Check our extensive guides to destinations and places to visit all over Japan to help you travel and get around, and find what to do and see in each location.
Find the best points of interest you can visit by train, how to get there, main attractions and off the beaten tracks suggestions in Japan’s four islands.
Kyoto is one of the most well-known cities in Japan. It is the capital city of the Kyoto Prefecture of Japan’s Kansai region. For more than one thousand years, Kyoto was the Imperial capital of Japan.
At the city’s heart lies Gion, a center of the traditional arts and famed entertainment district. If you’re searching for a taste of traditional Japan, Gion’s flagstone streets lined with wooden buildings is a good place to start.
Nara is an ancient city located in the Kansai region of Japan’s main island of Honshu. It was the first “real” capital of Japan, remaining such for less than a century. This historic location is home to a nearly unmatched eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including numerous Buddhist temples. The city was founded in the year 710 C.E. and originally known as Heijo.
Among its attractions are the oldest and largest wooden buildings in the world, the Nara Deer Park whose tame deer delight in entertaining visitors, fantastic cherry blossom viewing spots, and ninjas.
Japan is well known as a nation of long standing culture. Its rich history plays across its modern landscape in both its structures and its people. Fittingly, Japan is home to 26 of the more than 1,000 World Heritage Sites as described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Roppongi, meaning “six trees,” is a neighborhood of contradictions. It is home to head offices of huge companies such as Google and Goldman Sachs. It offers all-inclusive living spaces that include apartments, parks, shopping, and office space.
Enormous game-changing skyscrapers enclose luxury hotels, such as the Ritz-Carlton. The neighborhood is considered a hive of fine art and architecture. Roppongi and the surrounding districts host a large expat community and several foreign embassies. But that’s not all.
Odaiba is a town or neighborhood located within the bounds of the bustling metropolis of Tokyo, on Japan’s main island of Honshu. Odaiba itself is perched upon a man-made island in Tokyo Bay. It is well known as a shopping and entertainment district. Odaiba is also known as the best place in Tokyo to go on a date.
The Tenjin Matsuri Festival in Osaka is considered one of Japan’s top 3 festivals (along with Gion Matsuri, Kyoto and Kanda Matsuri, Tokyo). The festival honors the deity of scholarship, Sugawara Michizane, and includes a range of lively festivities over 2 days.
The festival starts on July 24 and lasts 2 days. It starts with a ceremony inviting the deity out of the shrine and ends with a spectacular display of fireworks over the Okawa River.
