Just planning a trip gives me a huge amount of joy. I love reading everything I can get my hands on before I set out, from novels set in the region to travel blogs. I find the “must see” sights as well as the “off-the-beaten-track” locales. I try to study the culture, learn about what foods I should try, and zero in on what handicrafts I should keep an eye out for. Taking a cue from my teen, I’ve even started watching Travel TikTok! And, I as I read, study, and watch, I make lists. But, it’s not always possible to cross everything off those lists. But I also like to learn the hindsight lessons from a trip, going back over my lists to see how my travel plans worked out.

For every trip, I arm myself with lists: sights to see, foods to try, local specialities to buy, small iconic spots to glimpse. I love a list and try to lay out my travel days so that I can hit as many things on my lists as possible (or at least, make sure I get to the top spots). I’ll admit it: while we’re away, I even check off the sites/experiences we managed to hit.

But following a list can be risky: does hewing too close to list mean that you can’t enjoy the trip? Does it make you too rigid? Does it make you rush through your travels?

Having drafted a post about planning a trip just before we left for Japan, I wanted to update the planning a trip ideas with the reality of executive growth that trip.

Hindsight lessons: How good were those travel plans and lists?

As you can see, in Hiroshima, we found it easy to cross just about everything off the list. Hiroshima was fairly clear cut: we’d spend one day on the island of Miyajima, and hit all of the highlights there. Then, we’d spend the next day at the Peace Park and Memorial Museum, hitting Hiroshima Castle if we had time.

Weather Problems

The only highlight we missed out on in Miyajima was the ropeway. The island has a cable car that takes you up to the top of the central peak, providing hiking trails, shrines, and gorgeous views. It seemed like a great way to see the wild part of Japan. Sadly, the day we went to Miyajima was windy at elevation (not down at the shore — we had no idea until my husband looked up the ropeway on his phone). The ropeway closed. Because we had only one day for Miyajima, we missed out on the ropeway. But, there’s simply no way to account for every possible weather variation when planning a trip from afar. Sometimes you have to roll with things.

Tidal Scheules

However, we did get to see the Floating Torii at both low and high tide (which I didn’t know if we’d manage). The tides vary tremendously from day to day and it felt like something too hard to plan (many writers insist high tide is critical, but others argue for low tide). I figured that we’d take what we got. We arrived at about mid-tide and got to see the Torii Gate with its feet underwater (visited only by kayakers). But, after we visited the shrines, tide had gone out and we got to walk out to the gate and look up into it and truly appreciate its enormity. The child also got to revel in the vast numbers of crabs and hermit crabs that the waning tide revealed.

Local Schedules

When we moved on to Beppu, we had a harder time crossing things off the list. We spent two full days hitting my top two list items: the Seven Jigoku (Hells) of Beppu and the Takasakiyama Nature Park’s monkey mountain. We also hit four onsens (I got to experience both the sand bath and the mud bath which were high on my list as well).

So, what was the problem? Beppu contains two amusement parts (one with a gigantic wooden roller coaster and one a vintage park with duck races and a path to a waterfall behind it). However, both parks, along with all of the Jigoku and Myoban Onsen (the last onsen I really wanted to try) had 9-5 business hours. In a spread-out town with a solid, but not quick, bus system, one can only hit so many places between 9am 5pm. By the time we finished the hells at 4pm, there was no point in trying to get to a park. And, we worried that trying to hit a park before Takasakiyama on day two would make us miss the monkeys. We had to prioritize.

Key hindsight lesson here: travel plans don’t always fit neatly into business hours. Pay attention to hours when you’re planning. And, be willing to cut.

Keep an Eye Out for Schedule Anomalies

The good part about Beppu: most of the onsens open early or stay open late. I squeezed in the mud bath onsen at 8:30 one morning. We made two visits to Hyokan Onsen, both in the late evening (they stay open until 1am). The onsen in our hotel also opened early and closed late, so we visited the two different floors, late one night and early one morning. I love places with odd hours!

In my planning, I had looked at the hours of all of the onsens I wanted to go to and knew that I would try to hit Hyotan late the night we arrived and Koudei early one morning. But, I failed to even consider that the amusement parks would close at 5. If I had, I probably would have taken them off the list anyway (monkey park was totally worth prioritizing!).

Food in Beppu also turned out to be a bit trickier than I thought. I only found one type of food that I really wanted to eat there: Jigoku steamed food. We found that. We went to a Jigokumushi, where we ordered baskets of food and learned how to steam them in special. Steamy pits fueled by natural hot spring water (delicious). I also managed to find onsen steamed pudding and eggs (local specialities).

Geography

We had booked a hotel in the hot springs area, at the end of town, near the foothills. That meant that we found onsens close at hand, but downtown was at least 30 minutes by bus. So, the little local food stalls were not close at hand, and some of the other regional specialties were not readily available (especially local mackerel). We did get lucky and the town’s most popular conveyor belt sushi was turned out to be kitty-corner from our hotel, so lots of cheap sushi for us! Another key hindsight lesson: the more specific your travel plans are, the more you might have to adjust. We just didn’t have time to hunt for mackerel.

Family Preferences + Learning from the Trip

My family can only take so many shrines. I find them endlessly fascinating, I love all the different buildings and rituals, and traditions. My family thinks they all sort of seem the same. In planning a trip, I list everything I even kind of want to see, so some shrines and temples on my initial list didn’t make the final cut. We hit my top ones.

Be Willing to Split Up

Moreover, when I’m planning a trip, I try to find the locations I can do by myself, sometimes late at night (like an onsen), but more often early in the morning. Some shrines open early and I got up early both days we woke up in Osaka to see two that I knew we would not get to otherwise.

Some other shrines that I really wanted to check out others just weren’t open early or late. So, I checked off all the shrines and temples I most wanted to see. I had to save some for another day.

Hindsight Lessons: Be Open to Deviating from your Travel Plans

Perhaps more significantly, I planned to spend one Osaka day taking a half-day trip to Himeji Castle and stopping at Kobe for lunch. Himeji is about an hour from Osaka and Kobe is right in between. But after spending a few hours at Hiroshima Castle (possibly prettier but less interesting to me because it’s a reconstruction and Himeji is famous for being original), I knew my family was not excited for another castle. (And to be honest, the castle had not thrilled me either, although I was glad that we went).

When we visited Japan five years ago, we spent a fabulous day in Nara. The temple astounded us and we loved the bowing deer. The child said that it was their best memory for Japan and wanted to go back. I had said that we just didn’t have time. But the day before the planned Himeji trip, I offered another option: Day trip to Nara and then backtrack to Kobe. It would not be an efficient trip, but I was in if they would prefer it.

They both said they would prefer Nara to Himeji (child wanted to see the deer again and husband did not want a castle that was rife with stairs to climb in the 97 degree, 90% humidity weather). So, to Nara we went (although I snuck in a new shrine that we missed last time!).

Hindsight Lessons: Errors In the Travel Plans

For all the hindsight lessons I learned, not all of the hitches in my travel plans were unavoidable. Turns out, I also made some miscalculations.

Mixing up the Logistics

Somehow when planning the trip, I got my wires crossed. I really though we had another half day in Osaka than we had. We had planned to spend our last night in Tokyo, but then decided to stay that last night in Osaka and just Shinkansen to Tokyo and then right to the airport. Since spending the night in Tokyo would have gotten us a half day in Tokyo, my brain converted that into a half day in Osaka. Not so. We would have gained that half day in Tokyo by traveling at night… we would need to leave Osaka by 10am, so staying the night didn’t really buy us any additional time. My family was super bummed that we would not be sneaking in one more temple!

Accept that You Simply Cannot Plan for Everything

We also decide to buy a saxophone while in Japan. We had gone to Japan expecting to spend our first day in Tokyo saxophone shopping. Japan still has instrument shops where you can actually shop and try instruments (something we have been hard pressed to find in Los Angeles). The Yamaha store in Tokyo (Ginza) is 14 storys tall! I didn’t actually expect to find a good deal. Then we found a new, intermediate student level sax for just over $1400. The comparably US model (same brand, but the horn made for the US) was over $3000.

The child fell in love and we could not ignore the price difference. But we spent a lot of time coordinating the buying and transporting of a saxophone. So, our last day in Japan was a mess of transportation, back and forth to the air point and the Yamaha store, trying to make sure that we could buy the horn and get it on the plane (not in baggage). All worked out well and the horn is home and the child is happy. But, when I was planning the trip, I definitely did not plan on so many hours of saxophone logistics.

Making Travel Plans: Hindsight Lessons

Do the research, make your lists. If you’re like me, you want to make sure that you figure out your basic priorities before you go. You’d hate to come home and realize you missed something really important to you due to poor planning. (I hit all of my must-dos except for the Miyajima ropeway which was beyond my control.)

But, you have to be flexible. Sometimes, despite planning a trip with all of the details in mind, doing it all just isn’t possible. Make sure you enjoy the time you have, rather than stressing about the time you don’t have. Keep your eye on the ball of having a great overall experience. Each site, food, shop is just a piece of the puzzle. Make sure you hit your “must-dos” — even if it’s something small like having a takoyaki from a restaurant in Dotonburi with an octopus on the front — and let the rest of the trip fall into place.

I wouldn’t change anything about this trip. But I will keep my lists in case I ever make it to Japan again!