Japan Itinerary Builder
Tell it how long you have, how fast you like to move, and what you came for. It returns a day-by-day route built from the same logic as our 14-day itinerary — sensible city order, no backtracking, and no more hotel changes than the trip can carry.
Now fill in the days
This gives you the skeleton. The printable Japan Travel Planner gives you the 14 daily pages that go under it — morning/afternoon/evening blocks, a backup-plan row for rain, reservations tracker, budget worksheet and the booking timeline that says what to lock in when.
How it decides
- Base changes cost a day. Every move burns a half-day in practice, so the builder gives short trips fewer bases and only adds a new city when there are enough nights to justify it.
- Route order is geographic. Tokyo and its day trips first, then Chubu, then Kansai, then west — so you're always moving one direction along the Tokaido line.
- Day trips beat extra hotels. Nara, Nikko, Kamakura and Hakone all work as day trips from a base you already have. Fewer check-ins, same sights.
- Your interests reorder the queue, they don't invent places. Everything it suggests is somewhere we have written about and would recommend.
Costing it out is the next step — the trip cost calculator prices exactly this shape of trip, and the JR Pass calculator tells you whether a pass beats single tickets for the legs above.
Free: the 3-page Japan Mini Planner
Trip snapshot, 7-day route skeleton, and a before-you-fly checklist — sent to your email, free. Get it free
Trip snapshot, 7-day route skeleton, and a before-you-fly checklist — sent to your email, free. Get it free