How to Create the Perfect Japan Itinerary
Planning a trip to Japan but not sure how to build your itinerary? In this guide, Abby from PiQtour explains a simple step-by-step method for creating a Japan travel itinerary that actually works. Learn how to choose cities, manage your travel budget, plan daily routes, and avoid common itinerary mistakes. Includes a real example day in Tokyo visiting Asakusa, Senso-ji, Kappabashi, and Tokyo Skytree.
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Happy to say we’ve finally launched our Japan trip planning service!
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It’s something we’ve had people request for a long time and now we can finally say yes!
Wow. I’ve been “planning” this trip for more than a year, and it’s been a dream for almost 9 years, and now I feel like I’m not doing it well at all. The trip is getting close, we will be there in June. I guess I don’t have the patience (and probably not enough time) for such in depth research for every day and every step of the way. I’ve planned no more than two stops per day and figured we would just explore nearby in between, before and after, just find our meals wherever we happen to be when we’re hungry. Four full days and two half days in Tokyo, five full days and two half days in Kyoto (split with two day trips to Osaka) and then we’re off to Seoul for another four full days and two half days before heading home. I hope I’m not screwing this up. This is already the most expensive trip of our lives, I’m hoping it will also be one of the best.
Hotel breakfast can be worth it because breakfasts are served extremely early (6Am) in many cases. If you are located in a place where restaurants don't open early then being able to eat at the hotel makes sense for very early risers.
Of course, you can also just get take out bento and put in your your fridge and have it as breakfast the next day.
I’ve never made such a detailed plan for each day. It’s simply because I always travel to Japan for four-five weeks, and planning a trip to Japan is already a lot of work. The most important thing is to figure out what you want to see, what the opening hours are, how to get there, and how much time it will take. Another thing you shouldn’t forget are Matsuris.
Traveling to Japan for the first time in May after Golden Week. Staying there for 23 days. This channel has been very helpful for our itinerary. We will stay in the same hotell you guys did in Hakone :p. Thanks for all the help <3.
Some rules of thumb when I go to Tokyo:
1. Book a hotel that's near a train station, and leave early as possible as most of your schedule might be filled walking around the huge stations
2. Start going to further locations first before any close ones as the trains cost more the further you go.
3. Get to know your hotel's area and accomodations where all the convenience stores, restaurants, etc may bookend your trips if you need essentials first/last-minute.
4. A second hub city/station also helps. Mine was Ikebukuro where all the further stores, restaurants, arcades and stations I needed were, especially since i always pass through there.
5. Bring cash to pay/reload for your IC card which starts at Y1000. Keep all the Y100 coins you can for vending and arcades. 7-11 / 7 Bank ATM's have the best fees for withdrawal
heading to Japan for the first time in February 2027 for 4 to 5 weeks with 1 week of snowboarding finding planning hard as this is my first time overseas and my first holiday but very keen so I find PiQtour videos helpful
I have spent quite a bit of time in Japan and always find your videos helpful. For my arrival and departure days, I usually have nothing in particular planned to help avoid stress. Does that stop my activities? No, I'm just going with whatever happens those days. The few times I had something planned on my arrival day, they were very stressful.I've also learned to only have one or two things planned for any given day and let the area experiences take over. I love wandering around Tokyo and Kyoto. When I go to Hakone and stay at a ryokan, I like to book an extra day just to relax at the ryokan.
Thanks for all the tips. Fushimi inari hike was amazing. I'm in kinosaki onsen now.
In kinosaki I ate maybe the single most delicious unagi of my life. Kinosaki unagi-dokoro unakyo. The chef brought out the live eel for pictures. Better than Tokyo in quality and flavor
Is Osaka really such a must see? It has good food but there is good food everywhere in Japan. I have been to Osaka but on my second trip to Japan, not my first trip. Tokyo has more to see and do imho. I am not sure if people should visit Osaka if they have little time.
Congratulations on the certification!
Great advice! I have learned a lot from a number of your videos. Thankyou.
I am going for a somewhat structured somewhat winging it plan with 1-3 points of focus allowing for time to do anything that sparks my interest. My spreadsheet of ideas / locations is a guide and not a staple with the exception of a must see place / event at Ebisu circuit. Roughly 1 month with rest / chill days every 3-4 days.
Also for anyone planning to travel to the Kansai region, my return flight ticket at the of this month from Tokyo to Osaka costs less than the one way prices for the Shinkansen
Excellent informative video for planning a trip to Japan/Tokyo, Abby! Especially for first-time visitors. I'll be back in Japan April-May for my 4th visit. I'm a solo traveller and I've done all the hot-spots. Now I like to wander the city, taking photos and video and discovering off-the-beaten track areas to explore. I absolutely love it there, the society feels right to me. I would live there, but I'm retired and there is no retirement visa. So, I do the next best thing, come every year and stay 2 or 3 months at a time. Congrats on the expanding business! Have a great rest of the weekend. 💙
My family of four is wrapping up our first week in Japan by seeing the final event of the Omizutori festival in Nara. We’ve seen Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and now Nara so far. We’ve leave for Hakone tomorrow, then Tokyo for our final 4 days. The Piqtour channel was the biggest influence in our planning, so I guess you’ve done a good job so far, since we ended up on the route recommended here…
For our family of four definitely found using taxis instead of trains / busses to be a good trade-off of a few more Yen for a significant savings in steps and time. We had also planned a trip to Nijigen no Mori, but at the last minute decided that the travel time wasn’t going to be worth the payoff. We were able to book same-day knife making and ramen making classes in Kyoto, which turned out to be huge fun and let our feet rest for a good chunk of the day.
Thank you for putting your time and effort into the channel. It really helped our planning… We’ll definitely be back, and maybe next time we’ll have our plans locked in soon enough to get on your tour schedule!
Character unlocked: Leather Jacket Abby 🎉
Those traveling from the US, I recommend taking a red eye. American kept us up till 3am by serving us dinner at 2am. Cabin lights went off at 3am. After falling asleep, we woke up just before landing and were the first plane to arrive at Haneda and breezed right through customs and the like. Super easy. Also, the red eye is less booked, so you can find a row to yourself.
flying to japan in 2 days
Congratulations to you both on your certification!!
We just returned from Japan. We did 3 days Tokyo, 1 night Kyoto in a ryokan, 2 nights in Hiroshima / Miyajima Island, 4 nights Kyoto, 4 nights Osaka.
We got the bullet train between cities and sent our luggage from Tokyo to Kyoto and took a small carry on for 1 night in Kyoto and 2 nights in Hiroshima. That was perfect. We used a combination of walking / public transport and taxis.
Our hotels were pretty bouji
– FS at Otemachi
– Sheraton Grand Hiroshima
– Hotel the Mitsui Kyoto
– FS Osaka.
It was the perfect trip.
lol is every japan vlogger sponsored by team labs
My trip last year had a a few changes and I stayed in 4 cities and detoured to another 4. By the end in Matsuyama I was burnt. The last trip was in November so we were "momiji-gari" aka fall foliage hunting so mountains and the middle of nowhere was the goal, along with seeing as many castles as we could. Two weeks of castle chasing, some in the middle of nowhere, making the choice to walk most the trip, or having the choice made for me as we got off the buses to soon, or taking alternate routes back adding tens of km to each day sometimes. If your capable, and enjoy being outdoors in the middle of nowhere this can be very rewarding, if you don't walk much this can make your trip miserable. I think walking is the best way to get around and see way more then you would from a train or bus window. Always take you physical capabilities into account.
In addition to an itinerary, bringing cash and a coin purse is my essential 👛
My biggest mistake on my last summer trip to Japan was having it too packed with destinations, so I ended up being a bit burnt out by the end of the two week golden route trip. Not sure my 23 days itinerary over Kansai, Chūgoku and Kyushu this summer is much easier, though. I always fail to deal with FOMO.
Very happy for you all to have received your certification! Well done!👏👍