Beyond Tokyo & Kyoto: A Scenic Japan Itinerary with Less Crowds

The typical tourist route stops at Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. But what if you want to go beyond the cities to see the countryside, nature and traditional Japan? We ourselves live in countryside Japan and cannot get enough of traveling in this beautiful scenery and would love if you two could do the same thing. In saying that, this itinerary is prioritizing English-friendly locations and travel by public transport. So it's not necessarily going to have hidden gems, but it's good even if you're a first-time visitor to Japan. The itinerary is about two weeks long and covers everything from accommodation, transport, what to see, to do, to eat in each place and some life-saving tips along the way. So let's get started! So first things first, you'll fly into Tokyo and we have left two nights on the itinerary for Tokyo just so that you can get your bearings at the start of your trip. Then, once you've spent a couple of days in the city, it's time to hop on the shinkansen or bullet train and head out to the countryside. A tip for booking shinkansen tickets, especially if you're starting from Tokyo station, is we'd recommend booking them online beforehand. The reason for this is that the lines can get pretty long at the ticket counters and booths in the station itself. And for this specific shinkansen, you can do that on the website Ekinet. Another tip for travel in general is getting an IC card such as Suica and if you have the physical one with the number on the back, you can use that number when you're booking your tickets online to link them to your shinkansen ticket and then use the IC card to tap through the gate. So the first stop after Tokyo is going to be Kusatsu Onsen and to get there you can catch the shinkansen from Tokyo station to Kaduizawa station and then change to a bus that'll take you all the way to Kusatsu Onsen. Now just to note that this is a suggested itinerary, but you can easily adjust the pace, leave some places out or add some to make it more suitable for you. Over on our Patreon, we have a map for our paid members of over 100 sightseeing locations all over Japan. So if you're looking for even more inspiration, see the link in the video description and thank you so much to our patrons who are already supporting us. Kusatsu is one of the best onsen towns in Japan. One of the notable things about Kusatsu is that all of the public onsens are tattoo friendly, which is really great for foreign tourists. The classic onsen town experience you can have is when it becomes night time, you put on your yukata, which is your evening wear and then you walk around the town taking in all the nighttime scenery. It's beautiful and you hop between all the different onsens or baths. For me, I actually think this is one of the best experiences you can have on your trip in Japan. As for where to stay, we've stayed in a hotel called Hotel 1913 before, which was great, but there are so many other cute Japanese inns that you can stay in as well, each offering an experience in itself with the traditional Japanese rooms and the multi-course Japanese meals. So you stay one night there and then you hop on the bus back to Karuizawa, changing for the Shinkansen to Nagano City. Nagano City is not necessarily the most interesting city inn of itself, although we do love it and visit often because we live nearby, but what it's really good for is staying in the city and doing a bunch of day trips outside of it. However, in saying that, one area within the city that's interesting is the area around Senkoji Temple. The temple itself is really big and beautiful and there's also a traditional street leading up to it with a lot of shops lining it with street food. Now a really good thing to know when traveling Japan is each region has its own local food delicacy. In Nagano, one of those local foods is called oyaki, which is essentially a dumpling with some kind of filling inside and there's lots of stores on that traditional street leading up to the temple that sell them. So we definitely recommend trying that out. Another food that's really good to try out in Nagano also is soba noodles. But onto the day trips, one place that you can go to is called Togakushi Shrine, which is just over an hour bus ride from Nagano City. This is a beautiful shrine surrounded by mountains with really tall trees lining the path all the way up to the upper shrine. The second day trip that we recommend is to the Yamanouchi area, which is about 45 minutes by bus or train and this is where the famous Snow Monkey Park is. Of course, it's very good to visit in winter, but surprisingly we found it's even interesting to visit in summer as well. You will find some monkeys bathing in the hot spring. So the itinerary suggests two nights in Nagano and then it's just a quick 50-minute express train to hop over to the next spot, which is Matsumoto. In Matsumoto City, first and foremost is the castle, one of the few surviving original castles in Japan. It offers stunning views from the outside, but you can also go inside, climb all the way up to the top over some very, very steep stairs and look out from the top, which is an excellent view. Our pro tip for if you're going to be doing this is to wear shoes that you can take off easily because you're required to take your shoes off before you enter the castle. And going one level deeper on that, if you go in the colder months, you might want some very warm socks because the floors can get very chilly on your little feeties. Further than just seeing the castle, Matsumoto has some great traditional streets. One of the notable ones is Frog Street that you can stroll through. It's very, very cute. There's also art museums where you can see notable works from famous artists such as Yayoi Kusama. And if we're going to talk about food, you can't go past the sanzoku yaki, which is the Matsumoto's special style of fried chicken. So you've spent two nights in Matsumoto and Matsumoto City sits right next to the towering Japanese Alps and that is going to be the next spot. Now going from Matsumoto City into the Alps by bus takes around an hour and a half. There are both direct buses and non-direct buses. For the direct ones, we definitely recommend booking online in advance because these are popular areas to go. There's a few different areas that can be accessed within the Japanese Alps. The most famous area is called Kamikochi, which is a valley where no private cars are allowed. You can only go in by bus. There's also the areas of Kiryu Onsen and Norikura Gorge and all of these places have a bus network to access them. Now talking about the Kamikochi Valley itself, it is beautiful and serves as the base for going on longer day and multi-day hikes up into the Japanese Alps. But down in the valley itself, there are also some really lovely boardwalks which take just a couple of hours to complete. The accommodation in the valley is a little bit limited. There are campgrounds and there are also some hotels but these can be pricey and should be booked in advance. Then moving on and talking about the Kiryu Onsen area, if you want to do another traditional Japanese day, this is a great place to do it. And there is also the Shinhotaka Ropeway nearby which is the starting point for some longer hikes or you can just take it up to the top and marvel at the beautiful views. Finally, the Norikura Gorge area has some beautiful easy hiking on the mountain Norikura and some hot springs as well. Catching a bus out of the Japanese Alps, we can make our way to the town of Takayama. Takayama is an old traditional town nestled in a valley and it is just so beautiful. So beautiful to the point where when Amy and I first went there, we thought, oh my god, should we live here? One of the main things to do in Takayama is to go and see the old town district. It's a great place to do some shopping. You can pick up lots of good souvenirs. It's also a great place for picking up street food. One recommendation is the hiragyu, which is their local specialty of meat. And there's also a morning market nearby. Going a little further afield, you can go to the Hira Folk Village where you can see the gassho style houses and slightly experience what life was like in a traditional village back in the day. Or you can catch a bus for one hour and go all the way to Shirakawago which is basically the gassho style villages but on a larger scale. So the end of the itinerary, we've actually split it into two options and you can choose your own adventure. The first option is to go from Takayama to Kanazawa. To get there, you can take a direct two-hour bus that can be booked online and Kanazawa is often likened to a little Kyoto. It's got a beautiful traditional vibe. The city has a bunch of sights to see and it is very walkable. So in the middle, you have Kanazawa Castle and right next to it is Kenrokuen Garden, which is actually one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. Then nearby, you have Higashichaya which is an old entertainment district. So again, you can see beautiful traditional streets. You can even book experiences with geisha. And the thing to eat here is gold leaf ice cream. And then again, nearby is Omicho Market which is a seafood market as Kanazawa sits right on the coast of the Sea of Japan. Now in previous videos, we have said that there's other seafood markets that are better than Omicho Market in Kanazawa. However, I would still recommend it for first-timers to Japan. Moving on to option number two, if you don't want to go to Kanazawa, you can go to the Nakasendo Trail. To get there, you need to take an express train from Takayama to Nagoya and then from Nagoya out to the Kiso Valley. Now the Nakasendo Trail is a road that used to connect Tokyo to Kyoto back in the day through the mountains and sections of it can still be hiked. The most popular section is from the town of Magome-juku up to the town of Tsumago-juku. And this section is about six kilometers in length and will take a few hours. Another not quite as popular section is from Yubuhara to the town of Nagai. Now these towns along the trail are incredibly beautiful. They still have many of the traditional buildings. You can stay in them at accommodation and you can pick up food as well along the way. Depending on which section of the trail you do, there are either local trains or buses that you can use to get to the starting point. So there are your two options, Kanazawa or the Nakasendo Trail or you could even do both if you wanted to switch up this itinerary a little bit. Then at the end, you can catch train back to Tokyo to finish your trip. So if you have any questions at all about this itinerary, do leave them down below in the comments. Instead of public transport, if you'd rather do the itinerary by car or by camper van, which we super recommend, we've got videos on those. But that's all for this video. Thank you for watching. We'll see you in the next one. Bye.