Eighteen months is the figure every Japan specialist gives, and it is an observation about the country rather than a sales device. The inns that anchor the best journeys in Japan are small, many of its great gardens are seen only by application, and its two celebrated seasons are the ones the whole nation travels for too. A journey that begins a year and a half ahead has the whole of that calendar to choose from.
the inns
Inns of a dozen rooms
The ryokan that anchor a considered journey are small by any standard. One of the two most celebrated ryokan of Kyoto, in the centre of the city, has eighteen rooms. Many of the celebrated inns of the hot spring towns have fewer than twenty, some fewer than ten, and each room is looked after by its own attendant through dinner, the night and breakfast, so the number of guests an inn receives is set by its staff as much as by its walls. Many of their guests return in the same season year after year, and an inn of eighteen rooms has only eighteen to give to a spring or an autumn.
The same is true of the dining counters of Kyoto and Tokyo, where a chef cooks for eight or ten at a time, often with a single seating each evening. A journey planned early chooses its rooms and its evenings from the whole of the country; a journey planned late chooses from what remains.
by application
Gardens seen by application
Some of the great places of Japan keep calendars of their own. The Katsura Imperial Villa and the Shugakuin Imperial Villa in Kyoto are seen only on guided tours arranged through the Imperial Household Agency, which opens applications three months before the date and allots places by lottery. Saiho-ji, the moss temple, accepts reservations two months ahead, and each visitor copies a passage of the sutras by hand before entering the garden. The six grand sumo tournaments, in January, March, May, July, September and November, three of them in Tokyo, put their tickets on sale about a month before each begins.
None of these can be secured eighteen months out, and that is the point. A journey whose rooms and route are settled early can be built to meet each calendar as it opens: the villa on the right morning, the moss garden on the right afternoon, the tournament on the right day, with nothing else in the plan depending on the draw.
the rail
The rail, one month out
Even the shinkansen has its date. Reserved seats go on sale at ten in the morning one month before the day of travel. It is the last piece of a journey to be confirmed, and one of the few that a guest never has to think about at all when it is arranged for them.
A journey planned early chooses its rooms and its evenings from the whole of the country.
the seasons
When Japan travels too
The cherry blossom in spring and the maples in autumn are not only what visitors come for; they are what Japan itself goes out to see. The school and financial year begins on 1 April, in the middle of the blossom, and the country travels for hanami as it does for nothing else. November is the busiest month of the year in Kyoto after April. Golden Week at the start of May, Obon in the middle of August and the New Year are the three weeks when the whole country is on the move at once, and the trains and inns are full with Japanese families as much as with anyone.
Festivals add their own weeks. The Gion Matsuri fills Kyoto around 17 July, the Snow Festival fills Sapporo in early February, and the Aoi Matsuri, the Jidai Matsuri and the great floats of Takayama each bring their city a day or two that is planned for well ahead.
the exceptions
What can wait
The figure is not universal. Kyoto in January and February, outside the New Year, is the quietest the city ever is, and its temples and gardens can be arranged on far shorter notice. June, the one month of the year without a national holiday, is quiet across Honshu, and the gardens of Kyoto are green with the rain. The islands of the Inland Sea and much of Kyushu are open to a journey planned in months rather than years.
in practice
What eighteen months looks like in practice
Eighteen months ahead does not mean that everything is settled eighteen months ahead. It means beginning the conversation while the calendar is still open: choosing the season, the route and the inns first, and letting the rest follow as each of Japan's calendars opens in turn. The published tours of Luxury Japan Travel are set out on the same principle. The Classic Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan for 30 March to 10 April 2027 and the Autumn Leaves Tour of Northern Japan for 2 to 13 November 2027 are open for enquiry now, with every hotel named.
For a guest planning from outside Japan, the journey starts with a conversation.
