Japan Itinerary: 14 Days in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka

Two weeks is the sweet spot for Japan. Ten days means rushing, three weeks means most people run out of vacation days, and 14 gives you Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka with enough slack for day trips and one slow morning where you do nothing but drink coffee and watch a train station.

This 14-day Japan itinerary covers Tokyo for six nights with trips to Kamakura, Nikko and Hakone, then Kyoto for four nights with Nara, then Osaka for three. It follows the standard route for a first visit because the standard route is genuinely the best one, and it assumes you fly into Tokyo and out of Osaka so you never retrace your steps.

Tokyo at Night

What this 14-day Japan itinerary covers

• Days 1 to 6: Tokyo, plus day trips to Kamakura, Nikko, and Mount Fuji with Hakone

• Days 7 to 10: Kyoto, plus a day in Nara

• Days 11 to 14: Osaka and departure

Budget roughly ¥350,000 to ¥500,000 per person for two weeks including flights from North America or Europe, or ¥180,000 to ¥280,000 on the ground. More on costs at the end.

Week 1: Tokyo and its day trips

Day 1: Arrival in Tokyo

Land at Narita or Haneda and get to your hotel before you do anything else. From Narita, the Skyliner reaches Ueno in 41 minutes for about ¥2,570, or the Narita Express runs to Shinjuku in roughly 80 minutes. From Haneda, the Keikyu line to Shinagawa takes 13 minutes for ¥330.

Stay in Shinjuku or Tokyo Station if this is your first trip. Both put you on the Yamanote Line loop with fast access to the Shinkansen when you leave.

Pick up an IC card at the station, either a Suica or a Pasmo, or the Welcome Suica if you want a tourist version with no deposit and 28 days of validity. It works on every train, bus and convenience store in the country.

For the evening, stay close. Walk the Omoide Yokocho alleys behind Shinjuku Station for yakitori, or eat in your neighborhood and sleep early. Jet lag is a real constraint on day one and pretending otherwise ruins day two.

Day 2: Tokyo's landmarks

Start at Tokyo Tower before the queues. The main deck at 150 meters costs ¥1,500 for adults, and the Top Deck tour at 250 meters starts at ¥3,300 booked online. Tokyo Skytree is taller and further out, so pick one, not both.

Then head northeast to Asakusa. Sensoji, Tokyo's oldest temple, was founded in 645 and rebuilt after the war. The grounds are free and open around the clock, though the main hall keeps shorter hours. Nakamise-dori, the shopping street leading up to it, is busiest between 10:00 and 15:00.

In the afternoon, cross the city to the Meiji shrine grounds, the shrine to Emperor Meiji set inside a planted forest of 100,000 trees. Entry is free, and the gravel approach from Harajuku Station takes about ten minutes at a slow walk.

Day 3: Tokyo neighborhoods

Osaka

Give a full day to the western side of the Yamanote Line, where Tokyo changes character every few stops.

Start at Shibuya's scramble crossing, best viewed from the second floor of the station building or the Shibuya Sky deck at 229 meters. Shibuya Sky costs ¥2,700 online before 15:00 and ¥3,400 after, and the rooftop bans bags and hats.

Walk north to Harajuku. Takeshita Street is the teenage fashion strip and is genuinely crowded, while Cat Street and the Omotesando boulevard a block away are calmer and better for shopping.

Finish in Shinjuku for the evening. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building has a free observation deck open until 22:00, Golden Gai holds around 200 tiny bars in six alleys, and Kabukicho is the neon district everybody photographs.

Day 4: Day trip to Kamakura

Nikko

Kamakura is an hour from Tokyo Station on the Yokosuka Line and was Japan's capital from 1185 to 1333. The Great Buddha at Kotoku-in has sat outdoors since a tsunami took its hall in 1498, and entry is ¥300 with another ¥50 to step inside the bronze.

Hase-dera nearby has a hillside of hydrangeas in June and a sea view from its upper terrace. Komachi-dori, the main shopping street, is the place for lunch and for shirasu, the whitebait the town is known for.

If you would rather hike, the Daibutsu trail links the temples over a wooded ridge in about 90 minutes.

Day 5: Day trip to Nikko

Temple in Kansai

Nikko is two hours north by Tobu limited express from Asakusa. Toshogu, the shrine complex where Tokugawa Ieyasu is buried, is the most heavily decorated religious site in Japan, covered in carvings of animals and painted in colors that have nothing to do with the restraint people associate with Japanese architecture.

Admission is ¥1,600 for the shrine, ¥1,000 for the museum, or ¥2,400 for both, and the gates open at 9:00.

With a full day you can add Lake Chuzenji and Kegon Falls, a 97-meter drop reached by an elevator to a viewing platform. The Irohazaka switchback road up to them is one of the best fall color drives in the country, and also one of the most congested in late October.

Day 6: Mount Fuji and Hakone

Mount Fuji

The Hakone Freepass is the tool for this day in the Hakone caldera. From Shinjuku it costs ¥7,100 for adults and ¥1,600 for children for two days, covering the Odakyu line out and back plus the mountain railway, cable car, ropeway and lake cruise. The Romancecar seat reservation is extra.

The standard loop runs train to Gora, cable car up to Sounzan, then the ropeway over Owakudani, a sulfur valley that still vents steam, where they sell eggs boiled black in the hot springs. From there a pirate ship crosses Lake Ashi to Moto-Hakone, and a bus brings you back around.

Fuji itself is visible on maybe half the days in summer and far more often from November to February. If you want to get close, the Subaru Line reaches the Fifth Station at 2,300 meters on the north side, though climbing to the summit is only possible from early July to early September and now carries a ¥4,000 fee per climber.

End the day in an onsen in Hakone. Staying overnight in a ryokan here instead of returning to Tokyo is the single best upgrade to this itinerary if the budget allows, in which case use the second day of the Freepass to reach Odawara and take the Shinkansen straight on to Kyoto.

Week 2: Kyoto, Nara and Osaka

Day 7: Travel to Kyoto

The Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, the old capital takes 2 hours 15 minutes on a Nozomi or about 2 hours 40 on a Hikari, and costs around ¥14,000 unreserved. Japan Rail Pass holders must take the Hikari, since Nozomi requires a supplement.

Drop bags and start with the east side. Kiyomizu-dera's wooden stage, rebuilt in 1633 without nails, charges ¥500 and stays open into the evening during seasonal illuminations. The lanes below it, Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka, are the postcard streets of Kyoto and are best walked before 9:00 or after 17:00.

For dinner, Pontocho alley runs one narrow block between the Kamo River and Kiyamachi, lined with restaurants that put terraces over the water from May through September.

Day 8: Kyoto's landmarks

Kinkakuji

Be at Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion when it opens at 9:00. Admission is ¥500, the route through the garden is one-way, and the whole visit takes 30 minutes. The current building dates from 1955, after a novice monk burned the original in 1950.

In the late morning, take the JR Nara Line two stops to the torii gates at Fushimi Inari. Around 10,000 vermilion torii gates run up the mountainside, donated by businesses whose names are painted on the back of each one. It is free and never closes. Twenty minutes of climbing past the Yotsutsuji viewpoint loses 90 percent of the crowd.

Spend the late afternoon in Arashiyama, or book a tea ceremony, which usually runs 45 to 60 minutes for ¥3,000 to ¥6,000 and is a good use of a tired afternoon.

Day 9: Gion and Higashiyama

Walk Gion in the morning, when Hanamikoji-dori is quiet and the teahouses have their lanterns down. Photography is banned on the private lanes off the main street, with fines posted, and geiko and maiko heading to work are not street performers.

Spend the afternoon working north through Higashiyama. Kodai-ji, Yasaka Shrine, Chion-in with its enormous gate, and Nanzen-ji with a brick aqueduct running through the grounds are all within a slow walk of each other. The Philosopher's Path continues from there to Ginkaku-ji along a canal lined with cherry trees.

Kyoto rewards slowness more than any other city on this list. If you only have energy for two sites in a day, take the two.

Day 10: Day trip to Nara

Nara Deer

Nara is 45 minutes from Kyoto on the Kintetsu limited express and was Japan's capital from 710 to 784, which is why so much of the oldest architecture is here rather than in Kyoto.

Todai-ji holds a 15-meter bronze Buddha cast in 752 inside one of the largest wooden buildings in the world, and the current hall is only two thirds the width of the original. Admission is ¥800 for adults and ¥400 for children.

Around 1,200 wild sika deer roam Nara Park. Vendors sell crackers for ¥200, the deer bow for them, and they will follow you aggressively once the packet is open. They are wild animals, not pets.

Finish at Kasuga Taisha, approached through a forest lined with around 2,000 stone lanterns, all of them lit twice a year in February and August.

Day 11: Travel to Osaka

Osaka Castle

Osaka is 15 minutes from Kyoto by Shinkansen or about 30 on the JR Special Rapid for ¥580, so move in the morning and keep the day.

Osaka Castle is a 1931 concrete reconstruction with an elevator and a museum inside, and admission rose to ¥1,200 for adults in April 2025. The surrounding park is free and holds about 3,000 cherry trees.

In the afternoon, head to the Umeda Sky Building, two towers joined at the top by a floating observatory reached by an escalator through open air. Entry is around ¥2,000, and it is better at sunset than at noon.

Umeda Sky Building

Day 12: Osaka's landmarks and Dotonbori

Shitenno-ji, founded in 593, is the oldest officially administered temple in Japan. The grounds are free, with a small charge for the inner precinct and treasure house. Shitenno-ji sits a short walk from Tennoji Station, which also gives you Abeno Harukas, the tallest building in Japan at 300 meters.

Spend the evening in Dotonbori. The canal, the running Glico man sign and the mechanical crab above Kani Doraku are the images everyone brings home. Eat takoyaki from a stall, okonomiyaki sitting down, and kushikatsu somewhere with a no-double-dipping sign.

Day 13: Shinsekai and the last full day

Shinsekai was built in 1912 as a vision of the future, modeled half on Paris and half on Coney Island, and then left largely alone for a century. Tsutenkaku tower stands in the middle, and the streets around it are the cheapest place to eat well in the city.

Use the rest of the day for whatever you have been putting off. Common choices are Kuromon market for seafood breakfast, the Kaiyukan aquarium, Universal Studios Japan as a full day on its own, or a half day back in Kyoto for the one temple you missed.

Day 14: Departure

Kansai International is 50 minutes from Namba on the Nankai Rapi:t for ¥1,490, or about 70 minutes from Osaka Station on the JR Haruka. Allow three hours for an international departure.

If you have a morning, Shinsaibashi for shopping or a last bowl of ramen near the station both work. From November 1, 2026, tax-free shopping switches to a refund model where you pay the full price at the register and claim the tax back at an airport kiosk, so leave extra time at the airport and keep your receipts.

A View of the "Minato Mirai 21" Area with "Marine Rouge," a Restaurant Ship, in the Port

Planning your trip

Is two weeks enough for Japan?

Yes, for the main route. Fourteen days gives you three cities properly, three or four day trips, and time to sit still. It is not enough to add Hiroshima, Kanazawa and Hokkaido without the trip becoming a series of train rides.

If you want more than the Golden Route, cut Osaka to one night and use the time for Hiroshima and Miyajima, or swap Nikko for Kanazawa.

Do you need a Japan Rail Pass?

For this itinerary, probably not. The 14-day ordinary pass costs ¥84,000 from October 1, 2026, and the trips it would cover here, Tokyo to Kyoto to Osaka plus day trips, come to roughly ¥25,000 to ¥35,000 booked individually.

A pass pays off when you cover long distances, for example adding Hiroshima and returning to Tokyo. Otherwise buy point-to-point tickets and pick up regional passes like the Hakone Freepass or the Kansai Thru Pass.

When to visit Japan

Late March to mid-April brings cherry blossoms and the heaviest crowds and prices. Late October to early December gives fall color, comfortable temperatures and slightly thinner crowds, and is the better choice for most people.

June is the rainy season, July and August are humid and heavy at 35 degrees Celsius with high humidity, and January and February are cold, clear and cheap, with the best odds of seeing Fuji.

Avoid Golden Week from late April to early May, Obon in mid-August and the New Year period, when domestic travel prices spike and everything books out.

Budgeting for two weeks in Japan

• Accommodation: ¥8,000 to ¥20,000 a night for a business or mid-range hotel, ¥25,000 and up per person for a ryokan with meals

• Food: ¥4,000 to ¥8,000 a day eating well without fine dining

• Transport: ¥30,000 to ¥40,000 for this route including local trains

• Attractions: ¥1,500 to ¥3,000 on an active day

That comes to roughly ¥180,000 to ¥280,000 per person on the ground for 14 days, before flights. Japan is cheaper than most travelers expect once they are in the country, and convenience store food is genuinely good, which keeps daily costs down.

Saiko Iyashi-no-Sato Nemba

Internet and cash

Get an eSIM before you fly or rent a pocket wifi at the airport. Free wifi exists but is inconsistent outside major stations.

Cards are accepted almost everywhere in cities now, but carry ¥10,000 to ¥20,000 in cash for small restaurants, shrines, markets and rural buses. Seven Bank ATMs in convenience stores accept foreign cards around the clock.

Making this itinerary your own

This route is the default for a reason, but it is not the only one. This 14-day Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto and Osaka plan builds a ryokan night into the middle of the trip, which is the version most people wish they had done.

Browse more Japan itineraries if you want a version weighted toward food, hiking, anime or a slower pace with fewer cities.

Whatever you choose, build in one unplanned day per week. The best parts of most Japan trips happen in the gaps, in a neighborhood you wandered into, or on a train you took because the name sounded interesting.