Departures: Tokyo to Miyajima
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Explore Tokyo and Kyoto Like the Departures Team
Immerse yourself in the high tech world of Tokyo and then wind down in Kyoto in this incredible experience inspired by Departures
Japan is built for the kind of trip Justin Lukach and Scott Wilson put together on Departures: start in the cities, let the trains do the work south, and finish somewhere quiet enough to actually exhale. Their two-part Japan visit covers Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Miyajima, and the route happens to be one of the most beginner-friendly in the world without ever feeling like it was designed for beginners.
This itinerary was inspired by: Departures S1E6, "Japan: The Future" and Departures S1E7, "Japan: The Past"
Tokyo: give it more time than you think you need
Tokyo is the kind of city that fills however many days you give it and then asks for more. Three nights is the floor for a first visit; four is better. The neighborhoods are distinct enough that you could spend a full day in Shinjuku and another in Shimokitazawa and feel like you've barely overlapped. The train system looks intimidating on paper but becomes intuitive fast, and it's the main way you'll move around.
Don't over-schedule it. The best parts of Tokyo tend to happen when you've run out of planned things to do: a ramen counter you ducked into on a side street, a jazz bar that doesn't open until midnight, a convenience store at 1am that somehow has the best onigiri you've eaten all trip. Build in space for that.
Kyoto: go early, then slow down
Kyoto is where the crowds go, which means the trick is timing. The major temples, Fushimi Inari, Kinkaku-ji, the Arashiyama bamboo grove, are all worth seeing, but they're best before 9am or in the evening when the tour groups have cleared out. The middle of the day is better spent wandering Higashiyama or sitting down for a long lunch.
Two nights gets you oriented; three lets you actually settle in. If you're there in cherry blossom season or fall foliage, add an extra night without thinking twice.
Osaka: eat everything, plan nothing
Osaka has monuments if you want them, but the real reason to be here is the food and the looseness of the place. It's less polished than Tokyo and more straightforwardly fun, the kind of city where dinner turns into a street food crawl that turns into a late night with no fixed endpoint. Dotonbori is the obvious starting point, busy and a little chaotic, but the surrounding streets are where you find the better yakitori counters and the standing sushi bars that don't take reservations.
Two nights is enough. Keep the schedule light and follow your appetite.
Street stalls across Osaka turn out wagyu skewers hot off the grill, the kind of casual, no-reservation eating the city built its reputation on.
Miyajima: take the ferry, stay overnight
The standard approach to Miyajima is a day trip from Hiroshima, and it's fine as far as it goes. But staying overnight on the island is a different experience entirely. Once the last ferry brings the day visitors back to the mainland, the island quiets down considerably, and the deer that wander freely around the shrine and the streets become a lot more present and a lot less skittish.
The floating torii gate at Itsukushima Shrine is the obvious draw, and it earns the reputation: at high tide, the gate appears to rise straight out of the water with the forested hills of Miyajima behind it. From there, the hike up Mount Misen takes a few hours and gives you views back across the Seto Inland Sea. Hiroshima itself, a thirty-minute train ride from the ferry terminal, warrants at least a full day before or after.
The famous torii gate at Itsukushima Shrine appears to float at high tide, with Miyajima's forested hills rising just behind it.
Planning the trip
The whole route runs on the Shinkansen, Japan's bullet train network, which makes the logistics simpler than almost any trip of comparable ambition. A JR Pass covers the train travel between cities and the ferry connection to Miyajima. No rental car, no complicated transfers.
Budget 9 to 12 days for the full route: 3 to 4 nights in Tokyo, 2 to 3 in Kyoto, 2 in Osaka, and 2 to 3 split between Hiroshima and Miyajima. The itinerary is easy to trim or extend depending on pace, and Worldia can help you customize it once you know roughly how much time you're working with.
Start planning: Build your Tokyo-to-Osaka leg with this duo's itinerary, then extend south to Hiroshima and Miyajima from there.
Explore Tokyo and Kyoto Like the Departures Team
Immerse yourself in the high tech world of Tokyo and then wind down in Kyoto in this incredible experience inspired by Departures
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