12-Day Japan Family Tour With a Teenager: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka & Mt. Fuji

Last Updated: October 10,2026

Travel Style: Private family journey
Destination: Japan
Trip Length: 12 Days
Number of People: 3
Route: Tokyo → Kawaguchiko (Mt. Fuji) → Hakone → Kyoto → Nara → Osaka
Focus: Pop culture • Traditional culture • Participatory experiences

Introduction

Robert Hayes, 56 and based in Chicago, had not taken his family to Asia before. His wife studied Japanese history in college and wanted to stand inside the temples she had read about. Their daughter, seventeen, had a shorter list: Nintendo Tokyo, the Pokémon Center, teamLab Planets, Akihabara. Robert's own reason was simpler. His daughter would leave for university the following autumn, and he wanted one long trip first.

He contacted UME Travel because he did not know how to put both lists into one route without one of them spending twelve days waiting for the other. He was also the only one who had been to Japan, on a two-day work stopover twenty years earlier.

Planning the Journey

Eva, their UME Travel specialist, had each of them read their list out loud on the first call, then separated what could be reserved ahead from what could only be timed.

teamLab Planets sells timed-entry tickets that sell out weeks ahead, so she booked their slot three weeks out. Nintendo Tokyo and Pokémon Center Shibuya share the sixth floor of Shibuya Parco and take no advance reservations; she put both first on a weekday morning and left the afternoon open. The Kyoto kimono fitting was booked at a shop with an English-speaking assistant and a same-day return.

The nights ran three in Tokyo, one at Kawaguchiko, four in Kyoto and three in Osaka, with Nara on the day they moved between them. Hotels sat within walking distance of a major station; two scheduled stops a day at most, one free half-day per city. The main suitcases went to Kyoto by courier, so they boarded at Odawara with two nights in a small bag.

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Destination Experience

Tokyo opened with Shibuya Crossing and Shibuya Sky at dusk on the arrival day. The second day went to Nintendo Tokyo and the Pokémon Center, both on the sixth floor of Shibuya Parco. Robert's daughter spent two hours between them while her parents sat in a café on the same floor. They met her at teamLab Planets in Toyosu in the late afternoon.

Day three began in Akihabara and ended at Senso-ji Temple and Nakamise-dori, the shopping street that runs up to it. His wife bought a folding fan there.

Mt. Fuji and Hakone covered the two days between Tokyo and Kyoto. The first ran along the northern side of the mountain: the boat on Lake Kawaguchi, Arakura Fuji Sengen Shrine, and Oshino Hakkai, its eight spring pools at the foot of the mountain. They spent that night at Kawaguchiko.

Their driver took them to Sounzan the next morning, where the Hakone Ropeway starts: up to Owakudani, down to Togendai, boat across Lake Ashi, then on foot to Hakone Shrine, whose red torii stands in the water. The car dropped them at Odawara Station, where the Hikari and Kodama stop, and they reached Kyoto about two hours later.

Kyoto had three full days and a fourth night before the move south.

The kimono fitting was booked for the first morning at a shop near Gion. It rained steadily; the shop handed out clear umbrellas. They walked to Kodai-ji, and the photograph from that morning — the three of them in kimonos under umbrellas on the wet stone steps near the temple — is the one his wife framed at home. Walking in kimonos took more out of them than expected; his daughter asked to change after three hours, which the same-day return covered.

The second day was the samurai museum. Robert put on armor for the demonstration while his daughter took instruction in the basic stance. They walked up Ninenzaka and Sannenzaka afterward, the stone-paved slopes below Kiyomizu-dera.

Fushimi Inari Taisha came early on the third morning; the lower gates were already busy by eight. Above the Yotsutsuji junction the path thinned, and they found a quieter stretch of the orange corridor before turning back.

Nara fell on the day they changed cities. They left the suitcases at the Kyoto hotel's courier desk and took the Kintetsu limited express, about thirty-five minutes to Kintetsu Nara, at the edge of Nara Park. His daughter spent most of the morning with the deer; his wife wanted the Great Buddha Hall. In the late afternoon they stayed on the same line to Osaka Namba and walked to the hotel.

Osaka had the evening they arrived, two full days, and a departure morning.

The hotel was ten minutes from Dotonbori, and that first evening they walked there without a plan. Hozenji Yokocho, just off the strip, was quiet enough to talk in.

The first full day went to Osaka Castle in the morning. His wife, who had read about the siege of 1615 that ended the Toyotomi line, spent most of it inside the keep: the exhibition floors, the elevator as far as the fifth floor, the stairs after it, the stone walls below. His daughter took a free audio guide and finished ahead of both of them. The afternoon was left open.

The next morning was open too, until late afternoon, when they went up to Harukas 300 at Abeno Harukas in Tennoji and stayed through sunset. The last dinner was okonomiyaki, cooked on the griddle set into the table.

Travel Result

His wife framed the kimono photograph and put it on the hallway table, where it has stayed since. His daughter's Nintendo bag goes to school with her. Nothing was cut from the two Osaka days. Asked what he would do again, he said he would keep the days short, and that he never had to stand in a station working out which platform he needed.

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