How Should I Get There? And Other Questions Not to Start With

When I saw this question come up, I thought, this is exactly the opposite of how to plan a trip with the Heartbeat Travel Method.

To help you understand why, it helps to know a little bit about Kyoto. One site mentioned in the post, Fushimi Inari, is in the southeasternmost area of Kyoto, almost not even in Kyoto. The bamboo forest and monkey park being mentioned are both in Arashiyama, which is in the northwesternmost area of Kyoto. They are a 43-minute cab ride apart. Kyoto is not small, geographically. There is no itinerary, in any itinerary I would ever create for Kyoto, in which Fushimi Inari and Arashiyama would both appear in one day. Even if all you had was that one day. You would miss all the magic of either place.

Yet this is the kind of question most people ask when planning a whole trip or any given day on a trip. It’s what I call “checklist planning.”

Our Newbie Traveler has heard that, when in Kyoto, one must see Fushimi Inari, the bamboo forest, and the monkey park! Or in Rome, the Colosseum, the Vatican & the Sistine Chapel (plus St. Peter’s, of course), and the Forum! So, how best do we now fit all of these sites into our itinerary?

I’m exhausted just thinking about trying to do all of that in one day in either Kyoto or Rome. It’s going to exhaust you to actually do your trip this way, too. Checklist planning disconnects you from what matters and creates logistical chaos on top of it. Instead of asking, what should I spend my time on?, you’re asking, How do I get from A to Z the fastest?

Here’s the real question to ask instead: What’s the one experience in this place that genuinely calls to me? Start there. Figure out the logistics of having that experience (What day of the week will you need to be there? What time is best? How much time will it take, reasonably, to savor that experience?). Then, find out what’s around it. (Don’t forget food and other breaks, like tea or coffee.) Let the day build outward from that center.

I’ve spent three full days in Arashiyama, across two trips to Japan. The first time I went, I started my planning with what I most wanted to do: the Orgel Museum. A strangely Western outpost in the midst of Japan, this is a museum dedicated to antique mechanical music boxes and automata. The museum houses a collection of Polyphons and historic automata, as well as modern reproductions of several of Jacquet Droz’s automata, which I’d seen demoed in Switzerland the previous fall.

The Orgel is down near the train station, so as I began my research and discovered that there were temples I wanted to see in the north, I slotted it into the afternoon. That allowed me to start first thing in the morning, at what ended up being an unexpected Heartbeat Experience: Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple. This is a quiet temple in the lush forest that is home to 1200 small adorable statues, all with different expressions.

The bamboo grove was not on my list. The monkey park was a “maybe,” but it was first on the chopping block if there wasn’t enough time for other things (and it was chopped; it also didn’t make it into my second or my third visit). I had to evaluate it based on the cost, not in money, but in time and energy: It’s a bit far off from the other sites I wanted to see, it requires a 20-minute hike up hill, and the descriptions in the reviews of how greedy and food-motivated the monkeys were made it less appealing. It became clear to me, as I sifted and sorted, that the experience wasn’t likely to be worth it.

And of course when I arrived to Arashiyama for the first time, I encountered all sorts of other interesting things that I hadn’t planned for at all, like the Folk Dolls Museum, and the tiny shop up the stairs in the Saga-toriimoto preserved street where the old man and his family made tiny dolls and animals out of silkworm cocoons. Or just the sheer, mad joy of meandering south through the Saga-toriimoto preserved street area in the bright February sunshine, gazing at the traditional Japanese buildings, talking to friendly Japanese ladies who told me my hat was cute and talked my ear off in Japanese and then semi-translated English… I wasn’t going to cut any of this short for the monkey park.

I stayed in touch with what mattered.

Stop checklist planning and start tuning in to what gives you that sheer, mad joy I had on a simple wander in Arashiyama.

And if you’re interested in learning how to think this way about travel in more detail, I’ll have something for you shortly. If you’d like to stay in touch and hear about it when it’s finished, subscribe to Heartbeat Travel and I’ll let you know.