Kyūshū itinerary: how many days and in what order?

Allow twelve days to cross Kyūshū from Fukuoka to Kagoshima, and twenty-five to see everything. The order that works starts in the north: Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Mount Aso, Beppu, Takachiho, the Miyazaki coast, then Kagoshima. It is done by car, preferably in April, May, October or November, and Yakushima needs three more nights.

Fukuoka is two hours by plane or five hours by shinkansen from Tokyo, and one hour by shinkansen from Hiroshima, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. Its airport is two metro stops from the center.

What to see in Kyūshū: volcanoes, baths, Nagasaki and the south

The island reads as five groups, from north to south.

• Fukuoka and its region: the yatai of Nakasu, street counters set up every evening, the Dazaifu shrine whose main hall is under renovation until 2027, the canals of Yanagawa and the porcelain of Arita.
• Nagasaki: the Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Museum, Glover Garden, Dejima, Chinatown, and the abandoned island of Hashima offshore.
• The volcanic center: the fumaroles of Unzen, Kumamoto Castle, under restoration since the 2016 earthquake, the Aso caldera, twenty-five kilometers from north to south, and the Mount Kujū trail.
• The spa towns: Kurokawa Onsen and its riverside baths, Beppu and its hells, boiling pools that you look at without bathing in them, Yufuin at the foot of Mount Yufu.
• The south of myths and fire: the Takachiho gorge by rowing boat, the Nichinan coast, the Udo shrine in its sea cave, the Ebino plateau and Sakurajima, facing Kagoshima.

How many days should you allow in Kyūshū?

Distances are the real issue: our itinerary counts an hour and a half to three hours of driving between two stops.

Length	What you cover	What you leave out
7 days	One half of the island: Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Aso, or else Aso, Beppu, Takachiho and Kagoshima	The other half
12 days	The full crossing, from Fukuoka to Kagoshima	Hashima, Amakusa, Yanagawa, the Ebino plateau
25 days	The whole island, with 56 places and twelve addresses	Nothing important
3 more nights	Yakushima, off Kagoshima

Our Kyūshū itinerary lasts twenty-five days because it takes the detours: Hashima, the Amakusa islands, three nights in the Aso caldera. With two or three weeks of vacation, twelve days are more realistic.

In what order to visit Kyūshū: a 12-day route

This route is a suggestion, condensed from our travel book. Étaperia does not sell a twelve-day Kyūshū tour: the detail of the places and the accommodation is in the twenty-five-day itinerary.

Day	Stage	Night in
1	Arrival in Fukuoka, Hakata and the yatai	Fukuoka
2	Castle ruins, Ōhori Park, Dazaifu	Fukuoka
3	Drive via Yoshinogari and Arita	Nagasaki
4	Peace Park, museum, Glover Garden, Dejima	Nagasaki
5	Unzen, Shimabara Castle, ferry	Kumamoto
6	Kumamoto Castle and Suizenji garden	Kumamoto
7	Nakadake crater and Aso caldera	Aso
8	Kujū mountains and Kurokawa Onsen	Kurokawa
9	Hells of Beppu, then Yufuin	Yufuin
10	Takachiho gorge and shrines	Takachiho
11	Aoshima, Nichinan coast, Udo	Kagoshima
12	Sakurajima and the Sengan-en garden	Kagoshima

Three days are busy: Nagasaki, Beppu with Yufuin, and the Miyazaki coast. If you have one more day, give it to Nagasaki.

You arrive via Fukuoka, where Hakata station is the terminus of the shinkansen from Tokyo and Osaka, and you finish in Kagoshima, from where the boats and planes leave for Yakushima as well as the flights to Tokyo, two hours away.

Watch out: Three sites depend on a volcanic alert level that is reassessed continuously: the Nakadake crater at Aso, the Ebino plateau and Sakurajima. Closures are frequent, decided on the day itself and unrelated to the weather. At Aso, the fallback is the Kusasenrigahama grassland and the Volcano Museum, which broadcasts live images of the crater.

Kyūshū with or without a car?

With one, if you want the volcanoes and the hot spring villages. Our itinerary links all the sites by rental car, and two crossings take the vehicle on board: the ferry from Shimabara to Kumamoto, one hour, and the Sakurajima ferry, fifteen minutes.

Watch out: Check that your rental contract allows the car to be taken on a ferry, as several Japanese rental companies exclude it or require prior notice. And bring the driving document Japan accepts for your license: a 1949 Geneva-format International Driving Permit for a US, UK, Canadian or Australian license, among others; an official Japanese translation for a French, German, Swiss or Belgian one. The details are in renting a car in Japan.

Without a car, stay on the rail axis. The JR Kyushu Rail Pass includes the shinkansen from Hakata to Kagoshima-chūō and the one that arrives in Nagasaki. At the time of writing, in October 2026, JR Kyushu lists these adult prices:

Pass	Area	Price
All Kyushu	The whole island	¥22,000 for 3 days, ¥24,000 for 5 days, ¥26,000 for 7 days
Northern Kyushu	Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Ōita	¥15,000 for 3 days, ¥17,000 for 5 days
Southern Kyushu	Kumamoto, Ōita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima	¥12,000 for 3 days

Check these prices again on the JR Kyushu website before you buy. A trip by train concentrates on the cities and gives up part of the mountains. To compare, see JR Pass or regional passes.

When to go to Kyūshū: spring or autumn

• April and May: the azaleas of Aso, Unzen and Ebino.
• October and November: the maples and the seas of clouds from Daikanbō, above Aso, and from the Kunimigaoka viewpoint, in Takachiho.
• June and July: rainy season, a pronounced one.
• August and September: to avoid. Kyūshū is the region of Japan most exposed to typhoons, with roads cut and ferries and flights canceled.

The calendar for the other regions is in when to go to Japan.

Adding Yakushima: three nights off Kagoshima

Yakushima is a granite island covered in thousand-year-old cedars, whose summits exceed 1,900 meters (6,250 ft). From Kagoshima, the national tourism organization counts two and a half hours by high-speed boat, four hours by regular ferry or forty minutes by plane.

Allow three nights. The Jōmon-sugi trek takes a whole day, about ten hours, with a compulsory shuttle whose ticket is bought the day before. The moss forest of Shiratani Unsuikyō takes another. In the event of a typhoon, the island’s flights are the first to be canceled: do not schedule an international flight right behind them. The safest months are April, May and November. Our Yakushima and Okinawa itinerary details these three nights.

What to book and what it costs on the spot

Prices from our travel book, at the time of writing in October 2026, to be checked again on the official websites.

• Rowing boat in the Takachiho gorge: ¥4,100 to ¥5,100 for thirty minutes, three people at most. Online booking only, open from two weeks to two days before the date.
• Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum: ¥200. Come before 9:00, as school groups arrive at around 10:00.
• Meals: ¥800 to ¥1,500 at lunchtime, ¥2,000 to ¥3,500 in the evening.

Tip: In Takachiho, sleep in the village. The shrine presents an excerpt of kagura, the ritual dance, every evening, and the region has no night-time transport.

The full list of bookings for the country is in what to book in advance in Japan.

So, which Kyūshū itinerary and how many days?

• One week: choose one half of the island, the north with Nagasaki or the south with Kagoshima, without trying to link everything.
• Twelve days: the crossing from Fukuoka to Kagoshima, by car, in spring or autumn. This is the right format.
• Fifteen days: the same crossing, plus three nights on Yakushima.
• Twenty-five days: the whole island, with our day-by-day Kyūshū itinerary.

And if Kyūshū is only one chapter of a longer trip, it closes our 86-day route through western Japan. All the regions are on the Japan page.