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| Kokura Garden |
How it all happened:
The entire process, from deciding our travel dates to choosing our destinations, was quite the journey. But I'm glad we finally made it happen, and everything turned out well after some compromises and lots and LOTS of discussion, so in this blog post I'll mainly be writing about these topics and hopefully they can help you to plan your next trip to Japan!
- How we chose the perfect time and places to visit in Kyushu;
- Deciding the itinerary;
- Deciding if we're driving or taking public transportation;
- Deciding our budget;
- How our plan turned out
How We Chose the Perfect Time and Places to Visit in Kyushu:
Planning a trip with friends is always an adventure, especially when everyone has different preferences. Let me introduce you to my travel buddies and how we navigated our differences!
- Friend A: A Malaysian who studied in Wakayama, Japan for her final year of high school. Now working in Singapore with limited annual leave, she’s the artsy one in the group, always drawn to museums and galleries.
- Friend B: Also Malaysian, she’s the anime enthusiast who introduced our group to the world of Japanese animation. Her 2020 trip to Japan was cancelled due to the pandemic, so this was her long-awaited first visit.
- Me: The ex-travel consultant turned tech translator, I’m the shopaholic and self-proclaimed ‘passenger princess’ of the group. With plenty of annual leave, I’m always ready for a month-long adventure!
With such diverse interests, you can imagine how challenging it was to plan a trip that suited all of us. But after countless discussions and compromises, we finally settled on Kyushu—a perfect blend of nature, culture, and relaxation.
Wondering why it was a bit challenging for us to plan things to match everyone's pace? You'll find out why.
Since Friend A and I had been to Japan quite often, we didn't really feel like returning to the popular cities we've been to - especially Tokyo and Osaka; however, we still wanted to give Friend B the city life experience what Tokyo or Osaka offers to its tourists (for everything else in there, we'll just plan another trip to Japan some other day, haha!)
Friend A, who's deeply interested in arts and museums, strongly preferred to visit museums and galleries, while I am more partial to soaking in hot springs, looking at nature sceneries, and better yet - visiting places that are off the beaten paths. Since this is Friend B’s first Japan trip, she's pretty chill with a good mix of everything.
After much discussion about our availability, we decided that November would be a good time since we could utilize some of our Diwali public holidays to address our limited annual leave. However, there are also plenty of great places to visit in Japan during October, so we ended up debating between Tohoku and Kyushu.
How did we end up deciding to visit Kyushu?
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| Night Kagura in Takachiho Shrine |
For a TL;DR, it's because of the following points:
- Direct flights from Singapore;
- Famous for hot springs;
- Perfect for a relaxed, comfortable trip;
- Still offering a bustling city environment for shopping sprees;
- Rich in various forms of traditional art;
It's mostly because of the availability of direct flights! While in the past, AirAsia did offer direct flights from Kuala Lumpur to Fukuoka (not anymore for now), Singapore Airlines offers direct overnight flights from Changi Airport (SIN) to Fukuoka Airport (FUK), as well as morning flights from Fukuoka Airport back to Singapore.
Additionally, since all three of us work in highly stressful environments, we also figured that it's best to not rush our trip too much, so hot springs are a good idea for all of us! And of course, since Kyushu is famous for their hot springs, that basically made the decision for us!
Upon deciding that comfort is our highest priority for the trip, we've decided to book our flight with Singapore Airlines. Friend A flies direct from SIN to FUK so she books her own ticket, while I booked my tickets with Friend B, which was supposed to be a transit flight from KUL (KLIA, not KLIA2) to SIN, then from SIN to FUK. If our plans worked well we're should be able to catch the same flight with friend A and arrive Fukuoka together!
| SQ117 11NOV KULSIN 1755 1900 SQ656 12NOV SINFUK 0120 0810 SQ655 20NOV FUKSIN 0945 1520 SQ126 20NOV SINKUL 1835 1940 |
Not to mention, Singapore Airlines gave us a pretty good promotion back then, and my return tickets with 25kg baggage included for both ways were no more than MYR 2.4k! So we've booked our flight to travel from 10 November and return home on 20 November, just in time for the autumn foliage for the year!
Deciding the itinerary
But wait, which PART of Kyushu?
This is probably what came up to your mind by now. Yes, Kyushu is a huge, HUGE region with nine different prefectures, hence why it's called Kyushu, as the 'Kyu' stands for 'Nine' and 'Shu' means 'state'! With just about 9 days (not to mention, we lost day 10 due to an early flight), we immediately knew there's no way we can see Kyushu as a whole, and especially in an in-depth manner. No judgment to those who can manage, but we prioritized comfort over rushing to see everything, with the following brief itinerary (we didn't follow the whole thing in the end but that's a story for next time):
KL → Fukuoka (Hakata) → Kitakyushu (Kokura) → Oita (Beppu) → Miyazaki (Takachiho) → Kumamoto (Mt. Aso and City) → Saga (City) → Fukuoka (Hakata City) → KL
We've decided to focus mostly on the northern part of Kyushu while not wanting to miss out some important cultural heritage, so we included Takachiho and with it being the highlight of our trip. We also wanted to make sure we ate well, rest well, while still making the most out of our limited time in Japan.
Deciding if we're driving or taking public transportation
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| On our way to Aso's Michi no Eki |
"Do I need a JR Pass to travel to Japan?" is a very, VERY common question for first-time visitors.
If you've met me personally when I was a travel consultant, you will know that the first thing I'll say, and I'll still say, is a big NO. It used to be a very convenient pass, but now it's not anymore necessary. There are plenty of optional regional passes by JR or by non-JR transportation companies, and you should find something suitable to your own needs when you plan for your trip to get the most out of your money's worth!
For our trip, while it is doable with public transportation, the timing availability for services can be very limited. Considering that we're visiting across prefectures, while driving can be a little tiring even when taking turns, missing the last bus or train could be very devastating (speaking on personal experience, by the way).
Of course, on the other hand, we also fully understand that being on the road for over 3 hours every day could take the joy away from our holiday and that's what we'd like to avoid the most, so we thoroughly reviewed the total driving distances and made sure we're all traveling in a comfortable pace within our limits. We did make compromises to have days with lesser time on the road, and the longest driving distance we had wasn’t more than 151km for two out of 6 days of car rental, while the other days we drove for an average of 127km and under (maybe a bit more to account for all the times we were looking for parking lots lol).
And of course, since we are traveling to Kyushu, we did look into Kyushu Express Pass (KEP) for six days to save up on our highway toll fares. This website (Japanese only) helps you to decide if your KEP is worth purchasing!
After this trip, we ended up agreeing that we'd all love to return to Kyushu to explore the other prefectures we didn't get to visit for this particular trip, but next time via public transportation so we can also enjoy sightseeing trains by JR Kyushu if it all works out for us.
Deciding our budget
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| Our private hot spring bath in ryokan |
With comfort being our priority, we decided to have about MYR10k budget per head for our trip's total expenses, which might be higher than typical trips for many budget travelers. However, we know that it's not possible for us to stay in ryokans the entire trip, especially since Friend A and B are both shy and uncomfortable with public onsens. To accommodate that, we opted for lesser nights in traditional ryokans, and instead booked our accommodation arrangements with a mixture of just two nights in a ryokan with private baths, and the other nights in 3-star hotels (they were all comfy!) to meet our total budget.
Luckily, some of our lodging options came with breakfast and/or dinner, since most of our budget was allocated for a (hotel, ryokan) and transportation (flight, car rental, petrol, KEP). The rest went to our meals, souvenirs, omamori and omikuji, entrance fees, SIM cards/ Wi-Fi rental).
Some of our accommodation options came with breakfast and/or dinner, but most of the allocation for our budget were on accommodation (hotel, ryokan) and transportation (flight, car rental, petrol, KEP). The rest goes to our meals, souvenirs, omamori and omikuji, entrance fees, SIM cards/ Wi-Fi rental).
Though in the end we did spend a little more than our budget but that's because we shopped for 3 days in Hakata, and splurged in a Michelin-starred restaurant for some Saga Wagyu! Our visit was during a time where the currency rates were a little higher, so it might be lesser when you visit now as yen has weakened a little.
How our plan turned out
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| Kyushu National Museum |
No matter how much thought comes into planning for trips, sometimes things still don’t work out the way we want it to. My flight from KUL to SIN with friend B got cancelled and we were asked to choose another time or day. But since rebooking was free, we ended up with an additional day of vacation since switched our flight from KUL to SIN and SIN to FUK one day earlier. This extra day we spent in Hakata, which of course also added a couple hundred ringgits to our expenses, but it was worth it because I also had the chance to meet up with my ex colleague and another Japanese friend I've not met since 2019, while also managing to visit Daizaifu and eat some really nice Kurume ramen!
Also, we managed to collect our rental car earlier while waiting for Friend A to clear customs and pick her up straight from the airport before moving to Kitakyushu. We would’ve loved to spend some time in Yamaguchi, but we ended up staying in Kokura longer than we expected to so unfortunately we had to skip that part to stay on track for the rest of our trip.
Our plan to visit Mt. Aso on the day we return to Kumamoto was also affected by volcanic activity, but I'm glad we had the back up plan of visiting Aso to see some statues from the famous anime series One Piece, while also having extra time to visit an art museum, and having another Michelin-starred meal as a bonus too!
On our last couple of days we stayed in Hakata City and mostly traveled by either train or by foot. I lost my IC card, twice. So I ended up using my credit card to travel on the trains. There were restaurants we wished to go to but couldn't, but there's always a next time for us. We still enjoyed a lot of time in nature, and Takachiho was THE highlight of our trip. We marveled at traditional architecture and art, had some of the best Michelin-starred meals and service, and also managed to visit a spot that is open only nine days a year. I'd say that it's a blast! I'll write more in the future when I get the time to, and I hope it'll be soon!
Until then, see you next time! If you'd like some guidance on planning a trip to Japan, check my post here! If you found this guide helpful, don’t forget to share it with your friends planning a trip to Japan!
