Thinking about visiting Kyushu
 

As a gift to myself after quitting my job of over 20 years, I booked a trip to Japan for November, figuring I'd fill in the details later.

I have 13 days on the ground, and I'm thinking of spending about half in Tokyo, and the rest exploring somewhere new. Kyushu seemed like a good candidate.

I am thinking roughly of about 3 days in Nagasaki and 3 days in Fukuoka.

My interests are primarily history, nature/hiking, food, and any experience/sights that are unique to Japan. I'll be traveling solo.

Do the FT Japan experts have any thoughts or comments on my nascent protoplan? Is my mix of days reasonable as a starting point? Am I missing something important or shortchanging the region by spending only 6 days?

I'm working my way through japan-guide, but the information density isn't quite as high for this region as Tokyo et al.

I visited Kyushu as a solo traveler this past winter. Spent roughly 4-5 days total traveling from Fukuoka to Kunisaki Peninsula and finishing in Yufuin. IMO 3 days in Fukuoka is a bit much. You can cover the major sites in about a day. If you're interested in history and hiking, Kunisaki Peninsula is a good place. I signed up for a hiking tour that went through a couple of mountain ridges. Along the way we visited temples, shrines, and ruins that played a part in the transmission of Buddhism into Japan. I did a TR, and there might be some info there that could be of use to you. My hiking guide, who lives in Nagasaki, says its an interesting place. There's a mix of Dutch, Chinese, Portuguese, and Christian influence present in the city.

I really like Fukuoka (went 5 days and going back for 7 more), but it is a city (with great food :D ). Relaxed, different than Tokyo/Osaka but still a city.
Ramen heaven, but still a city.

If you like porcelain, you can do an easy excursion to Saga.
Imari (boring), Arita (a little boring), Okawachiyama (amazing).

When in November are you going ? Okawachiyama had last year the autumn sale on 1/11-5/11. If you are in that period, the prices are very very good.

If you like the idea, I can help more because English info for this village is scarce.

Also, look up for: Dazaifu (Kyushu national museum - very good).


ps. they uploaded info on japan guide. Damn...hurry up before the groups swarm in and ruin it :D.



Okawachiyama during sakura
https://c5.staticflickr.com/6/5051/1...62e6d08a_z.jpg

Thanks for the info so far! That picture of Okawachiyama looks stunning. I don't expect to find any sakura in November, though :)

Gradfly, I'd love to read your trip report. I'll read up on Kunisaki.

My trip is 1-14/11.

Sure, its here.

One thing I'd like to add is to do a Google search of specific areas/things that come up and see if a travel blogger has covered it.

Have you checked out Wikitravel? It helped me on starting some of the leg work with my research.

When you research Kyushu please look at southern half of Kyushu also. Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Ibusuki are not that bad of area, either.

If you want to go little further then Kyushu has islands you can explore: Tsushima island located between mainland Kyushu and South Korea, Goto islands western shore of Nagasaki.

Also do not forget islands south of Kagoshima are also part of Kyushu. Tanega island where rocket launch take place, home of Japanese space exploration. Yaku island which is registered as Natural World Heritage site by UNESCO. Amami-Oo island is the biggest of southern islands of Kyushu and popular tropical tourist destination. Tokuno island is smaller island south of Amami-Oo island, tropical island closer to Okinawa but still part of Kyushu.

If money is not an issue then as a train geek I recommend train Seven Stars by JR Kyushu to tour around mainland Kyushu. :p JR Kyushu also happened to have a lot of fun tourist trains around Kyushu which is economical. :)

I am definitely interested in Southern Kyushu as well, and in particular Yakujima. I'm not sure how to cram it all in without taking an unrelaxed, aggressive pace. Ponder, ponder.

I've had mixed results with Wikitravel in the past, so I don't normally go to it by default, but since it helped you, I will definitely read up there.

I like a fancy train, too, but a million yet is a bit rich for my blood :)

I have visited Fukuoka multiple times, staying between 3 - 12 nights.

There are lots of pretty large shrines/temples in Fukuoka, not on any tourist maps.

For the long stay, Northern Kyushu pass was used to visit Nagasaki, Beppu, Yufuin, Kumamoto, specifically to get on the various themed trains.

There is the robot hotel at Huis Ten Bosch I would like to check out next time.

I understand about Wikitravel. It is too bad that official tourism website of Yakushima is in Japanese only. If you really want to entertain the idea of visiting Yakushima, then JAC (Japan Air Commuter) has 5 daily flights from Kagoshima by Bombardier Q400 (74 seats prop plane), 30 minutes flight. This will give option of visiting Kagoshima area (possibly Ibusuki and Miyazaki area added) and Yakushima in one week.

JAC also has flight from Fukuoka once a day also on Bombardier Q400.

JAC 3671 Fukuoka 12:50 p.m. – Yakushima 1:50 p.m.
JAC 3672 Yakushima 1:35 p.m. – Fukuoka 2:35 p.m.

With this flight I think it is reasonable to do Fukuoka and Yakushima in one week. I think it is not that much of stretch to add Nagasaki to this.

JAC is part of JAL so you can get Visit Japan fare which is 10,800 yen per flight segment but have to fly in and out of Japan on OneWorld airlines. Welcome to Japan fare is 28,080 for two flight segments which is slightly more than Visit Japan fare but you do not have to fly in and out of Japan of OneWorld carrier for Welcome to Japan fare.

Yes, cannot see entire Kyushu in one week, but I think Yakushima and one other Kyushu location is possible for one week travel.

Beppu is kitschy, but kind of fun.

It's what Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. might have been like if each geyser was privately owned.

Nagasaki is fascinating, and I used Fukuoka mainly as a base for other explorations, such as Dazaifu.

Kumamoto was interesting, too, but I don't know how the recent earthquake has affected it.

Good call.
FWIW, JAC also has daily flights from Osaka (ITM) to Yakushima (KUM). Not relevant for the OP, but potentially useful for anyone considering a visit to the Kansai region and a trip to Yakushima.

I was there recently, the earthquake has affected Kumamoto's major tourist site: its castle, which is closed due to repairs. But still, we had a good time in the city and visited a great temple (Honmyo-ji) - although the temple was also damaged.

One thing I can't really suss out just yet is if there is enough stuff in both Nagasaki and Fukuoka to justify a base-move between them. I do my best to move my home base around as little as possible.

Cutting down my time in Tokyo is always an option if I need to squeeze another day or two on Kyushu, but I definitely want to keep a chunk of time available there.


Giving some thought to the flight combo. Cost is definitely a factor for me (see OP). I'll figure it out :).

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

Nagasaki is definitely worth more than a day. Since they are 2 hours apart by limited express, I think a move is warranted. The last time I was there I spent 3 days Fukuoka and 4 in Nagasaki but those both included long day trips to other locales. The multi-leg trip from Nagasaki over to Shimabara was especially interesting.

In case you are interested, the fall Grand Sumo tournament is in Fukuoka, starting November 13.

I've not been to Kagoshima or Miyazaki, and I've only passed through Saga. Although I haven't been to Oita in a while, I wasn't all that impressed with Beppu. Yufuin's nice, but there're other nice onsens in Kyushu. It seems to me that Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Kagoshima are where first-timers should focus on. In order to cover those areas in a whirlwind, I suppose you could do it in as little as 4 days / 3 nights. If you wanted to cover it thoroughly, well then there's really no upper limit.

Fukuoka is an awesome big city with great food. I could spend a week there, I could live there. On the other hand, one can make the argument to skip Fukuoka altogether if you want to explore as much of Kyushu as possible in a limited amount of time.

Nagasaki is almost a can't-miss, but personally I don't think you need more than a day to explore the city itself. However, there's a few nice day trip options from Nagasaki. Kumamoto city and the Aso area are great, but I also don't know how the earthquake has impacted the area. ltfly seems to indicate one can still have fun there but it's not the same.

If you decide to skip Kumamoto, you could think about using 2 or 3 of Fukuoka/Nagasaki/Kagoshima as your bases, perhaps replacing 1 night for a stay in an onsen hotel such as at Kirishima, Unzen or Kurokawa. On the other hand, if you're not necessarily looking for a comprehensive tour of Kyushu, then you could spend all your nights in Fukuoka with maybe day trips to Nagasaki and Dazaifu. I've never been to Kirishima, Kurokawa or Kagoshima btw, so my rec for those places is based merely on the research I've done for our Kyushu trip this winter.

I think I did a day trip from Fukuoka the first time we did Nagasaki. Nagasaki is a memorable place in a pretty setting, but personally I think it can easily be covered in a day, esp if you're not doing the atomic bomb area. But abmj-jr thinks otherwise, and I'm sure there're others that would agree with him. And if you're interested in Shimabara/Unzen, Haus ten Bos (if you're into that type of stuff), Kujuuku-jima cruises, etc, then you should definitely set up base in Nagasaki.