GuardTrails
The region in a few lines
The itinerary covers the heart of Honshu, Japan's main island: the Kanto around Tokyo, the Chubu and its Japanese Alps, and the Kansai around Kyoto, Nara and Osaka. You arrive in Tokyo and leave from Osaka.
The landscape changes fast. A few hours from the big cities lie the high valleys of Kamikochi and Tateyama, then, in the south of the Kii Peninsula, the pilgrimage trails of the Kumano Kodo. Kamikochi cannot be reached by car, only by shuttle. You sleep in hotels or ryokans in town, in guesthouses or huts in the mountains, and in a temple at Koyasan.
What the season does
July is hot and humid in the lowlands: around 35 °C in the afternoon in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. The itinerary says so: the heat makes walking in town hard going, and June would be easier. At altitude, it is much cooler.
Rain follows the relief. The Kansai cities are the driest stages; Nikko and the Alpine valleys are the wettest, with afternoon thunderstorms on the Tateyama ridges. In the south, August typhoons can close trails on the Kumano Kodo.
Ground reality and weather. At Nikko, the wettest stage, the classic route keeps the Senjogahara marsh walk for a dry day and plans the Toshogu shrine as a fallback.
Four weeks, what they allow
Four weeks are enough to cross the centre of the country without rushing: about 2,000 km of road, a little more for the offbeat route, and thirteen or fourteen places to sleep. You often stay two or three nights in the same place.
Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and Okinawa are in none of the routes. In the centre, each one then leaves out something else: Shirakawa-go, or Hakone and the great temples of Kyoto.
Three places in the itinerary set the tone. At Kamikochi, you walk from Taisho Pond to Kappa Bridge along the Azusa River. At Koyasan, you sleep in a temple, attend the morning prayer and cross Okunoin cemetery at nightfall. On the Kumano Kodo, a paved path, the Daimon-zaka, climbs to Nachi Falls.
Three ways to fill these four weeks
The classic. It strings together the big names: Nikko, Hakone, Mount Fuji, Kamikochi, Takayama, Shirakawa-go, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Nara, Koyasan, the Kumano Kodo. It includes more cities than the request planned for and stays on the busiest paths.
According to the request. It follows the request of an active family: kayaking on Lake Chuzenji, the Tateyama ridge, the old Nakasendo road between Magome and Tsumago, snorkelling at Kushimoto. It gives up Shirakawa-go, which the itinerary did not keep.
The offbeat. It goes through the Okutama caves, the sacred forest of Togakushi, the Noto coast and its terraced rice fields, the Tojinbo cliffs, Awaji Island. It gives up the great temples of Kyoto and Hakone, and drives more than the trip's length easily absorbs.
Going further
The three itineraries, with map, day by day and weather for each stage, are on the itinerary: three calculated routes. To leave on other dates or at another pace, have your itinerary reviewed for free or join early access. If you build this kind of trip for clients, the page for agencies describes the feasibility check tool.
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How this page is made
The figures and places come from a calculated itinerary, not from a trip we lived. Driving times are calculated on the OpenStreetMap road network, July climate is that of the last five years (historical weather data from Open-Meteo), and the places are those of the itinerary. Sources and their limits are detailed on Our sources and tools.
What we have not checked: the timetables of shuttles, trains and mountain cable cars, availability, crowds and trail conditions. A point looks wrong or incomplete to you? Write to us, corrections are published.