How many days in Japan? The real length, region by region

How many days in Japan? Allow two weeks to see one region properly, not the whole country. That is the length we settle on for Hokkaidō, for Kyoto, for the Kansai or for the San’in coast. Tokyo and its surroundings need fifteen. And the whole country does not fit into a single trip: it takes two, each under ninety days, for an administrative reason as much as a geographical one.

These figures are not an average. They are the lengths of the sixteen Japan itineraries we have sequenced day by day, with their hotels and their journeys.

How many days to plan in Japan, region by region

The table below gives, for each major region, the length we recommend, and what it lets you see with no empty day and no rushing.

Region	Recommended length	What the length allows
Tokyo and the Kantō	15 days, including 10 in Tokyo	Tokyo district by district from three hotels, Kawagoe, Sawara, Narita
Kyoto	14 days	A single base, the central temples, Arashiyama, Katsura, Kurama, Ōhara, Uji
Western Kansai	14 days	Osaka (5 days), Kobe, Himeji, a night on Mount Kōya, Kumano, Lake Biwa
Nara and Yoshino	6 days	Nara, the cherry trees of Yoshino, Asuka, the Yamanobe trail
Nagoya, Fuji and Hakone	14 days	Nagoya, the Fuji Five Lakes, Hakone, Kamakura, Yokohama
Nikkō, the Alps and Hokuriku	17 days	Nikkō, Matsumoto, Kamikōchi, the Alpine Route, Kanazawa, Shirakawa-gō, Takayama
Hokkaidō	14 days, or 18 with the far north	From Sapporo to Hakodate, Shiretoko and the lakes of the east
Tōhoku	17 days	Hirosaki, Hiraizumi, Ginzan Onsen, Yamadera, Matsushima, Aizu
San’in and Setouchi	15 days	Kinosaki, Tottori, Izumo, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Onomichi
Shikoku	12 days	Dōgo Onsen, Cape Ashizuri, the Iya valley, Naoshima and Teshima
Kyūshū	25 days	Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Aso, Beppu, Takachiho, Kagoshima and Sakurajima
Yakushima and Okinawa	7 days	Three days of forest on Yakushima, three in Naha and Motobu

Two things stand out. First, almost every region weighs in at between twelve and seventeen days. Second, the exceptions are rare: Kyūshū, which needs twenty-five days to link Nagasaki, Aso, Beppu and Kagoshima, and at the other end Nara with Yoshino, which fit into six, and the subtropical south of Yakushima and Okinawa, which fits into seven.

First trip to Japan: why two weeks, not one

The temptation on a first trip is to do Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima in ten days. On paper, the shinkansen makes it possible.

Watch out: in practice, every change of city costs half a day: suitcase, station, hotel check-in.

The pace of our itineraries serves as a benchmark: three to four places a day on average, a little more in cities, a little less as soon as the road gets longer. Four cities in ten days means two and a half days per city, half of it spent in transit. You see the façades, not the neighborhoods.

Two weeks in a single region turn that calculation around. In Kyoto, keep fourteen nights in the same accommodation: you never repack your suitcase, and every morning sets off straight for a different district. Just allow for weariness, which sets in around the eighth day. The outings beyond the center, Kurama, Ōhara, Takao, are there for that too.

Tokyo: fifteen days, ten of them in the city

Tokyo is not one city, it is some twenty districts that look nothing alike. Allow ten days for the city alone, spread across three successive hotels, in Asakusa, Shinjuku and Shibuya, so you never cross the whole city morning and evening. The other five days go to what surrounds it: Kawagoe, Sawara, Sakura, Narita and Cape Inubō, then two full days at the two Disney parks on the bay.

Even at this pace, these fifteen days leave only one lighter day, the only breather in those fifteen days. If you only have one week in Japan, Tokyo alone will fill it.

Hokkaidō: fourteen days, or eighteen

The northern island cannot be done by train: a car is essential there. Fourteen days are enough to cross it from Sapporo to Hakodate, eighteen to go further up to Cape Sōya and climb Rishiri-Fuji. We went into this choice in detail in how many days do you need for Hokkaidō.

Seeing all of Japan: two trips, not one

The twelve regions in the table, laid end to end, come to 174 days. No visa-free stay lets you string them together in one go: it is limited to ninety days, and as a rule this exemption cannot be extended from within Japan.

That is what splits our two complete itineraries:

• Japan from north to south in 88 days, from Hokkaidō to Okinawa via Tōhoku, the Alps, Fuji and Tokyo. Two days of margin below the ceiling, no more: the return flight on the last day closes the stay;
• western Japan and the islands in 86 days, from Osaka to Kagoshima via Kyoto, Nara, the San’in coast, Shikoku and Kyūshū. Four days of margin, plus one day deliberately left empty before departure, to make up for an excursion canceled by a typhoon, the sea or a volcanic alert.

There is nothing editorial about this split. It is dictated by the ninety-day rule.

Watch out: check this ninety-day rule before each departure with the Japanese embassy in your country: it can change.

Japan in a week or in 10 days: pick a single region

If you have seven to ten days, the most honest choice is a single region rather than skimming over four: Tokyo and its surroundings, or Kyoto with a day in Nara, or the subtropical south of Yakushima and Okinawa. You will come home with one place understood rather than a list of stations.

We do not sell a ten-day itinerary that crosses the country, and that is not an oversight: it is the length at which you would have to cut into every city.

So, how many days in Japan?

• One week: one city and its surroundings, Tokyo or Kyoto.
• Two weeks: a whole region, without rushing. That is the length of our two short routes, Hokkaidō from Sapporo to Hakodate and the San’in coast and Shikoku.
• One month: two neighboring regions, for example Kyoto and the Kansai, or Tokyo and Fuji.
• Three months: half the country, within the visa limit. That is Japan from north to south in 88 days or western Japan and the islands in 86 days.

Every region in the table also exists as a separate itinerary, with its named hotels and the tickets to book flagged. They are all on the Japan page.

For a first trip, our two-week Japan itinerary puts these durations into practice, and what to see in Japan compares the regions one by one. The Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto route also works in twelve days, without a car: that is our travel book for a first trip.