How to plan your next trip to Japan

Welcome to 2023!  For some years my eldest daughter,  Ashlea, and I have been planning a trip to Japan, following on from my first trip in 2016 with my youngest daughter India.  A link to our 2016 trip is shown to the right.  This will be Ashlea's first visit to Japan . . .

The big question before any adventure is planning where you want to go.   For the past few years both Ashlea and I have been saving videos and links from lots of people who have shared Japanese destinations or experiences which we are interested in . . . but now it's time to start planning in earnest, how do you organise all these ideas into one place?

Fortunately, now there are easier ways to plan a trip by setting up your own Google Maps shared map, which allows people you select to add locations.  How can you do this?  I learnt how from this lady:

Genius!  A few months ago I created a "Japan Trip 2023" map and shared it with Ashlea, and we have been populating it with destinations from food to race tracks and other points of interest, allowing us to get organised.  This is what our map of Japan looks like today:

You can see from the map where we're planning to visit in 2023.

Once again, we're going for three weeks, flying into Haneda airport with the first week in Tokyo.  Then we'll head to Nagoya for a few days, then two nights in a traditional ryokan at Kinosaki Onsen, before a week in Kyoto and a final night in Osaka where we will fly from Itami airport back to Haneda then home to Sydney.

Now let's zoom in on Tokyo and see all the points we've tagged, along with some of the places in the list on the left:

The big question when visiting a metropolis the size of Tokyo is: where should you stay?

You can see the location in Shinjuku where we stayed in 2016, circled in purple on the above map.  After much consideration, we have decided to stay in Asakusa this time, the "home" icon circled in green.  This location is close to the number one tourist attraction in Tokyo, the Senso-ji temple, and not far from Tokyo Skytree.  We are staying in an apartment over the Sumida River on a quiet street but only ten minutes from Asakusa railway station.  It will be easy to get around but less hectic at night in a beautiful part of Tokyo.

Many favourite areas will be visited again:  Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Akihabara, Ikebukero (not visible on this map, but north of Shinjuku) and the Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is also shown, having been renovated since my 2016 visit.

What is amazing about creating this on your own personal Google Map is, even though you can only create and edit it on a PC, you can access it on your mobile device using the Google Maps app.  So when we're in Tokyo, we can access our own map and see where each item is easily relative to our current location.  

Google Maps has also progressed dramatically in showing subway transit options, telling you what platform to go to and even which carriage is best to ride on for the exit you need at the destination subway station!