How to improve this 5 days Kyoto itirenary? (Mid November)

5 comments

1. Yes, there are days that are very packed. This is not on you alone – but every time I see a morning/afternoon/evening style itinerary on here, there seems to be no conceptualization of long that actually is.

   There’s no way you’re going to see all of Arashiyama in a “morning” as you have outlined here. A morning is 3-4 hours at most (8am – 12pm for the average tourist, which includes transit time and meal breaks).

   It’s good you’ve clustered these places by area but I’d take another crack at some of this – put a time estimate against how long you intend to spend at each of these places and look up commute times in between for a more realistic itinerary.

   A tip for autumn is to look up the local forecast on the day and see which temple is in peak foliage color – leave some flexibility in your itinerary for this.

2. I would suggest mapping your days, I like to use an app called Wanderlog because it shows it visually very well. Gion is near nishiki market, I typically do those in the same day, though I usually go to nishiki market atleast twice 😂 I also find a lot of temples are very similar, you have quite a few on your list, I’d take some time looking through them on google, look at pictures, see reviews, I’d scratch a few off of the list. I really liked Fushimi inari but it is extremely crowded, maybe later in the day is less crowded, but every time I have gone (3 times) it has been too crowded to stay very long, maybe 30 minutes. I think you have some great options on there, but definitely make sure you are going to the spots that are close together on the same day to save time. I also recently booked a non verbal show through GEAR in Kyoto, I’m really excited about that, we booked a photoshoot and a day tour in Kyoto last year and those were highlights, the tour guide brought us through Arashiyama and we did a bunch of things I wouldn’t have thought to do, and we went to a different bamboo forest that was WAY less crowded. the time before that we did a cooking class in Kyoto. I’d say night life is pretty limited in Kyoto so we didn’t go out much in the evening. Good luck!

3. >Am I hitting good spots for foliage, or should I swap/add something?

   You can check the autumn foliage [forecast](https://s.n-kishou.co.jp/w/sp/koyo/koyo_yosou_spot?ba=26) and plan your visits according to it. As per the current forecast, the earliest autumn foliage will be around November 17th at Kuwayama Shrine.

4. this plan is insane. if you make it happen like this, you’ll have been there. and not much more.

5. you cannot enter the nintendo HQ…you can onIy stand across the street and take photos from outside 

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