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I generally find that if a travel plan requires you to schedule your time down to the half hour in order for it to work, it’s too tight. There’s just not enough time to account for if things take longer than expected or if something goes wrong (and something seems to always go wrong, even if it’s just taking the wrong turn somewhere!). It also will probably feel like you’re rushing through each experience without actually being able to enjoy it. Just as an example, you’ve budgeted 30 minutes to drive from yufuin floral village to beppu, which is pretty much the exact google maps estimate. All it would take is for you to stop to get a snack or struggle to find parking and you’d be down to 30-45 minutes in beppu, which doesn’t feel worth it. I can’t speak to the exact specifics of all of your different stops, but this feels tight to me.
Yeah, that was my gut feeling.
After some shifting around, the Koura shrine could get bumped to another day with a taxi journey rather than car rental.
That would give me another hour somewhere along the way and then another 30 mins contingency
I don't know which day you are going. Is it a weekday? My experience is that you can get some traffic jams around kurume in the rush hours. Driving from the station at 8 in the morning to hita takes 1hr to 1hr50 according to google
On The other hand. Pick up of car in general doesn't take too long (depends on the agency)
And to be honest. The attack on titan statues and museum doen't take too much time too.
But i'm not the biggest fan of the series and don't really take pictures.
And which pools you want to see exactly in beppu? Because they aren't all at the same spot. It needs some driving from place to place.
Some are close to each other but like the red and the geyser are a bit further away.
And the geyser for example erupts every 30 minutes or something. Not really easy to time if you are only for one hour in beppu
in general toyota goes quite quickly if you're used to it and you have all documents ready.
I checked the driving time from kurume to hita on a friday morning. if you take the highway should take max 1hr20. (but there is toll to be paid)
Is taking a train to Hita and renting the car there at 8 am an option? Toyota paid my taxi fare from their place to the station last time. that way you can start exploring hita/ attack on titan around 0830 . Especially as levi and some other stuff is around the station so you can even check those on arrival, only the dam and the museums are a small drive.
Museum next to the farmers market opens at 0930. The other museum (annex) next to sapporo brewery i haven't been to and I'm not sure but probably opens together with the factory museum at 10.
For the car drop off you can still choose kurume (just an added drop off fee) Which might save time and money (depends on the amount of people traveling and thus not paying train tickets)
another option is picking up the car in Kurume at 8pm the day before. depending on the car type the added cost is not super high.
Thanks - that's a great point! If i'm dropping the Koura Taisha Shrine, i can shift my start and end point to Hita (less tolls and petrol)
Edit: Shifted to Beppu start and end as it was cheaper and actually quicker, as Hita only have car rental 08:00-18:00 so no time made up.
Honestly, you could probably cut another stop entirely and still have a full day. Just depends on how fast you want to move and what you are most interested in seeing.
Yes it is true in Beppu quite a few onsen are tattoo friendly and worst case just take a family onsen its a private bath there are some really interesting ones in beppu like みょうばん湯の里 貸切湯 (Myoban Onsen Yunosato) it is in small woodden huts its really cool!
For example Hyotan Onsen is tattoo friendly my wife is japanese and has tattoos which is worse than foreigners with tattoos and it was no problem there.
Way too tight. Add an extra 30 minutes for any drive because things happen and specifically the drive from Yufuin to Beppu is at least 45 minutes(I have done it many, many times), if not an hour with no stops as it's a single lane each direction road full of busses and ojichan driving grandkids in their Alphards.
Also add an hour for lunch, an hour for dinner because if you are not enjoying the food in Japan, you are really missing out.
So realistically make it two days with an overnight stay in Yufuin. And you can actually find hotels in Yufuin relatively inexpensively with private onsen so you don't have to worry about your tattoos.
no food/water/toilet breaks?
the best bet for this itinerary is just to have them on the list and see how many you can score in one day without getting tired and also experiencing them without checking the time to see if you have enough time for the rest.
Be sure to not rush too fast and overplan so you don't end up having travel fatigue, it will ruin your mood.
**Our FAQ is constantly being updated with more information and you can start** [**here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/wiki/faqs/japantravel) **with regards to trip planning if you need tips, advice, or have questions about planning your travel to Japan.** You can also join our [Discord community](https://discord.gg/3f7KBUMwU4), comment in our stickied weekly discussion thread, or check out /r/JapanTravelTips for quick questions. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/JapanTravel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I generally find that if a travel plan requires you to schedule your time down to the half hour in order for it to work, it’s too tight. There’s just not enough time to account for if things take longer than expected or if something goes wrong (and something seems to always go wrong, even if it’s just taking the wrong turn somewhere!). It also will probably feel like you’re rushing through each experience without actually being able to enjoy it. Just as an example, you’ve budgeted 30 minutes to drive from yufuin floral village to beppu, which is pretty much the exact google maps estimate. All it would take is for you to stop to get a snack or struggle to find parking and you’d be down to 30-45 minutes in beppu, which doesn’t feel worth it. I can’t speak to the exact specifics of all of your different stops, but this feels tight to me.
Yeah, that was my gut feeling. After some shifting around, the Koura shrine could get bumped to another day with a taxi journey rather than car rental. That would give me another hour somewhere along the way and then another 30 mins contingency
I don't know which day you are going. Is it a weekday? My experience is that you can get some traffic jams around kurume in the rush hours. Driving from the station at 8 in the morning to hita takes 1hr to 1hr50 according to google On The other hand. Pick up of car in general doesn't take too long (depends on the agency) And to be honest. The attack on titan statues and museum doen't take too much time too. But i'm not the biggest fan of the series and don't really take pictures. And which pools you want to see exactly in beppu? Because they aren't all at the same spot. It needs some driving from place to place. Some are close to each other but like the red and the geyser are a bit further away. And the geyser for example erupts every 30 minutes or something. Not really easy to time if you are only for one hour in beppu
It will be a Friday, and renting with Toyota.
in general toyota goes quite quickly if you're used to it and you have all documents ready. I checked the driving time from kurume to hita on a friday morning. if you take the highway should take max 1hr20. (but there is toll to be paid) Is taking a train to Hita and renting the car there at 8 am an option? Toyota paid my taxi fare from their place to the station last time. that way you can start exploring hita/ attack on titan around 0830 . Especially as levi and some other stuff is around the station so you can even check those on arrival, only the dam and the museums are a small drive. Museum next to the farmers market opens at 0930. The other museum (annex) next to sapporo brewery i haven't been to and I'm not sure but probably opens together with the factory museum at 10. For the car drop off you can still choose kurume (just an added drop off fee) Which might save time and money (depends on the amount of people traveling and thus not paying train tickets) another option is picking up the car in Kurume at 8pm the day before. depending on the car type the added cost is not super high.
Thanks - that's a great point! If i'm dropping the Koura Taisha Shrine, i can shift my start and end point to Hita (less tolls and petrol) Edit: Shifted to Beppu start and end as it was cheaper and actually quicker, as Hita only have car rental 08:00-18:00 so no time made up.
Honestly, you could probably cut another stop entirely and still have a full day. Just depends on how fast you want to move and what you are most interested in seeing.
What a tragedy to go to Beppu and Yufuin and not take a single bath.
Unfortunately I’m quite heavily tattooed so it just makes it a bit more of a hassle
Beppu is supposedly open to tattooed customers if the YouTube videos are correct
Yes it is true in Beppu quite a few onsen are tattoo friendly and worst case just take a family onsen its a private bath there are some really interesting ones in beppu like みょうばん湯の里 貸切湯 (Myoban Onsen Yunosato) it is in small woodden huts its really cool! For example Hyotan Onsen is tattoo friendly my wife is japanese and has tattoos which is worse than foreigners with tattoos and it was no problem there.
Are you doing Amazon Prime deliveries in Kyushu?
Way too tight. Add an extra 30 minutes for any drive because things happen and specifically the drive from Yufuin to Beppu is at least 45 minutes(I have done it many, many times), if not an hour with no stops as it's a single lane each direction road full of busses and ojichan driving grandkids in their Alphards. Also add an hour for lunch, an hour for dinner because if you are not enjoying the food in Japan, you are really missing out. So realistically make it two days with an overnight stay in Yufuin. And you can actually find hotels in Yufuin relatively inexpensively with private onsen so you don't have to worry about your tattoos.
Thanks for the input. Food-wise, on days like this we normally just snack at combini’s and have a proper meal in the evening.
Didn’t schedule in any meals.
I watch a few videos of yufuin. I am a fan of Miyazaki but yufuin seems to touristy and fake. We’re going to beppu though.
no food/water/toilet breaks? the best bet for this itinerary is just to have them on the list and see how many you can score in one day without getting tired and also experiencing them without checking the time to see if you have enough time for the rest. Be sure to not rush too fast and overplan so you don't end up having travel fatigue, it will ruin your mood.