Japan Trip 2026: Nara

Having landed in Tokyo, taken a brief sojourn to Chichibu and then travelled all over Kyushu with Rascal + Thorn, I said my “goodbyes” and travelled alone by train to Nara, Japan’s oldest capital. On the advice of a coworker I added Nara to my travel itinerary. It turns out it is not on the Shinkansen line but having previously travelled through the Kansai region and never visited Nara, 2026 seemed like the year to do it.

The Most Ancient Capital

Kyoto is more famous and has the maybe the most Unesco heritage sites per square meter of anywhere in the world, but apparently it has gotten very popular with tourists. As mentioned when planning this trip, I thought Kyoto was pretty popular twenty plus years ago, but apparently it is even more popular now, so Nara was definitely chill. It is literally famous for nearly tame dear that are considered sacred so 1300 plus of them wander all around the parks, shrines and temples.

Nara as mentioned is not on the Shinkansen train line so most people seem to do a day trip to Nara from either Kyoto or Osaka. Two train lines do converge on Nara and even if you agree to meet at a specific gate you should specify above or below ground. I almost couldn’t find my guide Kazuna because of this. Luckily we both waited and through the magic of email and direct messages on Instagram we were able to set out to tour the temples and shrines of Nara but not the Pagoda. It is apparently closed for repairs for years, so I’ve been invited to comeback to Nara for another tour.

Shrines, Temples, and Pagodas

It has been over twenty years since I’ve been to Kyoto, but based on my recollection of the train station and of course some photos, Kyoto is indeed bigger than Nara, but as the Imperial Capital before Nara the shrines, temples and pagodas are in theory older. I say in theory because most of these major wooden structures have burnt down. And each time they rebuild they are usually smaller and they have trouble sourcing the large timbers so they have to alter the plans slightly.

In the latest version of the biggest building only two of the temple guardians were built in their entirety. It seems getting funding is hard. This jives with other places I’ve been, it took them hundreds years to build St. Magnus in Kirkwall Scotland. Nara is a lot bigger than Kirkwall, but for reasons unknown Orkney has been occupied by human settlements going back 1000s of years, so any buildings from way back in the day likely have gone through some wear and tear if not full reconstruction and we should be happy we can tour them at all.

Once again I bought a copy of the Lonely Planet Japan. I think I’ve bought at least three over the years. The latest one I left in my last hotel room in Tokyo, hopefully it finds a good home. It was in the Lonely Planet I learned you can get a free tour guide for Nara, so of course I signed up for that. We met at approximately 9 AM at a train station near the Park. Then we went to three of the most famous buildings and basically walked by the pagoda which was encased in something that looked like a giant grain elevator.

Photos

It was also in Nara where I discovered my Panasonic DMC-GM1 wasn’t working quite right, immediately before my tour with Kazuna. So almost every photo on this blog was taken with an iPhone 13 Mini. I didn’t look at getting it repaired or replacing the lens in Nara or Tokyo, but I felt dumb carrying it all over Japan without using it much, but it is very small and everyone wants the immediacy of smartphones and social media. The plan is to visit the Camera Store again and buy a new lens, but having just spent a record amount of money in a short period of time, I think I can hold off buying a new camera lens for a month or two.

Better Blogs

Although my blog is old, there are better travel blogs out there. Nara for me was really chill. We saw what we could, had lunch, then saw one more shrine and a famous author’s house. I took a lot of photos which seems to be what most people on the internet want or maybe a short video. This trip I did not do as exhaustive planning as I have done in the past, so I keep linking to other travel blogs to extoll the virtues of a destination, in this case Nara. For me Nara was really good, I took a nap both afternoons. Other people may have crammed in more than me:

• Tessa spent two days in Nara
• Apparently you can do Nara with kids
• Like everywhere in Japan, Nara is busy during Golden Week
• One last Nara travelog

Nara is Easy and Chill

As other bloggers can confirm above, Nara is easy. Although it is not on the Shinkansen, it is about an hour by train from cities which are. Nara is smaller than Kyoto, Osaka and Fukuoka, so you can walk most everywhere in a morning or an afternoon. There are of course buses, trains, and cabs you can take as well. It is an extremely tourist friendly place to visit and very photogenic even if you are not obsessed with deer. There are maps and signs everywhere and you’ll see they are in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English, this is true on many trains as well. The website Japan Guide has a great list of the most popular sites in Nara and elsewhere in Japan, I should have consulted it more perhaps when planning this trip.

The above treat was from Good Knight Ice which may or may not have a website, but is likely on the ‘Gram. This was near my hotel which was easy enough to find and walkable from either train station. Pictures of food are also popular online especially of Japanese food. I told Kazuna that one of the things that makes Japan great were the cafes and book shops. I’m not sure what was the name of the cafe she chose, it was down some alleys but still near Nara Park and everything tourists will visit. Good Knight Ice will be even easier to find for most people.

Craft Beer

I don’t think Nara is famous for craft beer, but I found two establishments fairly easy and they both seem to be part of the same chain or brewery, so having just finished my exhaustive whisky tour of Southern Japan of course I went out both nights and had a beer or two. Last call was at 9pm maybe even earlier so that tells you a lot of how Nara is as opposed to Kyoto let alone Osaka or Fukuoka nightlife.

Onward to Toyohashi

At least twice I had to explain that Toyohashi is in Aichi prefecture. It is not a famous city and not a popular tourist destination, but I did live there for a year teaching English so since if you draw a line between Fukuoka and Tokyo you come close to Nara and Toyohashi, I decided after twenty years this might be my last best time to visit again. The only person who seems to still live there and remembered me was a bartender.

If you have questions or comments about Nara you can leave them below, I’ll do my best to answer.

This entry was originaly posted on March 29th, 2026, it was last edited on April 5th, 2026 and is filed under: Travel and tagged: Japan, Nara, Tour.