Dear fellow travellers, We are currently planning out our first trip to Japan in October and starting to get a bit overwhelmed, hence, decided to post some questions we had.
Some context: we are planning to do early-mid October and travel for ~11 nights. Nothing is booked yet, but we are restricted on duration as well as the possible dates due to our careers. We are also highly unlikely to do another trip in the foreseeable future, again due to challenging careers.
We plan to start in Osaka, base ourselves there for 3-4 nights and cover Kyoto while being there. Next, 2 nights in Kanazawa, followed by the the remaining 5-6 nights in Tokyo. Flying back from NRT. One of the Tokyo days will be dedicated to a Fuji day trip.
We have a rough idea on things we want to do in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo. Kanazama, we thought would be a nice addition, but hasn't figured out full details on what to do.
So my questions to the nice folks here:
1) Is Kanazawa a good idea? Am I duplicating experiences that I can have in Kyoto, considering the amount of time I have?
2) For Fuji, I am currently considering Five lakes. Is this practical to do in a day trip (especially considering this will be in latter part of my trip)?
3) Although we didn't plan for this before, we are now excited about the autumn foliage (we don't get seasons in our part of the world). However, we are realizing the timing may be too early for this, and therefore now looking for options to fit in Alps where the fall colors will be available in early Oct, hopefully). Willing to sacrifice a day from Tokyo or Kanazawa for it. Is this something we can do (and we can afford to so with timing), and if so, any suggestions would be most welcome!
Thank you very much in advance. Having spent a few weeks reading up posts here, I'm quite jealous of all repeat travellers here 🙂 Maybe one day…
by _pasan_