After our first visit to Japan in 2023, we made our second trip the following summer in 2024. It might sound excessive to anyone who hasn’t been to Japan, but there really is no place like it in the world, and it was one place that everyone in the family wanted to visit again.
This time, we overpacked our itinerary and rented a car to drive the roads of Japan.
Why Japan Again?
Our first trip was a roundup of a lot of the major attractions, sort of like a once-in-a-lifetime itinerary. We didn’t know we’d be able to return so soon at that point, but again, this was the one place everyone wanted to go back to. It’s hard to explain, but Japan somehow makes unfamiliar international travel as relaxing and stress-free as possible. Even though we’re in a non-English speaking country, we feel incredibly safe and welcome. It also helps alleviate the frustration of going anywhere with two teenagers when they both love spending time in Japan.
We knew we’d only scraped the surface on our first visit, so we decided to return and take a deeper dive into more rural parts of Japan, in addition to revisiting some of our faves from before. We were incredibly ambitious with our itinerary and probably overpacked it, but we felt more comfortable this time and figured it was now or never.
It was finally time to do the thing Andrew had wanted to do with our first visit: Rent a car and drive through the countryside of Japan.
Trip Overview
We were in Japan for 17 days and 16 nights. We stayed in 7 different accommodations, used public transit, rented a car for roughly 5 days of the trip, and took a domestic flight. The cities we visited: Tokyo, Kyoto, Miyajima, Hakata, Kumamoto, and Yufuin.
This trip was both relaxing and stressful, given the amount of time we spent traveling. I don’t know if I’d recommend the amount of moving around we did, but it was an effective way to see as much as we did.
To try to simplify things, I’m presenting our itinerary by accommodation: where we stayed and what we visited. I will further break down and detail the segments of this trip in future posts.
For the itinerary of our first trip to Japan, see this post.
Tokyo – 5 days / 4 nights
Day 1
- Arrive in Tokyo
- Check into Airbnb
Day 2: Asakusa and Shibuya
- Kaminarimon Gate
- Nakamise-dori Street (shopping, food vendors)
- Senso-ji (Asakusa Kannon Temple)
- Our fave ramen: Kyushu Jangara
- Nintendo store (shopping there and in the same building)
- Don Quijote (souvenir shopping)
Day 3
- Tokyo National Museum
- National Museum of Nature and Science
- Ninja Tokyo Restaurant
Day 4: Odaiba
- Tokyo Shiba Tofuya Ukai (tofu restaurant by Tokyo Tower)
- Small Worlds Miniature Museum
- Daiba 1-chome Shopping Street (retro arcade, shopping)
Day 5
- Tokyo Station (character street shopping)
- Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto (grab a bento box from the station to eat on the train)
Kyoto – 3 days / 3 nights
Day 5 evening
- Check into Kyoto Airbnb
- Nomura Tailor (fabric shopping)
Day 6: Shinkansen to Nagoya
- Atsuta-jingu Shrine
- Ghibli Park
Day 7: Shinkansen to Himeji
- Himeji Castle
Miyajima – 1 day / 1 night
Day 8
- Shinkansen from Kyoto to Hiroshima
- Ferry from Hiroshima to Miyajima
- Itsukushima Shrine
Hakata – 1 day / 1 night
Day 9
- Shinkansen from Hiroshima to Hakata
- Kitte Hakata Mall (Ichiban ramen, shopping)
- Kirby Cafe
- Canal City Hakata (shopping)
Kumamota – 3 days / 2 nights
Day 10
- Shinkansen from Kakata to Kumamoto
- Rent a car
- One Piece statues (Luffy, Chopper, Brook, Sanji, Zoro, Nami)
- Costco
- Local grocery store
Day 11
- One Piece statues (Robin, Usopp, Franky)
- Kumamoto Earthquake Museum
- Mount Aso
- Kamishikimi Kumanoza Shrine
Day 12
- Harajiri Falls
- Kuju Flower Park
- Drive to Yufuin
Yufuin – 2 days / 2 nights
Day 12 evening
- Check into ryokan
- Dinner and onsen at the ryokan
Day 13
- Kinrin Lake
- Yufuin Floral Village
- Yufuin Showa Museum
- Dinner and onsen at the ryokan
Day 14
- Drive to Oita and return the car
- Flight from Oita to Tokyo
Tokyo Disney – 4 days / 3 nights
Day 14 evening
- Check into Tokyo Disney hotel
- Ikspiari (Disney store, shopping, dinner)
Day 15
- Disneyland
Day 16
- Disneysea
Day 17
- Tokyo Sea Life Park
- Flight back home
Check back for more details of our Japan trips! I’ll keep these posts updated as I add more information. If you want to read more about my trip to Japan, find all my Japan posts here and all my travel posts here.
Thanks for reading!
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