The two seasons people plan whole trips around, and the two that punish a fixed itinerary. This route runs Tokyo first and Kyoto second, keeps the middle days flexible, and has a north and a south to move to — so that when the blossom or the colour arrives early or late, one city is at peak while you are in it.
Every year travellers book “cherry blossom in Japan” on the dates a forum called safe, and arrive to bare branches or petals on the ground. The bloom lasts a week in any one place, the forecast moves until the day it starts, and Tokyo and Kyoto do not peak together. Autumn colour is kinder — three weeks rather than one, and more predictable — but Kyoto’s peak still lands anywhere between 15 November and 3 December. This itinerary is our answer, built over many seasons: the Golden Route in the order that gives two chances at peak, the middle days on flexible bookings, the famous gardens at opening, and a plan for what to do if the season has already gone. It is the same eleven-day bones as our Classic Japan route, re-engineered for a moving target.
Why this route
Because a fixed-date sakura trip is a coin toss and a hedged one is not. Tokyo peaks three to seven days before Kyoto; travel in that order with the middle moveable and you are rarely shut out of both. Hakone sits between them in timing as well as geography. Yoshino, Ohara, Kawaguchiko and Nikko are the moveable days that go where the forecast says. And if the whole season has run early, the Alps and the north are a week and a fortnight behind. None of that is complicated once it is built into the bookings from the start, and it is why the trips we build on this route hit peak in at least one city almost every year. The same logic, reversed, runs the colour version.
At a glance
| Duration | 11 days / 10 nights (extensions to 14–16) |
|---|---|
| Route | Tokyo (3) → Hakone (1) → Kyoto (5) → Osaka (1), with three moveable days |
| Fly | Into Tokyo Haneda, home from Osaka Kansai |
| Seasons | Blossom: departures 25 March–5 April. Colour: departures 12–25 November |
| Pace | Moderate, with early mornings at the famous gardens and the afternoons free |
| Style | Private itinerary; a guided Kyoto morning; hotels fixed at the ends and flexible in the middle |
| Suits | Anyone who wants the season and understands it moves; photographers; couples; repeat visitors who missed it last time |
| Accommodation | City hotels booked nine to twelve months out; one ryokan in Hakone |
| Book by | The previous April–July for blossom; the previous May–July for colour |
| Price | Quoted per departure in AUD; peak-season pricing applies |
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Tokyo
Land in the morning at Haneda and settle into a Shinjuku hotel. In blossom season the first afternoon is Shinjuku Gyoen, across the road, whose 65 cherry varieties mean it is in bloom for three weeks and is the safest single spot in Japan for a fixed-date trip; in colour season it is the Gyoen’s maples and ginkgo or the Meiji Jingu Gaien ginkgo avenue. Early dinner in Omoide Yokocho and an early night, because the famous gardens are at their best at opening and the itinerary starts early every day this week.
Day 2: Tokyo: the famous trees
Blossom: Chidorigafuchi at nine, the Imperial Palace moat with rowboats under the overhanging trees; Ueno Park for the hanami parties; the Meguro River at night with its lanterns. Colour: Rikugien’s illuminated maples, the Koishikawa Korakuen garden, the Icho Namiki ginkgo avenue, and Ueno’s trees. Either way, Asakusa’s Senso-ji is fitted in early and the evening is under the trees.
Day 3: Tokyo, or a day out
Blossom: a day in Kawaguchiko for the Chureito Pagoda — the five-storey pagoda, the cherry trees and Mount Fuji in one frame — if the lake’s bloom has started (it runs a week behind Tokyo); otherwise Kamakura’s temples and the Dankazura cherry avenue. Colour: Nikko, two hours north, whose maples turn a fortnight before Kyoto’s and whose shrines under the cedars are the finest autumn day near the capital. This is the first of the trip’s moveable days.
Day 4: Hakone
Suitcases forwarded to Kyoto. The Romancecar to Hakone and the loop: the mountain railway (cherries along the line in April, maples in November), the ropeway over Owakudani, the lake with Fuji behind it, and the ryokan. Hakone’s blossom is a week behind Tokyo’s and its colour a week ahead of Kyoto’s, which is why it sits in the middle of this route: it catches whichever end the forecast has moved.
Day 5: Hakone to Kyoto
The morning bath, the Open-Air Museum, and the Shinkansen to Kyoto with Fuji in the window. The first Kyoto evening in Gion — in blossom season the weeping cherry at Maruyama Park, illuminated; in colour season the evening illumination at Kodai-ji or Kiyomizu-dera, booked ahead.
Day 6: Kyoto: the eastern hills with a guide
Blossom: the Philosopher’s Path at 7.30 under the canal cherries, Ginkaku-ji, Nanzen-ji’s Keage Incline, then Kiyomizu-dera and Maruyama Park with the guide steering by the crowds. Colour: Tofuku-ji’s bridge over a valley of maples at opening, Eikan-do, Nanzen-ji, the Philosopher’s Path, Kiyomizu. The guide is a licensed Kyoto interpreter-guide and the day is done by two; the evening is Pontocho.
Day 7: Kyoto: Arashiyama and the north
Blossom: the Arashiyama riverbank and the Togetsukyo bridge, the bamboo grove, Tenryu-ji’s garden, and the Hirano Shrine and Ninna-ji’s late Omuro cherries in the north-west. Colour: Arashiyama’s hillside from the bridge, the Sagano scenic railway through the gorge, Jojakko-ji and Gio-ji’s moss under maples, and Kinkaku-ji in the afternoon light. Kaiseki dinner tonight, with a petal or a maple leaf in the clear soup.
Day 8: The moveable day: Yoshino, Ohara or Nara
Blossom: Mount Yoshino, south of Nara, 30,000 trees planted up a mountainside in four tiers that bloom bottom to top over a fortnight — Japan’s most famous sakura landscape, a long day and worth it. Colour: Ohara, in the hills north of Kyoto, for Sanzen-in’s moss and maples, or Kurama and Kibune, or Nara’s deer park under the ginkgo. This is the day we move first if the forecast shifts.
Day 9: Kyoto’s late trees, or Uji
Blossom: the late varieties — Ninna-ji, Heian Shrine’s weeping cherries behind the shrine, the Kamo riverbank north of Demachiyanagi where the city actually picnics. Colour: Uji, twenty minutes south, for Byodo-in’s Phoenix Hall reflected in its pond under maples, and the tea houses. A last Kyoto dinner at a counter.
Day 10: Osaka
Blossom: Osaka Castle park, one of the country’s great sakura spots, and the Mint Bureau’s avenue of 300 late varieties, open one week a year in mid-April and worth timing for. Colour: Minoo Falls, thirty minutes north, a maple gorge with a waterfall at the end and tempura maple leaves sold on the path. The evening in Dotonbori regardless, with a last okonomiyaki and the canal lit.
Day 11: Depart, or go north
The evening flight home from Kansai. Or, if the forecast has beaten you or you simply want more, the extension: Kanazawa and the Alps, a week behind Kyoto in blossom and a week ahead in colour, on our Japanese Alps route, or Sendai and Hirosaki two weeks behind in April, or Hokkaido a month behind in May. The bloom moves north over five weeks; a traveller who moves with it has not one week but five. Autumn runs the other way: Hokkaido in late September, the Alps in mid-October, Kyoto in late November, and a colour trip can start in the north and finish in the south with the same effect.
Variations and extensions
Fourteen days with the Alps: after Kyoto, the Thunderbird to Kanazawa and the bus to Takayama, a week behind in blossom (Takayama’s spring festival is 14–15 April) and a week ahead in colour (mid-October). The standard extension when the season runs early. Sixteen days chasing the front north (blossom): Tokyo, Kyoto, then the Shinkansen north to Sendai and Hirosaki Castle in Aomori, whose 2,600 trees and petal-filled moats peak in late April, and Hakodate and Sapporo in early May. Five weeks of blossom in sixteen days. Colour with Hokkaido first: Sapporo and Daisetsuzan in early October, then Tokyo and Kyoto in November — the colour front runs south and this runs with it. The nine-day version: Tokyo three, Kyoto five, out via Kansai, no Hakone; the Kyoto nights are the ones that matter and the rest is negotiable. Photographers: a pre-dawn car to Chidorigafuchi, the Chureito Pagoda and Arashiyama’s bridge, and the illumination tripod permits where they exist. Golden Week warning: a blossom trip that runs late into April collides with Golden Week from the 29th; we end the route by the 27th or hold still in one city for the week.
The week-by-week picture in a typical spring, for planning the fixed ends: around 20–26 March, first bloom declared in Tokyo and the parks fill with people checking; 27 March–2 April, Tokyo at full bloom and Kyoto’s weeping cherries starting; 3–9 April, Kyoto, Osaka and Nara at peak with Tokyo dropping its petals; 10–16 April, Kyoto’s late varieties, Yoshino’s upper slopes, the Fuji lakes, Kanazawa and Takayama; 17–30 April, Sendai, Hirosaki, the north, and Golden Week arriving on the 29th. In autumn: Nikko and the Alps in mid-October, Tokyo’s gardens in early November, Kyoto from the 15th to early December, with the illuminations running through the last week. Every year differs by up to a fortnight; the route is built for that.
Eating on this route
Both seasons have a menu. In spring: sakura mochi wrapped in a salted cherry leaf, hanami dango, sakura-yu tea, bamboo shoots, mountain vegetables (sansai), the first bonito, sea bream, strawberries sold individually, and a hanami bento assembled at a depachika and eaten under the trees in Ueno or Maruyama with a can of sakura-edition beer. In autumn: matsutake mushrooms, sanma Pacific saury, chestnuts, persimmons, the new-crop rice, the first Sea of Japan crab in late November, and tempura maple leaves on the path at Minoo. The Kyoto kaiseki we book is built around the season — a petal in the clear soup, a maple-shaped cut of daikon — and we ask for a garden-facing seat in the first sitting while the light is on the trees. The Hakone ryokan dinner is the other fixed meal; the rest is yours, and the food guide has the counters worth booking.
Hanami manners, since the picnic is the point: junior staff are sent at dawn to hold the company’s spot with a blue tarpaulin, and a visitor with a bento and a small sheet is welcome anywhere there is space. Alcohol is fine in most parks and not in Shinjuku Gyoen. Rubbish goes home with you. Do not climb, shake or pick. Night viewing (yozakura) under lanterns or spotlights is its own tradition, and the illuminated gardens — Rikugien, Chidorigafuchi, Maruyama, Kiyomizu — are worth planning an evening around and arriving at as they open.
What is included
- Return economy airfare from Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane (open-jaw where the route allows), with premium economy and business on request
- Airport transfers at both ends by rail express or private car according to the party
- All Shinkansen and express-train seats reserved, Green Car on request
- Accommodation as described, with breakfast at hotels and dinner and breakfast at ryokan
- Luggage forwarding between cities so you travel with a day bag
- A Suica card loaded for each traveller, or set up in your phone wallet before departure
- Pre-booked entries and experiences named in the itinerary
- A detailed day-by-day document with maps, train times and restaurant suggestions
- Australian consumer-law protection and a Cooee contact in Brisbane throughout
- Kyoto accommodation held from the previous spring for the peak fortnight
- Flexible-rate bookings on the middle days so the order can change when the forecast firms
- A half-day licensed guide in Kyoto on day six, timed to the season’s crowds
- Evening illumination entries (Kiyomizu, Kodai-ji, Rikugien or Chidorigafuchi as the season allows)
- The Yoshino, Kawaguchiko or Nikko day with tickets
- A Kyoto kaiseki dinner in the seasonal menu
- Our forecast watch from January (blossom) or September (colour), with one message when the order changes
Not included
- Lunches and most dinners (Japan is the best country in the world to eat out in, and we would rather you chose)
- Travel insurance (required)
- Personal spending, optional experiences not named, and tips (there are none in Japan)
- Japan Rail Pass (only included where the route makes it pay)
- The Alps or Tohoku extension, which we quote when the season runs early
Where you stay
Tokyo: Shinjuku, by the Gyoen, so that the safest blossom garden in Japan is across the road for the first morning and the last; a Mitsui Garden or the Keio Plaza, or the Park Hyatt above them. Hakone: a ryokan in Gora with the mountain railway’s cherries or maples below, dinner and breakfast included. Kyoto: this is the difficulty and the reason to book a year ahead. We hold rooms in Higashiyama and by the station for the peak fortnights from the previous spring; when Kyoto is gone, Osaka (15 minutes), Otsu (10 minutes) and Nara (45 minutes) are the bases, and Osaka is the one we use most, at a third less for the same standard. Osaka: Namba, for the castle park and the airport train.
What it costs
This is peak-season Japan and it is priced as such: flights AUD 1,500–2,300 return in the blossom and colour fortnights, Kyoto hotels at double their May rates, and the popular ryokan booked out a year ahead. We do not publish a from-price for this itinerary because two factors move it by thousands: the season (cherry blossom and autumn colour cost 30–40 per cent more than late May or early October on flights and hotels combined) and the accommodation tier (a business hotel and a good ryokan against a five-star and a top-tier ryokan). We quote every departure individually in Australian dollars with everything above included, so the figure you see is the figure you pay. The Japan costs guide sets out the underlying numbers line by line so you can see how the quote is built. What we can do is hold the Kyoto rooms early enough that they exist, use Osaka where they do not, and keep the middle flexible so that the trip catches the peak rather than paying peak prices to miss it.
Practical notes
Entry: Australians do not need a visa for Japan for stays under 90 days; complete Visit Japan Web before you fly. Some Australian medicines are prohibited or need a permit — see our entry guide. Money: cards work in cities; carry cash for small restaurants and temples; no tipping. Fitness: a normal Japan day is 15,000–20,000 steps; the itinerary can be paced down. Luggage: forwarded between cities; travel with a day bag. Etiquette: shoes off in ryokan and temples, quiet on trains, wash before the bath. Children and older travellers: both adjust easily; apartment hotels and Green Car rail are the usual changes. The forecast method: the Japan Meteorological Corporation and Weathernews publish blossom forecasts from late January and colour forecasts from September, updated weekly; they are reliable only from mid-March and mid-October. We book the fixed ends to the long-term average (Tokyo full bloom around 31 March, Kyoto around 5 April; Kyoto colour peak around 20–28 November), keep days three, eight and nine on flexible bookings, and make the call on order in the second week of March or the first of November. Guests get one message; the trains and hotels move behind it. It is the only way we know to sell a sakura trip honestly, and it is why the fixed ends are booked a year ahead while the middle is not. Weather: late March and early April are changeable — 8°C mornings, 18°C afternoons, a cold snap most years, and the rain that ends the bloom can come any day; layers and a light waterproof. November is crisp and dry, 10–17°C, cold in the evening illuminations; a scarf. Crowds: mid-week is far quieter than weekends; opening time at any temple is a different place from eleven; the second-tier spots (Daigo-ji, Yanaka, Heian Shrine, the Kamo riverbank) have the same trees and a tenth of the people. Transport: Shinkansen seats reserved a month ahead because the unreserved cars fill; Kyoto’s buses gridlock in peak week, so the itinerary uses the subway, the Keihan and Hankyu railways and your feet. Photography: overcast light is better than sun for pink; dawn and the hour before dusk beat midday; include something Japanese in the frame — a torii, a pagoda, a lantern, a rowboat — because blossom alone looks like any blossom; and put the camera down for one evening under the trees. If you miss it: the late varieties (Ninna-ji, Heian Shrine, the Osaka Mint), the north, or what follows — fresh green, wisteria at Ashikaga, azaleas in the temple gardens — which is by any measure as beautiful and a third of the price. A Japan trip that misses the blossom is still a Japan trip, and we say so before you book.
How to book
Send us your preferred dates, your departure city and the names and ages of the party through the enquiry form or on 0409 661 342. We check the season against the route, confirm availability at the hotels and inns that matter, and send an itinerary and a quote in Australian dollars within two working days. A deposit holds the booking; the balance is due before departure under our booking conditions. Travel insurance is required and we can recommend a policy.
Frequently asked questions
When does cherry blossom peak in Japan?
Tokyo typically reaches full bloom in the last days of March or first week of April, Kyoto three to seven days later, Hakone and the Fuji lakes a week behind Tokyo, the Alps mid-April, Hokkaido late April to May. Individual years shift by up to two weeks, which is what this itinerary is built to absorb.
When does autumn colour peak?
Nikko and Tokyo’s gardens in early to mid-November; Kyoto from mid-November to the first days of December, peaking around 20–28 November most years; the Alps in mid-October. Colour lasts about three weeks and is far more predictable than blossom.
What if the blossom is early or late?
The route has a hedge in each direction. Tokyo first and Kyoto second gives two chances; the moveable days shift when the forecast firms in mid-March; and if the whole season has run early, the Alps (a week behind Kyoto), Sendai and Hirosaki (two weeks) or Hokkaido (a month) are extensions we quote. Our blossom timing guide explains it.
How far ahead must I book?
Kyoto accommodation for the blossom fortnight and the colour fortnight is booked the previous April to July; flights four to six months out. Book to the average dates and let us adjust the order in the last month. Waiting for the forecast means there is nothing left to book.
Is it worth paying peak prices?
Once, yes. Both seasons are extraordinary and the premium is real: 30–40 per cent over late May or early October on flights and hotels combined. If price matters more than the season, our Classic Japan route in the value windows gives the same trip without the trees.
Blossom or colour?
Colour is longer, more reliable and, to many people, more beautiful; blossom is shorter, more famous and more of a national event. Blossom season has the hanami picnics and the illuminated moats; colour season has the temple gardens lit at night. Both are crowded in Kyoto; both are handled by early mornings and the second-tier gardens.
Can I do this with children?
Yes. The hanami picnic parks (Ueno, Maruyama, Osaka Castle) are the best days of the trip for children; the illuminated gardens have queues and are better at opening. Apartment hotels in Tokyo and Osaka, and Nara on the moveable day for the deer.
How much does it cost?
Quoted per departure in Australian dollars with flights, rail, accommodation, transfers, luggage forwarding, the guided morning, the illuminations and the kaiseki included. Peak-season pricing applies; the Japan costs guide shows what moves and by how much.
Related
Tours convert; things to do informs. If you are still choosing, the things-to-do page is the step before this one.