We’re a family travelling to Japan for two weeks in October with children aged eight and 10. We are flying in and out of Tokyo and heading first to Fukuoka but what other places should we include on the way back to Tokyo over 10 days that would work for all of us? A. Osbourne, Kingston, ACT Magome, Japan is found along the Nakasendo Trail between Tokyo and Kyoto.
Credit: iStock You can reach Fukuoka by train in under six hours and this is a thrilling introduction to Japan’s superb high-speed train network. From Fukuoka it’s just a 70-minute train trip to Hiroshima but you need to consider whether the city’s Peace Memorial Park is an experience that your children can handle, and The Family Voyage lays out what you can expect. Your next stop might be Naoshima Island, in the Seto Inland Sea, one of the stars of the international contemporary arts scene.
It’s a delight, an eye-opening experience with galleries, sculpture parks and art installations in surprising places. Continue to Kyoto to see some of Japan’s most famous gardens and temples and then to Takayama, surrounded by the hills of the Japan Alps. There’s a superb collection of Edo-style merchants’ houses along Ojinmachi and every morning from about 7am Miyagawa Market brings colour and fragrant smells to the walking path along the river.
Above the city the Higashiyama Walking Trail wanders through a dozen historic Buddhist temples with enormous bronze bells and shingled roofs. If time allows, spend a coup.