Family Trip to Japan | 3-Week Itinerary, Highlights & Travel Tips

Family Trip to Japan | 3-Week Itinerary, Highlights & Travel Tips

[Music] Welcome to the Kiki’s Big Adventures family travel podcast. Here to help inspire and plan your family’s next big adventure. Kiki’s Big Adventures all started with the award-winning picture book series starring Kiki, the globe trotting cat, exploring the world’s diverse places, people, and cultures. I’m Shannon, the author and creator of Kiki’s Big Adventures. Moms and families love the books and asked for help planning their own adventures. So, the podcast was created to help. Adventure Awaits. On this episode, we have a returning guest joining us. We are going to get into it and hear all about her family’s adventure to Japan this summer. Welcome back to the podcast, Susan. Thank you very much, Shannon. I’m excited to be here and to talk about our crazy trip to Japan. Oh, sounds exciting. So, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. My name is Susan Easter Day. My husband and I are financial advisors. We have a small business, a busy business. Our kids are barely kids anymore. Capri, our daughter, just graduated from college. She’s 22 and Evan is 18 and just started college. So, we’ve had lots of years of trips and fun and we wrapped those years up in June by going to Japan. That’s us. So crazy. And I will give a link in the notes to our last podcast. I can tell you the Easter days are a great example of 18 summers and really maximizing that time. And this was a trip to celebrate a high school graduation and a college graduation, right? So, let’s get into it. Let’s hear about Japan. Okay. Yeah. One of the things, and I think I spoke about that last time, we try to do history, nature, fun, nostalgia, family, if that works, and not so much in Japan, and also food. So, those are the things we look at when we travel. And I try to make sure we get a little bit of all of that. Even when the kids were little, we did it that way. And maybe sometimes it was a little more fun and a little less history, but this one was all of those things. And this was a trip Evan wanted to do, right? Like this was kind of his graduation idea. Yes. Yeah. So my son loves anime and Japanese culture, which is a common thing for kids his age. So he had been on Dolingo trying to learn Japanese for about four years, which was pretty funny. And he didn’t use it all in Japan, by the way, because it’s a lot more stressful when you get there. you try to speak the language of course he picked it for his graduation trip. My daughter had picked Italy and Capri which is her namesake island and so he had a few things he wanted to do specifically and then the rest of the trip was open. So that’s how we planned this trip starting with him. We made it so that my daughter could come. It was just graduated from college right at the beginning of the summer and we were gone for about 3 weeks. So it was a good one trip. So what all did you do? Oh my goodness. It was one of these trips where you don’t get to relax very much. It’s maybe not as much a vacation, more of a trip as they say, but we went to a lot of different areas. We used the train, which was fabulous. In these countries, of course, the train system is great, the train and subway system. We went to Tokyo. We started in Tokyo. We went to the Japanese Alps, stayed in a smaller town called Matsumoto. We went to Kanazawa, which is on the other coast from Tokyo, and it has some royal gardens and things. And then we went to Kyoto, which is the famous place where everybody goes, historic and all of that. We went to N, which is where the deer are. The deer were really fun and very aggressive, but we love animals, so it was fun. Went to Hiroshima, so we got the historic part. And we also visited Osaka. Wow, that is it was a lot. But I mean in 3 weeks I guess you could do all of that. Yeah. Yeah. You don’t get a lot of time in each place. However, we didn’t know when we would be back. So I had actually gone 30 years ago when I was single and I only saw a couple of those places. So a few of the places were my picks to go back. Like Kroshima, I definitely wanted to go see the history there. So you covered a lot of territory. Do you want to tell us some of the highlights of each one? I’d be happy to do that. So my son’s choice was Tokyo and then hiking. Now a lot of his trips are about hiking. So we had to go to the Alps. The Alps is beautiful as you can imagine. Looks like other Alps and France or Switzerland, but you have the difference of the Tokyo type of architecture and all that mixed in. Tokyo has everything. We went to a little mall area that had the cat cafe. That was a plus. We had to go to a cat cafe, of course, because we love cats. We love kikis. We We really enjoyed that. that is so unique. They have lots of animal cafes. So, Tokyo has the cat cafes. They have gardens and temples. They have these huge kind of mall areas that focus on some of the anime related things and shopping. And shopping of course is a huge thing. Oddly enough, in Tokyo near where we stay, there is a Statue of Liberty, which is bizarre. I love that. Yes. Like, what is a Statue of Liberty doing here? Tons of people were taking pictures of it and it was donated by France. So, it wasn’t really oriented around the United States, but it’s interesting because they do have the dates on the Statue of Liberty for the French Revolution and then also the American Revolution. So, they do highlight that and everybody loved it. There were tons of Japanese people taking pictures. It’s pretty big, but not as big as ours. So, Tokyo was that way. Matsumoto was very interesting. It was the smallest place we stayed. I can talk about this a little bit more, but we stayed at a Japanese rioon, which is a traditional Japanese hotel that had a hotring. So, it was very interesting. And that’s where the Alps were. We traveled into the Alps and Brendan and Evan hiked Mount Yak, which is a dormant volcano. They had to go through the monkey challenge coming down where they had some monkeys surround them and literally jump out and hiss at him and Oh my god. Growl, not his growl. And so that was pretty interesting. Capri and I did a more lowkey hike in that area. The views were incredible. So that was lovely. And they had to get up really early to take a taxi, a train, and bus. And it’s a lot to get to the hike. Yes, we had considered staying down there and some things changed that which actually I like anyway because staying in Matsumoto, we were able to stay at this traditional hotel and also see some of the history there. Of course, Kyoto is common for people to go to. It’s beautiful, historic. I will say we stayed in a lovely part of town, and I do recommend where you stay in town on one of these little strips where you can walk. Kyoto is a really lovely place to be able to walk. And we walked a lot there, jumped on the train, saw the things in Kyoto. We did take several walking tours. if it fits your budget. For some of these places like Tokyo, I do recommend doing a walking tour. And even if you can squeeze it out, a private tour because you get to see what you want to see at least like one day in Tokyo or a half day. It’s really helpful. That’s a great idea. You can find them online. You can get them from a travel agent, but it’s super helpful because they know where to go. They know how to get there and they move a lot faster than you do. They also know the little special ramen place where they’re going to take you. When we stayed in Kyoto, we went to Nara for a day which has I think the second biggest Buddha in the world. That was really fun. They have these sacred deer which are pretty much like our deer and you feed them deer crackers and they will pretty much attack you. Not in a mean way, but it it’s a fun experience. We enjoy that a lot. One thing that was interesting there and I like personally a lot was interacting with the people. There were a lot of school kids there. We had a lot of trips. part of their trip, they’re supposed to interact with tourists. They ask you your name, where are you from, your favorite food, and so we had a lot of pictures. I talked to pretty much every kid that asked me, so it was a lot of fun. Wow. They’re just like there on trips on their field trips. I guess they do field trips. Their school year is different. Starts in May and so they’ve just started school and so everywhere we went had field trips. I guess if you were in Kyoto, you went to Osaka, they can just jump on the train and go. Then we went to Hiroshima. That’s obviously it’s a vibrant city with history was of course we know the history of World War II. It’s very sad. It’s very moving. The people are lovely though. They love Americans. I think they want us to see the history. I understood the significance of it, but I never felt any kind of anything from them. So, I think it was really lovely. One of Brendan’s favorite memories was when we were leaving to go back to the train station in Hiroshima. The taxi driver was trying to speak to us and then he showed us. He said his daughter lived in New York City. He said, “Look.” And so then he showed us one of those plastic bracelets and it said, “Remember 911.” And I was like, “What an interesting thing.” That guy from Hiroshima wanted to support Americans from 911. And I thought that was a really lovely. It typified kind of the Japanese people. And I thought that was super cool. So yeah, Ben Osaka is like a bit of a party town. It was totally different than Kyoto. We went on a food tour, which was super interesting. I’ve heard it’s the food fun capital of Japan. Oh yeah, it’s a bit Vegasike. One of their main symbols was this golden statue that was actually drawn by an American. This was so crazy. There all kinds of neon, all kinds of interesting food. on our food tour. She actually took us to a knife shop, which was why these things are so interesting. I love the tours. We learned about Japanese knife making. And then she also took us to one of these pinball gambling places they have. Now it’s electronic mostly, but this one was an actual pinball. So, one of the loudest places I’ve ever been where the pinballs were going off. Wow. That was part of our tour. So, it was super fun. And for Hiroshima, was that a place you stayed too or was that just a day trip? We decided not to stay there. We took a day trip. One of the things that my kids have complained about in the past is having too many short stays. One night, one night, one night. I do understand it. You are able to from Osaka go to Hiroshima. Okay. Um I would I think Hiroshima would be a lovely place to stay and that was originally what we planned to do because then we were going to go to an island outside of there where they have the floating tories, the shrines, the red shrines. Yeah. I just added another overnight, but it would be a great place to stay. You It’s a big city. The food is really good there. There are a bunch of side trips you can take. Okay. It’s the It’s the furthest south that we went. You could do it as a day trip from Osaka. Osaka. I think it was about an hour and a half train ride. One other place we went, believe it or not, we went on the way is Jime Castle. It’s a very famous castle in a really lovely area. You can get there from Osaka, Kyoto. You can do it in between. Interestingly enough, we stopped there in the train station. We put our suitcases in. We stored them. We spent the day seeing the castle in the area and we came back and got our suitcases and went on. So, we didn’t have to stay there. Didn’t have to stay close to there. That’s great. We did it on the way. And once you get used to using the train system, if you’re comfortable moving around a country, then you can do things like that. Did you work with a travel adviser on this trip? I did work with a travel advisor and I put a note of how I did it. We have a local travel advisor. They do more complex trips, usually not a lot of small things, but complex bigger family trips, quote unquote luxury trips, and just international trips. So, I did work with them. They in turn have a lot of on the ground people. So, they have their own on the ground agents. I’m sure you’re familiar with that. They’re a Japanese travel company, but they have some local people in the States. So there were Americans working with her that were also working there and we had the most amazing on ground help that I’ve ever had. I could call, I could send emails, could you make me a reservation here? We don’t have Yes, I’ll do that. So we had this on the ground incountry help on their time that was really helpful. So we basically gave them these are our mustos, these are our must goes and we have these many days. Can you help us fill in what you think is important? It is still work. Honestly, they are doing a lot of the work. I spent a decent amount of time going back and forth trying to say, “Okay, we really want to spend more time in the Alps area, maybe less time here, maybe not so many hotels.” So, they would go back. It’s a puzzle. And they would help us do the puzzles. I will say I used to start working on my trips about a year ahead of time. And for some reason, it’s compressed. And I wished I would have started earlier with them. It wasn’t their fault. It was really mine. So, by the time I really got into in January, I felt like I was rushing because you make a lot of adjustments. But international trips, a place you haven’t been before, multiple locations, I really think you need to try to use an agent. And I like the idea of the agent having their own contact their own agency. Like you said, there’s someone you can talk to and especially just being able to, like you said, if you need to make some changes, make a reservation, those kind of things. And again, not having to worry about talking to someone back in the US. We had a bit of a complication with trying to get to our food tour in Osaka from the train. And honestly, they made it a little tight. That wasn’t really my fault, but I got a hold of them and said, “We’re not going to make this, and we’re not going to be able to drop our things off at the hotel and actually make this.” So, they immediately got on and got it changed for us. All those sorts of things that would be far more complicated for us to do. So when you’re doing a trip like that, it’s helpful to have someone there locally in the local time that can speak English to help you. Did you find that many people speak English? Yes, a lot of them spoke a little bit of English. Some of them smoke quite a bit. They do learn it in school. Of course, the big cities, they do. In the the smaller city, Matsumoto, where we stayed, not as many. And a lot of them will carry around not a phone, but a little translator thing. It’s just a little tool. Yeah, my favorite story was at this Rioon where we stayed where most of the people did not speak English, right? I was trying to schedule a taxi and I’m talking to this guy late and I’m getting tired. It’s 10:00. I’m trying to do this thing in the morning and I’m just having this whole conversation. Oh, we’re doing it all through translator and this was the worst language experience I had while I was there and we just could not get it figured out. We were going back and forth and finally there was a young man cleaning up. who was emptying the trash cans and all that and the guy comes over there and he says, “Can I help you?” I said, “Are you an American?” I’m Japanese. I just used to live in Kentucky. So, I say all that to say usually there’s someone there that that can speak English and they really the service level is over the top great and so they’ll try to help you as much as they can. You know, most of the time you’re going to see things in Google Translate. You can do it on the spot. You have tools that you didn’t have 30 years ago. But I would say a lot of the people Tokyo speak English. The smaller towns it’ll get a little tricky. They usually have someone especially where they have a lot of tourists. You could ask, “Do you have somebody that speaks English?” Yeah, that’s great. And they don’t want to do it either if they can’t. But right, it’s a it was very doable for people who would be nervous. I don’t know about other Asian countries, but Japan for sure. Right. So tell me about everyone’s favorite parts. Okay. Evans definitely was the things he wanted to do which were seeing Tokyo. He wanted to go to a specific anime store. He wanted to go to cat cafe. That was super interesting where the cats can sit on the table where your food is and you get to a little bit different than the US cat cafes. Yes, for sure. So, I think those cats got more attention than they wanted. That’s the funny thing about a cat cafe. And the funny thing about a cat Yes. is that they didn’t want all that attention. So he really loved Tokyo. He went out. He met a friend that used to be a neighbor but lives in Japan now. They went out on their own all over Tokyo and he met another friend who actually lives in Brentwood where we live who was there visiting his grandparents. They went out on their own. He just loved the city and the culture in and eating the different food in Tokyo. He also really loved the Alps and climbing Mount Yak, the animals, the scenery. again the Japanese culture mixed with the Alps. He those were his favorites. Capri, I asked her this specifically and they’re both kind of young adults now, but she really loved the authentic experiences. The Rioan where we stayed. We slept on the floor and it’s not what it sounds like cuz they have nice thick soft mattresses. We had the hot springs, the baths to go to. We had a bath in our room this time. So, you’re actually outside and there’s a screen and there’s all this water coming out from the hot springs. And then there’s the public bath, which is a whole another thing because you have to be naked. Okay. Yeah. No swimsuits, no lotion, trying to keep it fresh. So, it just ended up like when I went in there, some people were leaving and I was the only one and I was like, “Good, this is a little more comfortable for me. I really want to put on my swimsuit.” So, that was very interesting. And we did a tea ceremony in Kanazawa, which is the place where they have the royal gardens and all that. We did a tea ceremony in the oldest tea room in the city, 350 something years old. It was crazy. That was great. The ladies were lovely and obviously it was a tourist thing. So the youngest woman spoke flawless English and it was great for me. I really I’d spent time in Tokyo before. I wish I could spend more. It’s a very energetic, vibrant city. There’s just so much to do and see. There’s parks, there’s temples, there’s the bay, there there’s so much. And it’s clean. It’s safe. You feel good walking anywhere. You can move quickly through the city on the trains. You don’t have to worry about traffic. So, it was really nice. I will say personally, Capri and I really loved going to Tokyo Disney Sea which was kind of like a little bit of home but really better. It’s probably the best themed park in the world I guess. Yeah. We did Tokyo Disneyland for an evening, Tokyo Disney Sea one day and we also went to Universal Osaka. So that was our fun. It was all fun. really good experiences there and that was on a bucket list to see that because it’s a unique part to the Disney portfolios. I’ve heard that. Yeah. So, that was amazing. Brendan just loved the culture. The service is over the top everywhere. A lot of people are in service and hospitality. Did everyone enjoy the food? Yes. I will say we have raised some adventurous eaters. Um, it was certainly different and unique in Tokyo. You could find pretty much everything. some of our favorite meals. We went to a little tiny ramen restaurant in Tokyo that was just fabulous. It was part of our tour and it was the tour guides favorite ramen place. So, that’s one lovely thing about a tour guide. You get so much local infusion that you don’t get from doing it yourself. The Rioan meals, I will tell you that food was challenging, but the experience was really priceless. It would be probably difficult for really picky eaters, though they do accommodate it a little bit. Lots of raw fish, as you can imagine, grilled fish for breakfast, which I loved actually. Lots of fermented things. It was very interesting, which is probably why they’re really healthy. But often, I will tell you, as far as food, when you stay at a lot of these places, they have breakfast buffets and they will have an American breakfast and a Japanese breakfast. So, you have everything. So, you for breakfast, you could fill yourself up on eggs and bacon. Might be a little bit different, but it’s pretty much the same. I would recommend people traveling, especially with kids, to find these places that have the American and Japanese breakfast together or just American, so you can get that piece in. Good tips, get a lot of snacks. When you’re in a city, you might want to look ahead because even we did go to an Italian restaurant in Msumoto, which was a smaller place, and it was so funny. The restaurants are all very small. They’re very excited to welcome you. And so we go to the small place and we’re like, I’m going to have some spaghetti, you know, with meat sauce. I’m so excited. But was there a spaghetti with meat sauce? No, it was mostly pasta with seafood related things. So, you have to be prepared for that. It is unique and some people would certainly struggle with it, but you can find things to eat. So, it’s an amazing trip. Yes. Yeah. And so now, so we’ve talked about you have 18 summers with your kids and now you’ve obviously moved past that. Um, and what’s your approach now? more family trips in the summers or so that’s our plan but I would tell you it’s very hard to plan right now we’re trying to regroup and figure it out and talk with the kids because we want to do a Christmas trip and we don’t actually know if Capri will be available or not so we’re probably going to do some sort of Christmas trip and I usually would plan way far ahead but we’re either doing skiing or hiking we’re doing a trip we’re just not sure yet we’re thinking about going to New Mexico I will tell you making something that is somewhat more flexible so that if our daughter can go, if Capri can go, then she’ll go. When when you do things that are too tied in, you have to buy a lot of tickets and all that kind of stuff, the flexibility isn’t there. So, we’re trying to do something a little more flexible. And there’s uh time for just you and Brendan to go on trips. Yes. And we call that instead of empty neester, we call it freeird. Brendan that doesn’t sound so much happier than empty neester. Yes, it does. Free bird. I love it. Yeah, we are going to take a trip and take my husband’s parent to about a three-w weekek trip where we start with a river cruise in Budapest and then we end up in Munich for October Fest for Brendan’s 50th birthday. Then we’re going to go spend some time in Germany in the homeland. That’s where his family’s from and see some of that. And then also we’re going to go at theme park though. We’re going to go to Europa Park. So in Germany. So that’s going to be interesting. But I had a mom tell me to ask her questions about the 18 years because we’re obviously past the 18 years. She said, “We were in Greece and we met this mom, older mom, and her kids were there and they were married and all that.” And I said, “How do you get your kids to travel with you?” She said, “Just have to make the trip interesting enough and pay for it and your kids will show up.” I was like, “Got it.” I really truly feel what’s a better way to spend time with your family than have experiences and time. Yes, you can do good things for them. You’re not opposed to those things. But I do think there’s a lot to be said for spending time together because you’re not around forever and you get to continue to core into them however you do that. And so that’s what we plan to do. Thank you so much for sharing Japan. I love all the details and I’m sure it will be helpful for listeners. We will put more details in the episode notes. Thank you for coming back. I just always live vicariously through your family travels. Thank you. I love hearing about everybody else. We have more on our bucket list to do. So hopefully our kids will be able to come along at least at some point. But it was great. It was great to see you. Thank you so much. Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you for joining us on the Kiki’s Big Adventures family travel podcast. Visit the episode web page for all the details from today and lots more travel planning resources. We look forward to traveling with you on the next episode. Adventure awaits. [Music] Adventure awaits.

How do you celebrate two graduations at once? 🎓🎓 For the Easterday Family, the answer was a three-week family trip to Japan, from Tokyo’s anime shops and cat cafés to tea ceremonies in Kanazawa, sacred deer in Nara, the moving history of Hiroshima, and the magic of Tokyo DisneySea.

In this episode, Travel Mom Susan shares (see chapter list below):
✅ Their full 3-week family Japan itinerary (Tokyo, Japanese Alps, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima, Osaka, Disney)
✅ Top highlights and surprising moments
✅ Travel tips for families exploring Japan with kids and teens

✨ Get the itinerary and more ideas for planning your own family trip: https://keekeesbigadventures.com/podcast/japan-family-vacation-tips-highlights-and-adventures/

📸 Follow us on Instagram for daily family travel inspiration: https://instagram.com/KeeKeesBigAdventures

If you’re planning a trip to Japan with kids or teens, or love family travel stories, this episode is packed with inspiration and practical advice.

Episode Chapters
0:00 – Welcome & Meet Travel Mom Susan
0:40 – Why Japan? Celebrating Two Graduations
2:10 – Tokyo Highlights: Anime Shops, Cat Cafés & More
5:05 – Hiking in the Japanese Alps & Ryokan Stays
7:45 – Kanazawa: Tea Ceremony & Gardens
9:55 – Kyoto & Nara: Temples, Deer, and School Kids
13:10 – Hiroshima: Reflection and Human Connection
16:00 – Osaka Food Tour, Pinball Parlors & Universal Studios
18:55 – Disney Magic: Tokyo Disneyland & DisneySea
21:15 – Family Favorites & Travel Tips
23:15 – Beyond “18 Summers”: Becoming Freebirds