JAPAN IN AUTUMN: Fall Foliage Spots & Must Know Travel Tips 2025
Don’t come to Japan autumn without knowing these 10 things. We’ll cover practical tips from the time frame of the autumn foliage booking tips, what to pack all the way to the top autumn foliage spots in Tokyo and all across Japan. Let’s get into it. Number one, why autumn in Japan is special. So, spring and autumn are the best times to visit Japan. Everyone’s going to tell you that. Number one reason is the mild weather. It’s less humid than it is summer. You have less rainy days and therefore obviously sightseeing is going to be easier and more comfortable. In autumn, you also got an early sunset, which means you have more time during the golden hour to take amazing photos during your trip. Actually, this should be number one. During autumn, you can see the autumn foliage. And then there are obviously a lot of really cool seasonal events, festivals, but also foods. But everything has its downsides. Everyone’s going to have the same idea. Most people are coming in spring or autumn, so everything’s going to be pretty crowded. Number two, because it’s a peak travel season, not only for foreigners, but also for Japanese people, prices are going to be higher. Tickets, everything’s going to be booked out faster. There is also the possibility that in early autumn, there are still going to be some typhoons and the weather might not always be ideal. Did you know how important seasons actually are in Japan? So Japanese people always proudly tell everyone that they have four seasons. Some people talk about even five seasons. So there is spring, summer, the rainy season, autumn and winter. Japanese people love to celebrate seasons. You can see that in everyday life. When you go to the supermarket, when you go to the convenience stores, there are always going to be seasonal foods. You can see it when you go shopping. For example, when you look at clothes, when you look at shops, there are going to be advertisements that are somehow themed according to the season. There is even like some kind of Japanese philosophy around this concept. If you ever heard the term monono a which is describing the beauty of fleeting things. Number two, the best time to visit Japan in autumn. If you want to see the autumn foliage, you need to know when you can see it. The timing when you can see the red leaves and the timing when you can see the yellow leaves is different. I think the yellow leaves are always a little bit earlier. And to sum it up, it is basically from early November to early December depending on which places in Japan you visit. Again, earliest you can see it in the north of Japan, Hokkaido, in the beginning of November. If you’re coming approximately in the middle of November to the beginning of December, there is a high chance that you can see some of the autumn foliage. So, it’s about 1 month that you have time if you decide to come here during one of those peak travel seasons. You want to visit places, especially the popular places, on weekdays, in the morning as early as possible or maybe later at night. The places most tourists go to are Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Currently, Japan is facing a lot of new issues because all the tourists are going to these kind of places. Maybe try to look up some places that are not Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka. Obviously, Tokyo is a huge city, so you can go there. I made already one or two videos on my channel where I talk about some hidden gems in Tokyo where not everyone’s going to. Number three, especially in spring and autumn, people want to know what to wear, what to pack. Until the end of the year, until maybe November, it’s still going to be pretty warm. There’s obviously no place on the internet that’s going to exactly predict how the weather is going to be. It’s going to be a little bit more cold than in end of November. December, January, February are pretty cold. It’s still going to be surprisingly cold in March and April. May is going to be slightly, you know, then generally autumn is going to be really comfortable temperature- wise. Temperatures are going to be pretty good for traveling, for sightseeing in Japan. On average, you’re going to have about these temperatures. There’s going to be a bigger difference in November compared to September. September I always felt is still quite warm and the temperatures drop suddenly sometimes really in October or November. Number four, based on the temperatures and what we just talked about, this is what you want to pack when you’re coming to Japan in autumn. Generally, short sleeve might be okay in September, maybe also in October, and then temperatures really go down. Is a big difference between the beginning of September and the end of November. In September, you might be okay with short sleeves most of the time, but also it might be raining more often. So, and when it rains, temperatures also drop very quickly suddenly. So, for autumn, I’d always recommend to bring some layers. Not only because of the changes in temperature, but also if you’re coming to Japan, they use air conditioning wherever you go. It’s incredibly hot outside. maybe. But then you’re going into a shop, you’re going into a cafe, you’re sitting somewhere for an hour and because they have the air conditioner on at some places, not everywhere, but at some places it gets super cold. Number five, I’ve got some practical tips on transportation and accommodation. Number one for accommodation is book early. Accommodation, if you book early, you have way more places to choose from. Obviously, hotels are going to be more expensive during peak travel season. For location, you want to find a place that is close to a train station. Depending on your needs, when you’re looking at Kyoto and Osaka and you’re going there for the first time, maybe it’s a good idea to look at one of the bigger train stations. In Tokyo, it doesn’t matter so much as long as you’re close to any kind of train station. Because if you want to see most of the important sightseeing spots in Tokyo, it’s going to take a lot of time anyway to get from A to B, no matter where you stay. And Tokyo is incredibly well connected. If you’re not traveling to a lot of different cities in Japan, you might be okay to only get, for example, an IC card. If you get an IC card, you can use the train, the subway, the bus. You can get an IC card on your phone if you’re using an iPhone. If you don’t have an iPhone or if you want a physical card, you can buy it either at the airport. You can also get it at most train stations. Most of the IC cards that you can get, especially Pasmo Suika, you can use all across Japan. If you’re buying the normal Pasmo Suika, whatever, you can also, if you’re leaving Japan, give it back and get your money back for it. JR pass. If you want a JR pass or if you need one, you need to book that before you come to Japan. If you need a JR pass or not, depends on to how many cities you go. On average, if you go to more than three cities, you want to buy a JR pass. Most people go to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka. If you’re doing that, you don’t need one because you only need two Shinkansen tickets. You want to book your tickets early enough. I know a lot of people who come here and want to book their Shinkansen tickets when they are here in Tokyo and maybe one day before or maybe they will go to the train station and buy it there. And that’s definitely not impossible. You would be surprised how quickly seats are booked out. And if you’re taking the Shinkansen, you want to book a seat. If you don’t have a seat, you might be standing for two hours on the train with your luggage. So, I would recommend you to take a look a little bit earlier for like shinkansen tickets, but also like bus tickets. Like there are highway buses that can take you to places a little bit cheaper than the shinkansen, but you want to book them early enough. Most areas in Japan have more buses than trains and subway. The thing with buses is there’s maybe one bus every hour, but the more you get outside of the big cities, the more you need to take the bus or you rent a car. In that case, you need an international driver’s permit or you would need a translation of your driver’s license depending on which country you are from. Don’t do it when you are already here. It’s maybe too late. You can apply for that and you can get it and print it out then here when you are in Japan, but you need to do that in advance. It takes a couple of weeks, sometimes even months. Number six. So now we are going to talk about all the things that you can do when you’re coming to Japan in autumn. And there’s a lot actually. There are going to be a lot of different foods. Some foods that are typical for autumn in Japan or that Japanese would associate with autumn is the fish san, matsutaka mushrooms, and shiakea mushrooms. So general mushrooms. Kudi is chestnuts and pimmens that are khaki in Japanese. Uh these orange fruits, they sell them everywhere in autumn. The sweet potato flavored things also sweet potato and what else? Um pumpkin. If you go to restaurants and to cafes, they will have dishes with these ingredients. They will sell these ingredients. They will sell lot of snacks that have the flavors, the autumn flavors, and it’s incredibly fun to to live here actually and to enjoy that every season. Number seven, you want to know what kind of festivals you can go to, I would recommend you check out their homepage. The most important stuff that’s happening is only happening during a certain time frame. If you want to see the main event of the festival, when they carry the mikoshi through the street, you want to know where they are and when they are there and maybe also the day. Most of those festivals are going over like several days and there’s always a main day. Number two is you want to bring some cash because there are going to be a lot of street stores. The same goes for street food. If you’re going to places in Japan, you want to get street food somewhere. If you’re coming to Japan, that’s currently a big issue. But like follow the customs, follow the rules, please. Because we have so many foreigners now here, like maybe 1% or so are not behaving very nicely. And these are the ones that you see on media and Japanese people see that. Japanese people see this 1% of foreigners that behave like totally. And it’s like, oh yeah, all foreigners are bad. Like it’s I’m also a tour guide in Tokyo. In my experience, it’s like 1% of people who really behave not so well. There is going to be police. There’s going to be people working there. So just follow their instructions. Don’t block certain areas, you know. Just don’t really walk. If they tell you to walk, if everyone’s walking, just really keep walking. Don’t just stand there and like blocked away or anything like that or um eat in designated areas. Usually, you shouldn’t eat and walk at the same time. In Japan, mostly there’s a designated area where people are standing and eating their food. And then there are, especially at festivals, also places where you can throw away the trash. If you don’t see a trash can, ask the stuff at the place where you bought your food. If you’re finished eating, go to the store and be like, “So, sorry.” They rather take it than that you throw it away somewhere. I don’t know, randomly. There are so many autumn festivals in Japan. Every local area everywhere. Every temple is probably organizing its own autumn festival. The Kishada Daniri Matsuri in Osaka. We have September the 14th. When I’m going to upload this, it’s already going to be too late, but maybe for next year. This festival celebrates a good harvest. Pray for prosperity and safety of the town, which is usually the case. And it’s famous for its high energy, the float raises through the narrow streets, and the tao, which are the trumps. Now, we have also the Nihan Matsu Lantern Festival in Fukushima. To honor local deities, pray for peace, safety, and a good harvest. There going to be lots of lanterns lighting up the night and creating a magical atmosphere. Takayama Autumn Festival in Georg celebrates autumn harvest and the thanks to the local gods for a successful season. It’s known for its traditional yatai floats and music. It’s considered one of Japan’s most beautiful historic festivals showing classic craftsmanship and seasonal celebration. A little bit later than that, the Jedi Matsurdi in Kyoto uh commemorates the founding of Kyoto and its rich cultural history, historical costume procession depicting Kyoto’s 1,100year history. It’s less about floats or performance and more about cultural storytelling and the history of Kyoto. And then you got the Kudama Fire Festival in Kyoto held to drive away evil spirits and pray for good harvest, safety for community. There is going to be a torch lit procession through a Kurama village reenacting ancient rituals. Obviously, there’s going to be lots of other activities that you can do in autumn. One of them, even though this is more like for winter, is going to an hotring or onsen. Some popular ones are, for example, Kusatu Onsen, Hakon onen in Kanagawa or Ikaho onen in GMA as well. And there are actual onsent towns and it’s very nice to go there in the winter when you have the snow piling up everywhere. It’s really beautiful, even more like autumn than going to an onset. It’s like hiking. Popular places to go to are, for example, Mount Taka, which is close to Tokyo. You can go there on a day trip. You don’t actually need to hike all the way up yourself. You can also take the ropeway. Mount Mitaka is also close to Tokyo. You can also go there on a day trip. A friend of mine went there and I think she said it’s not that hard. In Toigi Prefecture you have Niko National Park. Niko is also not far away from Tokyo. Or you can go for example to Nagago. There is Kamikoi the northern Alps in Japan. Another thing you can do is you can join some seasonal crafts workshops everywhere in every city. But here are some examples. In Kyoto, there is the Nishiin textile center where you can experience traditional weaving and leaf printing or in Kanosawa the Koutaniaki pottery studio. These are just some examples. You can really go anywhere. There are going to be lots of places who offer these kind of experiences. Also like actually my company is offering these kind of experience as well. Um I always have the links for my company’s website down below if you want to check it out. in general like take a food tour. Then you’re going to experience some of the seasonal foods and dishes that you can eat. Or you can do a cooking class. Another way to experience the autumn foliage is for example to take a boat ride or a cable car ride. You can take a boat ride here in Tokyo on the Sumida River using the ropeway to Mount Hakon. That is a popular robe to see the autumn foliage. or the cable car to mount Mitaka for example is there to be a very popular one now at the end of the video there’s going to be two things mainly left and this is like the most important autumn or foliage spots for Tokyo you have for example Rikugian garden there are tons of Japanese gardens is one of the traditional Japanese gardens in Tokyo very nice and it’s known for its night illuminations is one of the most popular places to go to it’s a huge huge garden. Shinjuku Park is nice all year round. The different flowers, trees, plants. It’s less crowded. The other thing is you can go to Yuyogi Park that is a public park, but because it’s free, there’s no entrance fee. It’s more casual. There are a lot of events happening and tons of people going there. It’s going to be way more crowded. Koi Shikawa Kako is a traditional Japanese landscape garden. I love to go to Japanese landscape gardens because it’s always very relaxing to take a walk there. Then you have Maji Dingu Gian. It’s a Ginko tree avenue. You have to go there a little bit earlier in November for to see the yellow GO leaves. I went there last year was really nice but also crowded. One of those really crowded spots in Kyoto. I’d recommend you to go to Kio Mizua. The other temples are nice as well. I personally really like this one. It has this huge not balcony but like you have this it’s somewhere up on on a mountain or hill or something like that and you have this few and it’s just really beautiful. And then the Adashiyama area is said to have a lot of autumn leaves. I haven’t seen them. Uh I have been to both places but not in autumn. Niko is kind of close. In Tochigi Prefecture, you have Toshog Shrine, popular shrine where Tokugawa Ayasu, one of the most important figures in Japanese history, is enshrined. It’s a 30-minute bus ride from Toshog Shrine, there is this lake, another area, the Fuji Fake area. It’s a huge area. There are parks, there are a lot of uh restaurants, hotels and whatnot. You can stay there also for a couple of days if you want to and explore that area because there is a lot to do. You have the chur top to pagoda. This is this famous place from which you can see Mount Fuji on a good day. FIY. It’s normal not to see Mount Fuji. I mentioned that in a different video, but many tourists come to Japan and are disappointed because they don’t see Mount Fuji. That is normal. If you’re going to Oko, you can go to the Det Suzan. I hope that’s right. National park. That’s Japan largest national park. Haven’t been there, but if it’s Japan largest national park, it’s probably going to be worth it. the one of the places where you can see them early in the year, so in the beginning of November. And another really popular place is going to be Nada and the park in Nada with the deers. And in Nada, you have also a lot of temples and shrines and other nice things to take a look at. So, it’s not only the autumn foliage. You don’t have to go to the places that I mentioned in this video, even though these are some really popular ones. If you really want to avoid those crowds, just go to any park, any garden, any park. I think these are the most important things that you want to know when you’re coming to Japan in autumn. If you have any questions or if you have the feeling that I missed anything, leave it in the comments below. Hope this video helps and I see you then in the next one. Bye-bye.
This video is your ultimate Autumn Travel Guide for Japan. Seasons in Japan are very important, and autumn is one of the most popular times, along with spring, to visit and travel around Japan. In this video, I will talk about the best time to visit Japan in autumn, the autumn foliage forecast for 2025, how the weather in Japan is going to be, what you should pack for your trip, tips on booking accommodation and transportation in Japan, and of course, a long list of things you can do in Japan in autumn, including some popular autumn foliage spots and fall festivals. I hope this video helps you prepare for your trip to Japan in autumn.
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🎵 Music
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00:00 Introduction
00:20 Why Autumn in Japan is Special
02:06 Best Time to Visit
03:24 The Weather in Autumn
04:21 What to Pack
05:17 Finding Accommodation
06:05 Transportation
08:32 Seasonal Foods
09:22 Autumn Festivals
13:01 Popular Autumn Activities
15:03 Autumn Foliage Spots
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