Osaka with young kids you say? What about Nagoya, Hakone, and Tokyo too? I’ve lived in Japan and visited many times, and this was my first time going with my children. It was our chance to do a big trip before my son turned five and had to stay in school. So we went for a long time. Our itinerary was:
- 2 weeks Osaka
- 6 days Nagoya
- 4 days Hakone
- 5 days Tokyo
- Then we did 10 days in Hawaii and 2 weeks in California before circumnavigating the globe to get back home in Europe!
If you’re thinking of doing a good ‘basic’ trip to Japan with small kids, perhaps my experience can help. I know most people can’t go for nearly a month, but these bases are all well on the beaten track — and a lot of fun, too.
We did a lot. I did try to plan this so that we would have plenty of down time. But the problem is that there is so much to do and see… and I hadn’t been to Japan in 6 years… I found it really difficult to just stay home and chill!
I’ll write here about our overall trip, going place-by-place. If you want to see how I got myself revved up for it by reading about old travelogues to Japan (think missionaries in the 1890s or people traveling around the world in 1863), take a look at my past post here.
Difficulties of traveling in Japan with small kids
Even when we had the nice, cosy AirB&B, I found that there were two really hard parts with young kids:
- Transport. The long train rides were tiring and my baby (14 months at the time) had trouble adjusting to them when he was jetlagged. It did get better after a couple weeks, but he cried a lot. It was hard. Later on he got better at napping on the trains, but I still found that it was exhausting. It was often 1 hour to get anywhere, even being situated in a hub. We had to bribe my 4-year-old a lot with treats and juices from the vending machines to get him to walk so much!
- Space. The baby was just about starting to walk and he was so frustrated being kept in a high chair. And a lot of places don’t even have a high chair. Holding a struggling baby whilst okonomiyaki is being made on a hot stove in front of you is no easy task! We spent a lot of time corralling him and dealing with that fussiness in tight quarters. Now, the moment he was able to crawl around — happy as a claim.
13 nights in Osaka: day trips and days out
I have friends in Osaka so we booked an AirB&B close to theirs, and also walkable to Umeda, which is a good hub train station to take day trips from. We did some lovely day trips:
A day out in Ikeda
This is where the Cup Ramen Museum is, which was lots of fun. Within walking distance there is a lovely castle park with a view out over the bay.
A trip to Kobe’s botanic gardens (The Herb Gardens & Ropeway)
So beautiful! The Kobe Nunobiki Herb Gardens & Ropeway was one of my favourite day trips from Osaka. We went with a friend who also had a 4-year-old and a baby (hers was practically newborn), and the kids had a lot of fun running around while the babies napped in their strollers. The trip up via the ropeway is a main event, for sure, and my ice cream overlooking the view of Kobe harbour was a highlight.
There’s a lot more to do in Kobe but this took up a full day for us. We walked back to the main station via the ijinkan area and stopped at this cute deli. Traditionally, Kobe was one of the few places Westerners were allowed once Japan opened up in the latter half of the 19th century. This is the part of Kobe that features some lovely European architecture. You can visit the houses, too, which I did on my first trip to Kobe over 15 years ago.
Day in Nara: Goldfish museum & deer
The Nara Kingyo museum is interactive, colourful and a lot of fun for kids. It’s in the middle of a shopping centre in Nara and a pretty chill day out if you can get there easily (our friends drove us). We had a delicious vegan lunch in Nara, followed by a trip to the museum. We would have spent time in the deer park, but it was pouring rain that day, so we made do by watching them as we drove through. I had lots of fun filling up a basket full of cheap & cute kids’ clothes at Birthday in the shopping centre there.
Kyoto Railway Museum
Loved our day trip to Kyoto’s train museum. There was a fun market just outside, and the place we ate lunch at was lovely too. Really recommend all of this. Make 100% certain you know exactly how you will get there beforehand. I made the mistake of thinking we could just hop on the train but with kids and train times and huge train stations, the transit from Osaka to Kyoto is really not that easy. We took the bus for a good chunk to get back!
Matcha capital Uji and the Nintendo Museum
If you can plan it months in advance, reserve tickets for the Nintendo Museum and combine it with a day trip to Uji, known for its matcha. I got my fix of temples and matcha, and the boys had so much fun with all the games. This was my son’s first introduction to video games. Loved it!
This was also incidentally the midway point of our trip where my husband and I had a complete breakdown and ended up in a huge fight (in a quiet little gelato shop, lol). I was exhausted, he was exhausted, we were sick of dealing with the kids constantly without a chance to rest. Well, luckily the Nintendo Museum cheered us up!
Osaka World Expo
In general, Osaka with young kids was totally doable and even a lot of fun in places. And the Expo was actually a big reason we went to Japan in October. I mainly wanted to attend the Osaka World Expo for my work.
That said, I would never ever recommend it to anyone ever again! Too crowded, too hot, probably one of the worst days of our trip. I would NOT go to another one unless it was clearly planned well and getting good reviews. Everyone was complaining about this and I didn’t have high expectations, so it wasn’t too bad.
Fun things to do in Osaka with young kids
We also had some more relaxing days, mostly walkable from our AirB&B near Umeda.
Family restaurants & sushi!
The sushi restaurants are so great, easy to order on the tablets, and lots of fun for my son. We preferred Kura to Sushiro, but they’re both great. They are so cheap. It’s a lot of fun to just be able to order whatever we want and still only spend £40 for the three of us + baby at the end. We also stocked up on fun bentos (this place, nearby, was delicious) as well as enjoyed going to the supermarkets.
Shopping centres
Almost all shopping centres (Aeon, for example) are kid-friendly, with lunch places that have high chairs, baby-friendly facilities, and play areas.
I went to this one in Osaka and my friend chased my kids around while I tried on some clothes at Uniqlo and some more fashion-fun places. We ate at Potto Cafe – honestly, this was one of the best lunch places I went to on our whole Japan trip with kids. If you can eat outside (almost certainly, as people queued up to sit inside but there was no queue for outside), there’s room to run around which is really rare in Japanese cafes! Afterwards, we went for a walk to the park nearby and wandered around the traditional Keitakuen gardens. This was a really nice, easy day out if you want to combine it with some shopping.
Kid-friendly museums like Kids Plaza
My husband took our 4-year-old to Kids Plaza, a fun kids’ museum. They still talk about it to this day. That theme song lives rent free in my head, and I didn’t even go! Nearby here, in the park, there is also a great bar & restaurant with more room for kids to run around.
We didn’t get a chance to go here but near our apartment there was a lovely baby cafe called Babyleaf that I would try to go back to if we returned. It was already booked out on the days we tried to go, so reserve in advance.
Osaka Aquarium and Tempozan Ferris Wheel
Not walkable from Umeda, but we also did the aquarium and ferris wheel. I did purikura with my son and we wandered around the little shopping centre nearby.
The Osaka ferris wheel was unexpectedly awesome. It was a good rest after the aquarium. A lady in the next car over saw us and snapped photos of us which was so kind — we exchanged them after we got off.
The aquarium was just so-so to me but it was entertaining for my son, and we wouldn’t have come to this area unless we’d intended to visit. We really felt like eating an ice cream after this but couldn’t find a good spot nearby, so do your research in advance if you want one! We went to a cute bear-themed cafe for lunch and had super cheap Indian set menus (you can find these everywhere in Japan) for dinner.
Osaka with young kids in a nutshell
I think you can tell from this that I used Osaka more as a base to get places than as an actual sightseeing spot. People have varying opinions, of course, but I’m definitely in the camp of using Osaka as a hub rather than loving it in its own right. Osaka is just kind of boring for me. It’s sprawling and I find myself more interested in hanging out in the obscure suburbs rather than the main areas (Ikeda was probably my fav ‘Osaka’ thing that we did, and that wasn’t even really in Osaka!).
That said: Osaka is cheaper than Kyoto, its train station is useful for some great day trips, especially if you have the JR pass and can hop on the shinkansen but even without it. My friend lives there, so we easily met up to head out for some nice catchups. I had ONE amazing night of freedom where we ate at this awesome Mexican place and got tipsy together (without a baby in tow!).
Now that my sons are both getting older, next time I’m in Japan I look forward to more me-time to do the things I love there… mainly, shopping and eating, ha ha! Don’t get me wrong; I did all those things with my baby as an accessory, too, and you will notice that if you have a cute foreign baby you get lots of comments from people around you. It’s not impossible to do things like go shopping with them or do some beauty-care (some places will even offer a nanny to watch your child while doing your nails). But there is certainly a lot of pressure to not be too loud or take up too much space when you’re not in kids-specific areas. This is quite different from the vibe in The Netherlands, for example. Still worth it? Definitely!
Next up — I’ll talk about our transition via bullet train to Nagoya!
