Intensive
Japan's Greatest Hits
Greatest hits, no padding, mostly trains.
- First visit
- Base cities: Tokyo · Kyoto · Osaka
- culture
- food
- urban
- history
Itinerary
The Nakasendo on Foot
- 8 nights
- Medium pace
- Interest-led
Medium pace
The Nakasendo was one of the Edo-era highways between Tokyo and Kyoto, and a stretch of it through the Kiso valley survives as walkable post towns. Base in Matsumoto for its black castle, then walk the old road between Tsumago and Magome, sleeping in wooden inns where the highway porters once stopped.
Walk the old Edo highway between Kiso valley post towns, sleeping in wooden inns.
Trip facts
- Length8 nights
- PaceMedium
- Designed forInterest-led
- GatewaysIn via Tokyo, out via Nagoya
The route, city by city
Where you sleep and what each base is for. Load it into the planner to reshape the cities, dates, and day-by-day plan.
- Day 1Arrive
- Day 2Explore
The world's largest city and Japan's beating heart - an overwhelming, endlessly layered metropolis where every kind of Japan coexists.
- Day 3Travel in
- Day 4Day trip: Narai
Home to Japan's most beautiful original castle - the black and white Crow Castle - at the gateway to the Northern Alps.
Japan's most perfectly preserved post-town - a 1km street of 17th-century wooden inns where almost nothing has changed in 300 years.
- Day 5Travel in
- Day 6Day trip: Magome
Japan's first Heritage Preservation District - a perfectly intact Edo-era post-town on the Nakasendo highway in a cedar forest valley.
A cobblestoned Nakasendo post-town on a hillside in the Kiso mountains, birthplace of novelist Shimazaki Toson.
- Day 7Travel in
- Day 8Depart
Japan's fourth-largest city, a manufacturing powerhouse with a magnificent castle, unique food culture, and the Toyota Museum.
Your JP Adventure
Plan a trip to Tokyo
Turn this into a day-by-day route. Tabi-Kun shapes a personalised Tokyo itinerary around your dates, pace, and interests, free to start.
Plan a trip to Tokyo →Make this trip yours
This itinerary is a starting point, not a final answer. Load it and the planner lets you change the cities, the dates, the pace, and the day-by-day plan before you generate your route.
Plan smarter
Free tools to pressure-test this trip before you book.