab Planets releases entry by the half hour and the good ones are gone a fortnight out. Skytree and Tokyo Tower you can walk up to. Decide which of the three you actually want before you pay for all of them.
Shinjuku, thirteen dishes deep
Golden Gai and the Omoide Yokocho alleys look impenetrable from outside and are exactly as good as they look once someone slides the door for you. Yakitori, motsunabe, then a standing bar.
A morning at the stable, or a show with hot pot
Practice sessions start before seven and the stables that admit visitors take a handful a day. The evening shows are retired wrestlers, a real bout and a bowl of chanko afterwards, and they sell out in the tournament weeks.
Japan is a country you eat standing up, in shifts.
The dividing line is not price, it is whether somebody orders for you. Four kinds of eating day, what it takes to board each one, and where each works best.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · Shinsekai Food Tour with 13-15 Dishes at 5 Eateries
Guided food crawlsFour or five counters, someone ordering in Japanese.
Izakaya and bar nightsStanding bars, highballs, and the alley you would not have found.
Cooking and sushi classesHome kitchens and sushi counters where you do the rolling.
Sake and brewery visitsWorking kura, flight glasses, the rice explained.
All 152 food and drink experiences →
The mountain is two hours from Shinjuku. Most people give it one day.
Fuji is only visible about a third of winter mornings and rather less in summer, which is why the good day trips string it together with Hakone, Lake Kawaguchi and a bullet train home. The rest of the Kanto day trips are shorter and never sell out the same way.
The days out more travellers take than any other in Japan.
The whole Japanese catalogue →Bus days, entry tickets and food crawls that carry more travellers than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Mt Fuji and Hakone 1-Day Bus Tour Return by Bullet Train
This 11-hour coach tour links Mt. Fuji and Hakone with a professional English-speaking guide, buffet lunch, Ropeway ride, Lake Ashi cruise, and Shinkansen return to Tokyo. Guides such as Sora, Hiro, Momo, and Levin have earned praise for clear explanations and good humor. Expect a busy day, changing weather, and limited time at each stop.
Price from · $163
Our verdict →
2
TOKYO SKYTREE® Admission ticket
from $13
3
teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry Ticket
from $25
4
Sumo Show Experience with Chicken Hot Pot and a Photo
from $103
5
Shinjuku Food Tour (13 Dishes at 4 Local Eateries)
from $86
6
Peaceful Hiroshima & Miyajima UNESCO 1 Day Bus Tour
from $129
7
Flagship 2-Hours Official Street Go-Kart Tour – Tokyo Bay Shop
from $64
8
Mount Fuji Full-Day Sightseeing Trip
from $68
Kyoto is not crowded. Six of its sites are, between ten and four.
Fushimi Inari is open all night and almost empty at six. Arashiyama’s bamboo works before breakfast and nowhere near it after. Build the day around those two hours and the old capital gives you everything the photographs promised.
All of Kyoto →
Temples, tea and a kimono you can actually walk in.
The traditional half of a Japanese trip is the easiest to book badly. These are the temple walks, tea houses and workshops that keep a guide who explains what is happening rather than pointing at it.
Osaka eats later, talks louder and costs less than either neighbour.
Kuidaore, eat until you fall over, is a local boast rather than a slogan. Shinsekai and Dotonbori run on takoyaki, kushikatsu and standing bars; the castle sits in a park in the middle of it, and Nara’s deer are forty minutes away on the Kintetsu line.
- 1Osaka Go Karting Tour with Funny Costumefrom $46
- 2Osaka Castle: Museum and Tower Entry Ticketfrom $7
- 3Shinsekai Food Tour with 13-15 Dishes at 5 Eateriesfrom $53
What a Japanese day out actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by what you hand over. A castle keep and a temple gate cost less than a coffee at home; the bus days to Fuji are where the money goes.
Castle keeps, temple entries, tea ceremonies, neighbourhood walks and the shorter food crawls.
The full-day standards: Fuji and Hakone by coach, the Kyoto circuit, sumo with dinner, Hiroshima and Miyajima.
- 11-Day Tokyo Bus Tourfrom $129
- 2PERFECT KYOTO 1-Day Bus Tourfrom $129
- 3Mt Fuji & Hakone Cruise, Drum Show Bullet Train 1 Day from Tokyofrom $149
Private guides with a car, bullet-train days that cross two prefectures, and the once-a-trip splurges.
Three things this country does that no other one does.
Temples and night markets exist all over Asia. A stable of professional wrestlers training before dawn, a district that still works by lantern light, and a road-legal go-kart in the middle of Shibuya do not.
Morning practice at a sumo stable
Sumo wrestlers live and train in heya, stables of twenty or so men under one former champion. Practice starts before dawn and runs on silence, so the handful of stables that admit outsiders take a few visitors at a time and expect them to sit still on the floor for two hours. Six tournaments a year close the stables entirely, which is the one thing worth checking before you book.
- 1Sumo Show Experience with Chicken Hot Pot and a Photo★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,678 reviews
- 2Sumo Tournament Tour with Chair Seat Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 753 reviews
- 3Authentic Sumo Experience in Tokyo: Enter the Sanctuary★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 603 reviews
The lantern hour in the geisha districts
Kyoto still has five hanamachi, flower towns, where geiko and their apprentice maiko move between engagements on foot. Early evening is when they cross the lanes between Hanami-koji and Shirakawa, and the etiquette is simple: no blocking, no touching, no chasing. A guided walk puts the history in and keeps you on the right side of the residents.
- 1Kyoto Geisha Walking Tour: Gion District & Hidden Gems★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,273 reviews
- 2Meet-and-Greet, Maiko Show and Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 286 reviews
- 3Tea Ceremony with Maiko Premium★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 280 reviews
Road-legal karts through Shibuya
Street karting started as a novelty and became a Tokyo institution: open karts on public roads, costumes optional, an escort rider front and back. The catch is administrative rather than mechanical. Japan does not accept most foreign licences on their own, so you need an International Driving Permit issued in your own country before you fly.
- 1Flagship 2-Hours Official Street Go-Kart Tour – Tokyo Bay Shop★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,974 reviews
- 2Osaka Go Karting Tour with Funny Costume★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,658 reviews
- 3Asakusa, Skytree & Akhihabara Go-Kart City Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 761 reviews
Four Japanese bookings that do not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged from a konbini at eleven at night. These four run on ticket releases, tournament calendars and paperwork that has to happen at home.
- 01teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry TicketEntry is sold by the half-hour slot and released on a fixed schedule. The evening windows go first and there is no queue to join on the day.
- 02Sumo Tournament Tour with Chair Seat TicketsOnly six tournaments a year, fifteen days each, and nothing in between. Outside those dates the sport is simply not on.
- 03Osaka Go Karting Tour with Funny CostumeYou need an International Driving Permit, issued in your own country before departure. No operator can sell you one in Tokyo.
- 041-Day Snow Monkeys, Zenko-ji Temple & Sake in NaganoThe monkeys use the hot spring reliably in the cold months and barely at all in summer. The season decides this one, not the calendar.
Tsuyu in June, typhoons in September, and what to do instead.
The rainy season parks over most of the country from early June to mid-July, and the typhoon tail runs through September. Both cancel boats and ropeways and neither touches the indoor half of Japan. Tea rooms, home kitchens, breweries, workshops and an onsen with the rain coming down outside.
Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima: the run almost everybody does first.
Tokyo
Hakone
Mount Fuji
Kyoto
Nara
Osaka
HiroshimaBy place: Honshu, Kyushu, Hokkaido
By kind of day: counter, temple, mountain or track
The reviews we put up most recently.
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SHIRAKAWA Japanese Culture Experiences with private English staff
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Private departure transfer from Kyoto city to Kansai International airport
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