Japan
Japan
Neon cities, mountain shrines and the bullet train
Why go
Japan runs on a rhythm that takes a day to catch and then never lets you go. A first trip almost always follows the 'Golden Route' — a few days in Tokyo for the food, the neighbourhoods and the sheer scale of it; a night in a ryokan near Hakone with Mount Fuji across the lake; then Kyoto for the temples, the tea houses and a day trip to the deer and the great bronze Buddha of Nara. The shinkansen ties it together at 300 km/h, and the whole country is astonishingly easy to travel once you have a rail pass and a pocket wifi. Go for the cherry blossom in early April or the fiery maples of November if you can time it.
Trip highlights
- Tokyo — Shibuya, Asakusa, tsukiji-style markets and an izakaya crawl
- A ryokan night with an onsen and Mount Fuji views
- Kyoto's Fushimi Inari, Kinkaku-ji and the Arashiyama bamboo grove
- Bowing deer and the Great Buddha at Nara
- Shinkansen bullet-train journeys with a Japan Rail Pass
Ways to travel Japan
The Golden Route
Tokyo, Hakone or Kawaguchiko for Fuji, and Kyoto with a Nara day trip — the classic 8–10 night first trip.
Cherry blossom or autumn
The same route timed to the sakura forecast in late March–April, or the maple peak in mid-November.
Deeper Japan by rail
Add Kanazawa's gardens, Hiroshima and the floating torii at Miyajima, or the mountain temples of Koya-san.
Japan itineraries to start from
Ready-made routes you can tweak — change hotels, add nights, combine with another destination.
Japan
Japan Golden Route — Tokyo, Hakone & Kyoto
The classic first trip to Japan — Tokyo's neighbourhoods and food, a ryokan night by Mount Fuji, and Kyoto's temples with a day trip to the deer of Nara. Shinkansen throughout on a rail pass.
Japan
Grand Japan by Rail — Tokyo to Hiroshima
The unhurried version — Tokyo, the gardens and gold-leaf workshops of Kanazawa, Kyoto and Nara, and Hiroshima with the floating torii of Miyajima, all on the bullet train.
Japan
Japan Honeymoon — City, Onsen & Old Kyoto
A design hotel in Tokyo, a private-onsen ryokan with Mount Fuji across the water, and a restored machiya townhouse in the quiet north of Kyoto — with a kaiseki dinner and a private tea ceremony.
Japan
Japan in Bloom — Cherry Blossom Special
The Golden Route condensed and timed to the sakura forecast — hanami picnics under the trees in Tokyo, blossom-lined canals in Kyoto, and a Mount Fuji day with the mountain framed in pink.
Japan
Tokyo City Break
A focused first hit of Japan — three days across Tokyo's neighbourhoods plus one day trip of your choosing: Mount Fuji, the shrines of Nikko, or the Great Buddha at Kamakura.
Let's build your Japan trip
Send us a rough idea — a destination, a month, a budget — and we'll come back with a plan you can actually picture yourself on.