Japan Itineraries: 7, 10 and 14-Day Routes Day by Day

Every route assumes an open-jaw flight: into Tokyo Narita or Haneda and home from Osaka Kansai (KIX), or the reverse. It saves a 2h15 shinkansen ride back to Tokyo and about 14,000 yen. If you can only get a Tokyo return, add one travel day at the end.

Train times below are typical: Tokyo to Kyoto is 2h15 on the Nozomi and 2h40 on the Hikari, the fastest train the JR Pass covers without a supplement. Fares are reserved-seat fares in regular season; Nozomi costs a few hundred yen more than Hikari on the same route. For seat types, luggage rules and how to book, read Japan trains and the JR Pass.

Pace matters more than distance. Two major sights plus a neighbourhood walk is a full day in Kyoto; three temples and a market is a long one. Check in to hotels at 15:00, forward big suitcases between cities with takkyubin (about 2,000 to 3,000 yen a bag, next-day delivery) and travel with an overnight bag on the train.

The classic week: three nights in Tokyo, one in Hakone, two in Kyoto, one in Osaka, flying home from KIX. It front-loads the big city while you are jet-lagged and waking early anyway, puts the onsen night in the middle as a rest day, and saves the temples for when you have found your feet. Book the Hakone ryokan and the Kyoto hotel before anything else; Tokyo and Osaka always have rooms.

Pace: fast but doable; days 2, 3 and 6 are the long ones. JR Pass: no. Your long-distance rail adds up to about 18,000 yen (Odawara to Kyoto plus local legs), against 50,000 yen for the pass. Cost per person, excluding flights: about 95,000 to 115,000 yen (US$630 to 770) on a hostel budget with a shared-bath ryokan; 170,000 to 200,000 yen (US$1,130 to 1,330) mid-range with a proper Hakone ryokan night; 350,000 yen and up in good hotels.

Ten days is the sweet spot for a first trip. Keep the Tokyo days from the 7-day plan, go straight to Kyoto (Hakone comes back in the 14-day version), then push west to Hiroshima and loop back through Kanazawa on the Sea of Japan coast, finishing in Tokyo. The loop means you never retrace a line, and Kanazawa gives you a smaller, calmer city after Kyoto’s crowds: Kenroku-en is one of Japan’s three great gardens, the Higashi Chaya district has working tea houses, and Omicho Market does the best seafood breakfast in the country. This version is a Tokyo return trip; if you have an open-jaw ticket, swap the Kanazawa leg for Takayama and finish at KIX.

JR Pass maths: the pass-covered rides from day 4 to day 10 come to roughly 60,500 yen (Tokyo-Kyoto 13,850, Nara return 1,440, Kyoto-Hiroshima 11,000, Miyajima leg 840, Hiroshima-Osaka 10,600, Osaka-Kanazawa 9,400, Kanazawa-Tokyo 14,380). A 7-day pass activated on day 4 costs 50,000 yen, so it saves about 10,000 yen and spares you buying seven tickets. The catch: it only works if every long ride falls inside seven consecutive days, so do not activate it in Tokyo and waste days on the subway.

Takayama variant: from Osaka take the Hikari to Nagoya (50 min, about 6,700 yen) and the Hida limited express into the mountains (2h30, about 6,100 yen). Sleep in Takayama, see the morning markets and Sanmachi old town, then return via Nagoya to KIX or Tokyo. The Nohi bus to Shirakawa-go’s thatched village (50 min each way) is not covered by the pass.

Pace: steady, with one travel morning every second day. Cost per person, excluding flights: about 140,000 yen (US$930) budget, 260,000 to 290,000 yen (US$1,730 to 1,930) mid-range including the pass, 500,000 yen and up in top hotels.

Two weeks lets you slow down and add three places the shorter routes skip: Nikko’s mountain shrines, a night in a temple on Mount Koya and the Japanese Alps at Kamikochi or Matsumoto. The route runs Tokyo in and KIX out, crossing Honshu through the mountains instead of along the Pacific shinkansen corridor, so the middle week is buses and limited expresses through valleys rather than tunnels at 285 km/h. It drops Hiroshima; if the Peace Memorial matters to you, take the 10-day route and add Koyasan at the end instead. Kamikochi is closed from mid-November to mid-April, when the Alps days become Matsumoto, the snow monkeys and a second Takayama night.

JR Pass maths: no. The JR rides here (Odawara-Tokyo, Azusa, Kanazawa-Kyoto, Nara and Osaka locals) total about 25,000 yen spread over 14 days, and the Alps buses, Tobu, Nankai and Odakyu legs are private lines the pass does not cover. Buy single tickets, or a Hakone Free Pass and the Koyasan ticket. Pace: relaxed, with the Alps days as the physical part; swap Kamikochi for a second Takayama day if you dislike buses. Cost per person, excluding flights: about 180,000 yen (US$1,200) budget, 350,000 to 400,000 yen (US$2,330 to 2,670) mid-range with Hakone ryokan and Koyasan temple nights, 700,000 yen and up in top-end ryokan.

Kyushu gets a fraction of Kansai’s visitors yet has the best ramen, the most onsen and an active volcano you can watch from a city tram. It is warmer than Honshu, cheaper to sleep in, and its cities are compact enough to walk. The island suits a second trip, a winter trip (Kagoshima is mild in January) or anyone who would rather eat and bathe than queue for temples. This route starts in Fukuoka (direct flights from Seoul, Taipei, Bangkok and Singapore, or 5 hours from Tokyo by Nozomi) and loops clockwise. It also works as the second week of a Tokyo-Kyoto trip: Shin-Osaka to Hakata is 2h30 on the Nozomi, about 15,600 yen.

Passes: the national JR Pass only makes sense if you ride in from Tokyo or Osaka within the same seven days. JR Kyushu sells its own All Kyushu Area Pass in 3-, 5- and 7-day versions, which covers the Kyushu Shinkansen, Kamome and Sonic trains at a fraction of the national price; buy it online before you fly and compare it against the fares above. Pace: gentle, two nights nearly everywhere. Cost per person, excluding flights: about 160,000 yen (US$1,070) budget, 300,000 to 340,000 yen (US$2,000 to 2,270) mid-range with two onsen ryokan nights.

First-timers: take the 7- or 10-day route as written and resist adding stops. Book the Hakone ryokan and the Kyoto nights first; everything else can be booked a week out, even in spring.

Families: cut Kamikochi and Koyasan, add Tokyo DisneySea or Universal Studios Japan (a day each, tickets from 7,900 and 8,600 yen) and the Kaiyukan aquarium. Reserve shinkansen seats so the family sits together; children aged 6 to 11 pay half fare and under-sixes travel free without a seat. Deer-feeding in Nara and the Hakone pirate boat are reliable hits.

Cherry blossom and autumn: in late March to early April and mid-November, Kyoto hotels sell out three to six months ahead and prices double. Book Kyoto first, sleep in Osaka or Uji if it is full, and start sightseeing at 7am. The 10-day route’s Kanazawa and Hiroshima days are a relief from the Kyoto crowds. For the forecast and viewing spots, see our Japan cherry blossom guide.

Rainy season (June to mid-July): keep the routes but swap outdoor days for museum days and go to Hokkaido instead if you can: Sapporo largely misses the rainy season. Typhoons peak in September; build one spare day into any trip that uses ferries or flies out of Kyushu or Okinawa.

Slow travel: take the 10-day route and give it 14 days, with three nights in Kanazawa or a second night at Koyasan. Rent an apartment or machiya in Kyoto for a week and take day trips to Nara, Uji, Osaka and Himeji for the castle (55 min by shinkansen from Kyoto).

Budget: replace the Hakone ryokan with a hostel in Odawara and a day ticket, ride the Hikari with a pass or take Willer and JR overnight buses (Tokyo to Kyoto from about 4,000 yen), eat konbini breakfasts and set lunches, and base in Osaka rather than Kyoto, where business hotels are 30 to 40 percent cheaper. Our Japan travel costs page has the full arithmetic.

Winter Hokkaido instead: fly Tokyo to New Chitose (1h35, LCC fares from about 7,000 yen one way), three nights in Sapporo for the February Snow Festival and miso ramen, a day in Otaru (40 min, 750 yen by train), then four nights skiing Niseko’s powder with a day at Noboribetsu onsen on the way back. Lift passes run about 10,000 yen a day; book Niseko lodging by September.

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