Japan holidaysfrom Nairobi

Japan is the trip people plan furthest ahead, and it pays them back for it.

The reason is the season. Two windows do most of the work, the blossom in spring and the maples in autumn, and both are short and both fill early. Rooms in Kyoto for those weeks are taken long before the year turns. If your dates are pinned to a school holiday, tell us early. If they are not, the shoulder weeks either side are quieter and the country is no less itself.

A first Japan is usually Tokyo, Hakone and Kyoto, and it is usual because it works. Tokyo is a set of villages that happen to share a rail map: pick two or three and spend properly in each rather than sprinting between them. Hakone is the pause: hot springs, a lake, and Fuji when the weather agrees to it. Kyoto is temples, gardens and the old streets of Gion, with Nara’s deer park within reach for a day. Osaka is the food, and an evening in Dotonbori is the whole argument for going.

The trains do the rest. Japan is one of the few countries where the internal transport is genuinely part of the holiday rather than the cost of it, and where a route that would flatten you anywhere else is just a morning.

What we tend to build for travellers going out from Nairobi is the longer version, enough days to add Kanazawa, Hiroshima or the mountains, with everything reserved before departure: the rail seats, the ryokan nights, the restaurants that need booking long before you fly. Japan does not reward improvising, and the good rooms go first.

Where you’ll go

Tokyo. Neighbourhood by neighbourhood: Shibuya and Shinjuku for the noise, Yanaka and Kagurazaka for the opposite of it, and food at every price.

Hakone and Fuji. Hot springs, a lake, a mountain that shows itself when it feels like it, and the quietest two nights of the trip.

Kyoto and Nara. Temples, gardens, Gion in the evening, and the deer park at Nara for the day you slow down.

Osaka. The kitchens, the arcades, and Dotonbori after dark.

Practical notes

Draft: awaiting owner verification. Indicative only; confirmed in writing with your quote.

• Blossom and autumn colour move year to year and cannot be promised. We plan around a window, never a date.
• Rail passes and seat reservations have rules that change. We confirm what applies to your route when we quote.
• Ryokan stays usually include dinner and breakfast, served at set times, and dinner is the reason to be back early.
• Kyoto in the two peak seasons sells out first. If those are your weeks, the rooms go in before anything else.
• Entry requirements differ by passport and change. We confirm yours before ticketing.