What Breaks a Japan Itinerary (and How to Check Yours)

The five things that break Japan itineraries

Most problems are not about any single sight. They come from how the day fits together: how far apart the places are, how long the rides really take, and whether a place is open on the day you go.

• Moving city with a full day of sights on top. Tokyo to Kyoto takes about 2 hours 15 minutes on the fastest Nozomi Shinkansen, before checking out, getting to the station and dropping your bags.
• Day trips treated as half days. Hakone, Nikko, Nara, Kamakura or Mount Fuji's lakes are each most of a day once you count the journey both ways.
• Crossing the city back and forth. Asakusa, Shibuya and Odaiba in one day is three separate trips across Tokyo.
• Closed days. Many museums close one weekday: the Tokyo National Museum closes on Mondays (the next day when Monday is a public holiday), and the Ghibli Museum is closed on most Tuesdays.
• Tickets that sell out. Ghibli Museum tickets go on sale on the 10th of the month before your visit; timed-entry sights should be booked before the day is built around them.

How much is too much for one day in Japan?

There is no fixed number of sights. A temple with large grounds, a museum and a shopping street are very different visits, and the ride between them matters as much as the visits themselves. Add up the time inside each place, the door-to-door travel, meals and a rest, and compare it with the hours you actually want to be out.

Arrival and departure days are shorter than they look: an evening arrival at Narita or Haneda leaves little more than getting to the hotel. Days with an early start for a famous shrine or viewpoint are often followed by a slower afternoon, and families and older travellers need more seated breaks than a list of sights suggests.

• Arrival dayWhat to plan around: Airport to hotel, check-in time, a nearby walk at most
• City dayWhat to plan around: Places grouped by area, with lunch and a rest between them
• Day tripWhat to plan around: The journey both ways; the trip is the day
• Changing cityWhat to plan around: Checkout, station, the train, bag drop, then something nearby

What TripRai checks in a Japan itinerary

Paste your plan with one heading per day. TripRai's AI only reads the text into days and places; every hour, distance and finding is then worked out by code. Each place is put on the map from TripRai's checked list of Japan's sights, and otherwise from its open map of Japan built from OpenStreetMap, Overture Maps and Wikidata (564,704 places). Where a name fits more than one place, such as two temples of the same name, you are asked which one you meant.

For each day the checker adds up visits and rides against your pace, flags places far from the day's city, backtracking, too much on a day you change city, places planned twice and too many hotel changes. With dates, it checks the weekdays a place is closed where TripRai's checked list knows them, and the season's weather.

It also says what it could not check: places it could not find, positions that are only estimated, and missing dates are listed, never counted as fine. Distances and ride times are estimates, not live timetables.

Before you book

Use the check as a second opinion, then confirm what matters most with the source: train times with the operator, opening days and holiday closures with each attraction, and ticket release dates for anything timed.

• Give every day a full date, including the year.
• Mark bookings and fixed times so they are not moved.
• Keep one flexible block on long days, and make optional stops clearly optional.
• Re-check the trip after any change to the order or the hotels.

Questions