Kyoto Without the Crowds

Let us be honest first. Kyoto is busy. At the most famous sites, on a spring weekend, it can feel like the whole country has had the same idea, and it has. Anyone who promises you an empty Fushimi Inari at noon in April is not telling you the truth.

But Kyoto's crowds are concentrated. They gather at perhaps a dozen famous places, mostly between about 10am and 4pm. Step outside those hours, or a few streets sideways, and the city goes quiet in a way that still surprises us.

Go early

Kyoto at 7am belongs to the monks and the gardeners. Many temple grounds open early, some around 6am or earlier, and the first hour is a different city. Paths are swept and still damp. You hear the rake on the gravel before you see it.

Fushimi Inari's gates are open around the clock. At 6:30 on a weekday, you can walk for twenty minutes without passing anyone. By 10, the lower gates are shoulder to shoulder.

An early start means an early lunch and, if you like, an afternoon nap. We plan for both.

Go late

The same works at the other end of the day. Day-trippers leave Arashiyama in the late afternoon, and the bamboo grove in the last light, or after dark, is a calmer place. Gion's back streets are at their best after dinner, when the lanterns are lit and the tour groups have gone.

Some temples hold evening openings during the blossom and maple seasons. They can be busy too, but they are lovely, and worth knowing about. Dates vary each year.

Go sideways

For almost every famous place, there is a quieter one nearby that rewards you just as much.

• Instead of Kinkaku-ji at midday, try the moss gardens of Ōhara in the hills to the north, an hour away and a different world.
• Instead of the Arashiyama bamboo grove, walk on to the small temples beyond it, toward Adashino and Okochi Sanso, where the crowds thin with every hundred metres.
• Instead of Kiyomizu-dera's main approach, take the side lanes on a weekday morning, or visit Tōfuku-ji outside maple season, when it is calm and enormous.
• Instead of Nishiki Market at lunchtime, go to a neighbourhood market in the morning, when people are actually shopping.

None of these are secrets. They are simply a little further away, and most visitors run out of time.

Choose the right month

Peak blossom and peak maples are the busiest weeks of the year, and prices rise with them. If those are the moments you want, we will plan around them carefully. If you are flexible, think about:

• Early to mid May, after Golden Week: fresh green leaves, comfortable temperatures.
• June: the rainy season, which keeps people away, and the moss gardens are at their greenest. Bring an umbrella and you will be glad you came.
• Early December: the last maples, clear skies, and far fewer people.
• January and February: cold, still, sometimes with snow on the temple roofs. The quietest Kyoto of all.

Choose the right day

Avoid weekends and Japanese public holidays at the famous sites. Golden Week, in late April and early May, and the Obon holiday in mid-August are especially busy. Schedule your quieter neighbourhoods for Saturday and your big temples for Tuesday.

Stay longer

The single best way to avoid Kyoto's crowds is to stay long enough not to mind them. With four or five nights, you can visit a famous place at dawn, rest at midday, and spend the afternoon in a tea house or a garden that most people never find. With two nights, you are part of the rush.

We stay in Kyoto properly. That usually means a machiya, a restored wooden townhouse, in a residential neighbourhood, where the morning sound is a neighbour sweeping the step.

A word on manners

Some of Kyoto's old districts, especially around Gion, have had real trouble with visitors photographing residents and walking into private lanes. Rules and signs change, and some lanes are now closed to tourists. Please follow them, and ask before photographing people. Kyoto is a living city. Treat it like someone's home, because it is.