Touring in Japan - Advice please

My partner and I are planning to go to Japan for around two weeks, probably the first two weeks of April. We will take a tent and mainly camp, although a few nights in cool places would be nice.

In April this year we went to Sicily and did between 75-100km a day, although I guess on average there will be more climbing in Japan. It would be nice to see as much as possible, but we also don't want to be rushing or stressing about distances. Beautiful roads and scenery are much more important than ticking off sights.

So my main questions are:

Where should we go (I've heard Hokkaido is amazing, but probably too cold at that time of year).
Are there any must do things, aside from cycling? - I think we would like to spend a day or two in Tokyo.
Any other tips/suggestions/inside info?

I know that there are some people on here who live in, have connections to or have at least ridden in Japan so it would be great to hear your thoughts - @xDOMx @Jaap @roboto

I only really know Hokkaido as I visit my in-laws there every year. First two weeks of April is probably a bit too cold for most of the routes I’ve done there though.

Others will be more qualified than me to talk about the climate and roads on Honshū, Shikoku or Kyūshū but in general I’ve found it very easy to plan routes and find my way around with very limited knowledge. Get yourself sorted with a data SIM card or portable Wi-fi hotspot and it’ll be easy to navigate.

Enjoy the cities and the cleanliness and find some nice routes that take you across the mountain passes. I’d be tempted to look at a route that will take you from Kyoto to Tokyo and going through places like Osaka, Nara, Nagoya, Shizuoka and Yokohama. Loss of touristy stuff to do in those places and it’s a popular Route that will take you past Fuji. South coast shouldn’t be too chilly around that time of the year. I think.

I did a quick month long tour a couple of years ago, flew in to Tokyo and rode to Nagasaki and back. Camping wise, I mostly wild camped and given that public facilities (bathrooms, even outdoor showers at coastal locations) are amazing it still felt pretty cushy even on rainy days I always found a quite covered public rest area to stay dry in. There's a really useful google 'mymaps' out there that has the locations/details of all the road houses, onsens and free campsite sin the country that you can load straight onto a GPS. Destinations wise I really enjoyed the Irago Peninsula, the five lakes route around Mt. Fuji, the Shimanami Kaido (of course) and some of the mountainous riding in Gifu. I think Lake Biwa would be nice in better weather but I had several very gray days then. How are you travelling with your bikes? I found it super easy to fly in to Tokyo with my bike in a bag get the train in from the airport and then leave the bag at the hostel for the month that I travelled then simply stay there another night before departing and pack the bike up again. Have fun, I'd go back to tour again in a heartbeat!

Thanks for the info, so many options!

Re bikes - we are open to options, we did a similar thing in Sicily, flew with bike boxes and left them in Palermo while traveling around. Also happy to use cardboard boxes if we start and finish in different places.

Because of the bike bag situation on trains, I also thought it might be best to fly to Kyoto, leave boxes there, do a loop, then pack them up for a train journey to Tokyo where we would do non-bike stuff before flying out.

My mate is cycling round Japan at the moment. Latest message said it's amazing - very friendly, cycling is pretty tough, with lots of traffic and tunnels. Hostels are great, with shampoo and pyjamas. She's island hopping around the Hiroshima area right now.

On bike transport, I usually cycle point to point using cardboard boxes - build the bike and leave the box at the airport, get to the destination in time to get another box from a bike shop. Sometimes takes a few hours, but never been a problem.

Thinking of going for maybe...2-3 weeks in September. Does anyone have any pointers? Was thinking of starting from Tokyo but no real ideas other than that.

@moog

@Jaap

http://www.japancycling.org/v2/cguide/

gracias

If you fly to Haneda you can build your bikes in the taxi rank and pedal straight out on to a big river side bike path. Saves the usual hassle of trying to get bike boxes in a taxi.

I rode the Tokaido route to Osaka in 2016, if you’ve got questions just let me know.

I guess the main things are how long did it take, how did you break it up and where did you stay? Seems like camping is quite doable in Japan?

Hi, I did a lot of touring in Japan. Tokyo-Osaka is about 4 days. If you take it mellow maybe one week. Camping is very doable. Never had any issues camping at rivers, beaches etc.

Narita is also close to the Tone-river bikepath.

Personally I very much enjoyed cycling in Kyusu. Also taking bikes in trains (also Shinkansen) is no issue if you wrap your bike in a rinko-bag or large rubbish bag etc. You could skip Osaka-Fukuoka and continue touring around Kyushu.

I would recommend the imabari islands which are joined by bridges you can cycle over and also cycle the islands in the Seto Island sea accessible by ferry like Naoshima and Shodoshima.
Avoid any larger road areas as in my experience they were not cycle friendly.

I did this from Tokyo:
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/338639/
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28897252

Highly recommend the complete route and took a Shinkansen back to Tokyo. And the North will be a lot less hot. If you need any more info, just let me know.

Seems amazing but how the fuck did you cycle up those gradients? Loaded?

Also where did you stay, pre booked accomodation along the route?

The RWG gradients are very misleading, most of the extreme inclines are somehow measured on the hills above the tunnels you'll be cycling through. The worst climb was around 14% and a few around 10% or 11%, had a 44 chainring with 10-46 cassette and never had to walk. This was my load out (second picture, bicycle on the right): https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw9bOqhlJ7u/

Yeah, everything was pre-booked since we were there in May which is holiday season for Japanese people. Mainly stayed in hotels and Ryokans, if you want I can send a list of all the places we stayed?

Can't recommend this route enough.

If the list is to hand then sure but don't go to too much bother. Thanks so much for the support. I'm really nervous about this kind of thing because it'll be my first time touring abroad. I know that you can't plan for everything, but just knowing that things can be done and people have done things helps me out a lot.

I feel you. I'm quite autistic so I planned my trip down to every inch, you can find my whole planning here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wtDcHmi43XSAugZT3RIPmiASLFK4fHoO94D8B1pugeU/edit?usp=sharing

It includes all the routes, KMs/HMs every day and all the places we stayed in. Also has some sightseeing spots for every location in the 4th page. It is in Dutch though.

Hope this helps!

Thanks so much! INsanely useful!

OK so I think I would like to do Tokyo-Kyoto tokaido route some time in September or October, does anyone know what time in that window would be best weatherwise?

We had 10 days of riding but took about 2 weeks to do the journey then had another week in Tokyo after we got the Shinkansen back from Osaka. Retrospectively I would add a few more days in Kyoto for sight seeing.

Our longest day was 113km but we had a few around 50km so you could easily do it much quicker.

We camped the whole time other than 1 Warmshowers near Kyoto. Roughly an equal split between:

• camping in legit paid for campsites
  
• camping in what we thought we’re campsites but we’re either not yet open (we were there before high season) or abandoned
  
• wild/stealth camping in public parks and green spaces
  
  

There are so many public toilets we found camping very easy even in populated places. I think we found a google map which had pinned all the campsites, I’ll ask my partner if she still has it saved.

On the whole the route was very populated, we had an amazing time and as our 3rd tour and first time in Japan it was perfect for us. It does however have a few drags in and out of biggish cities and it’s not none stop bangers in terms of riding or views.

For us it was great though - lots of interesting little towns, loads of shrines and temples to check out (no need to plan, just stop if you see a nice one), a nice variety of landscapes in a short time.

I’ll PM you a link to my Strava so you can see the itinerary.

were going touring for a week in japan next month, if anybody wants to have a look at the route it would be nice.

https://www.komoot.com/collection/2280017/-japan?ref=undefined

and guess were not gonna take any cooking equipment with us but is there some kombini food that will easily last for atleast a day in i dont know +27 weather? guess some onigiris or something.