🏮Two Weeks in Japan. And its Spreadsheet.
Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka (April–May 2025)
A Long Awaited Japan Trip
This trip had been sitting in the background for a long time. During the pandemic days, Japan became a kind of dream. Hours went into YouTube influence: Worth It food series, James May wandering around konbini stores, videos of traditional ink making obsessions.
Over the past year, more and more friends around started going too. Maybe everyone had the same post-Covid pull toward, or just something different.
Planning was hard though. Choosing where to stay, when to move cities, which days to leave open. JRPass or not.
Now that it’s over, I would like to share the notes, the links, the spreadsheet 🤡.
Let me overshare
Before the trip, I put together a spreadsheet to organize each city’s musts to guide me while on the go. I also added tabs for internet recommendations.
After coming back, I updated it with what we actually ended up doing, plus links and notes. Thought it might be helpful for someone else planning a trip.
📎 View the spreadsheet (don’t miss the tabs)
If you find it helpful, leave a comment or like, I would appreciate the interaction ❤️
Here’s a little glimpse from my camera roll, the result of the sheet.
If You Go..
Avoid Golden Week if you can. Not a dealbreaker, but it made everything more hectic.
Buy ceremonial matcha.
Try Iyoshi Cola, please do.
Skip teamLab if your sensory tank is low. Feel the freedom of not doing all the social media mandates.
Book a facial for no reason✨ It was unexpectedly grounding and gentle.
No need to pack pajamas. This was a surprise to me. Every hotel gave a sleepwear.
Eat all the ramen.
Wear good shoes. Temples = stairs + long walks.
Pack light. You’ll be carrying your luggage more often than you think. Stairs, stations, and tight spaces. A carry-on and a backpack were enough for me. This one’s personal, but I saw plenty of people struggling even with mid-sized suitcases.
Pack your anti-histamine. It’s a different universe but pollens do exist.
And more importantly:
Don’t check all the boxes.
All the blogs, guides, posts will tell you to do more or less the same things. If you follow everything, it starts to feel like a checklist instead of an experience. Give yourself permission to skip. Make it fuzzy and real. I wish we had traded our SkyTree and teamLab tickets for a quiet tea house or a secondhand bookstore stroll. Some parts can wait for next time.
Reflections
This was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. It was so worth it.
But it was also exhausting. Being a tourist for two full weeks is intense. Switching hotels, navigating, eating out all the time, walking 25k steps a day, absorbing beauty constantly. Japan is visually overwhelming in the best way. A 16-meter Buddha here, thousands of red torii gates there. It’s a lot.
If I were planning a first trip again, I’d probably keep it to 7–10 days. I’d skip the JR Pass and extra cities, and just focus on Tokyo and maybe Kyoto. Leave the rest for next time.
Still though, the tiredness didn’t take away any joy. It was a spectacular trip. I’m grateful for every moment. 🌸