Sally Alexander

We visited Japan for the first time in November. I’ve always wanted to visit, and we chose November because I wanted to see Japan’s fall foliage. I’m a planner, and I spent the better part of two years reading and watching everything I could about traveling to Japan and planning a trip. There’s so much useful information. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. One thing I realized pretty quickly during this planning and research phase is that everyone seemed to want to visit the same places and see the same things. It seemed to follow a set template. From, for example the typical, Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima itineraries, down to places to visit and things to do in each of these cities.

I learned about “overtourism” in Japan. Basically, because everyone was going to the same three places, and seeing the same things, that places have become overcrowded with foreign tourists. (Not just overcrowded, but extreme overcrowding.) I don’t like crowds. At all.

How could I plan a trip, and not be one of “those” tourists? I found the Invisible Tourist website that offers some solutions for overtourism. A couple of suggestions that caught my attention included, staying longer at a destination, and travel for yourself, and not for the validation of others.

The other thing I realized was that most trip itineraries proposed moving from one place to the other quite frequently, commonly spending no more than a night or two in a place before moving to the next. That seemed, to me, quite exhausting, and not what I wanted to do. I understand why people do plan and schedule these exhausting itineraries. You want to make the most of your visit. I get that. But I can’t imagine anything worse. It’s not what floats my boat.

Tip: It’s important to plan a trip that meets your wants and needs.

I think the first thing to recognize is that you will not see everything. That would be impossible. And you need to be Ok with that. FOMO in travel is a real thing. I’ve realized through experience that rushing from one place to the next is not how I like to travel. I’m also not the type of person who likes a lot of structure. And it is so easy to become overscheduled. That makes me anxious. And that anxiety makes me stressed, and I don’t like being stressed while I’m traveling. (Normal traveling is stressful enough as it is.)

My criteria for this trip was to design an itinerary to maximize autumn foliage viewing, minimize overtourism, and have plenty of flexibility and down time.

Drumroll please… And here is the trip itinerary:

1 night Narita. We were lucky to have a direct flight from the USA to Japan, landing at the Narita International Airport. I knew we’d be exhausted from the flight over. (It’s a 12 hour flight.) I wanted to make things as easy and stress free as possible. I booked one night at a hotel near the airport, so that we could land, and go to the hotel to shower and crash.

Domestic air travel is super cheap. We flew from Narita to Osaka the following morning. Many travel bloggers, and proposed itineraries have travelers taking the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Kyoto (or Osaka.) This is totally doable. But flying domestically is also a viable option, and could help relieve some of the crowding issues one can find on the tourist heavy routes (like the Tokyo- Kyoto routes.) (Keep checking airlines for free domestic air travel deals.)

My thinking was to start our trip in Kyoto, and then head back to Tokyo. That is, to leave the most crowded and hectic destination, Tokyo, to the last nights.

10 nights Kyoto. I opted to use Kyoto as our base. I like staying in one place, getting to establish a routine.

Why Kyoto? I chose Kyoto because it is geographically close to places we wanted to explore, like Osaka, Hiroshima etc. See my later posts about all things Kyoto, and my day trips to Osaka, Uji and Hiroshima.

2 nights Gora (Hakone.) I wanted to see Mt Fuji. I selected the Hakone areas and I settled for only 2 nights because Hakone is a popular tourist area, and I found the per night accommodation super expensive. See my separate post describing this leg of the itinerary.

3 nights Tokyo. We saved the Tokyo stay for the end of the trip. We are not big city people, and Tokyo is a mega city. See my separate post about how we managed a quiet, sedate Tokyo experience. (I’m here to tell you, it is possible.)

Will what we did appeal to everyone? No. And that’s Ok. Did we see everything? No, of course we didn’t. But what we chose to see was fabulous. And we got to see and experience things that many tourists don’t experience. See, for example, our later posts about our Table Tennis experiences in Kyoto.

I will update the links as the posts are published. (Promise!) Or come back and visit.