Japan: Tokyo to Osaka

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Oct 5 – Oct 18, 2026 · 14 days

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Tokyo

Monday, Oct 5 — Tokyo — arrival, Senso-ji

1Tokyo Station
60 min
Transport
A restored 1914 brick facade hides one of the busiest rail junctions on Earth just behind it.
Official site
2Senso-ji Temple
14:00 · 90 min
Sights
A five-story pagoda at the end of a shopping street that has sold nothing but souvenirs and snacks since the Edo period.
Official site

1Tsukiji Outer Market
08:00 · 120 min
Food
Knife shops here will sharpen a blade while you wait, next to stalls grilling the morning's catch.
Official site
2Meiji Shrine
11:30 · 75 min
Sights
A hundred thousand donated trees turned a Tokyo lot into forest quiet enough to lose the city entirely.
Official site
3Shibuya Crossing
18:00 · 45 min
Sights
Up to three thousand people step out at once from every direction, and somehow nobody collides.
4Ichiran Ramen (Shibuya)
18:15
Food

1Tokyo Skytree
10:00 · 120 min
Activity
Glass floor panels 340 meters up let you watch trains crawl across the city directly under your feet.
Official site

No stops planned yet.

Hakone

1Hakone-Yumoto Station
30 min
Transport
Where the Tokyo train ends and the mountain loop of buses, boats, and cable cars begins.
2Ryokan check-in
Lodging
3Gora Park
14:00 · 60 min
Sights
A French formal garden laid out on volcanic terraces, with a tea house pouring matcha mid-walk.
4Hakone Open-Air Museum
15:30 · 120 min
Sights
Giant Moore and Picasso bronzes standing in open mountain air instead of behind gallery glass.
Official site

1Hakone Ropeway
09:00 · 45 min
Transport
A cable car crossing directly over an active volcanic valley, close enough to smell the sulfur.
Official site
2Owakudani
10:00 · 60 min
Sights
Eggs boiled black in the same sulfur springs that carved this valley are sold right at the rim.
3Lake Ashi
12:00 · 90 min
Sights
A vermilion torii gate stands ankle-deep in the water, framed by Mount Fuji when the sky cooperates.

Kyoto

1Kyoto Station
60 min
Transport
A cavernous glass atrium with a stairway of 171 steps built to be climbed, not just walked past.
Official site
2Nishiki Market
14:00 · 90 min
Food
Stall after stall hands out free samples of things you've never eaten and can't yet name.
Official site

1Fushimi Inari Taisha
08:00 · 120 min
Sights
Thousands of vermilion gates tunnel up the mountain, each paid for by a donor whose name is painted on the back.
Official site
2Gion District
18:00 · 90 min
Sights
Wooden teahouse facades unchanged since the 1800s, still lit by paper lanterns instead of streetlights.

1Kinkaku-ji
09:00 · 60 min
Sights
A three-story pavilion sheathed entirely in gold leaf, doubled by its own reflection in the pond below.
Official site
2Arashiyama Bamboo Grove
11:00 · 45 min
Sights
Stalks packed so dense overhead that the light turns green and the wind gets a name of its own here.

No stops planned yet.

Osaka

1Shin-Osaka Station
60 min
Transport
Where the bullet train from Tokyo actually stops — central Osaka is still a subway ride away.
2Osaka Castle
14:00 · 120 min
Sights
The keep was rebuilt in concrete, but the moats and mortar-free stone walls around it are 400 years old.
Official site

1Kuromon Ichiba Market
09:00 · 90 min
Food
2Shitennoji Temple
11:30 · 60 min
Sights
Japan's oldest state-built temple, laid out on a plan that hasn't changed since the year 593.
Official site
3Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan
14:00 · 150 min
Activity
A single tank deep enough for whale sharks, viewed from a spiral ramp that circles it floor by floor.
Official site

1Dotonbori
120 min
Food
A three-story mechanical crab claws at the air above a canal lit by nothing but competing restaurant signs.
2Shinsekai
18:00 · 90 min
Food
Skewers get dipped once in communal sauce under a tower modeled, unofficially, on the Eiffel Tower.

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