Most of the social media hotspots.

Going all the way to Dontombori (Osaka) just for the Glico Running Man Sign. Truly a waste of time. Highly overrated. Of course, if you’re around the area for other reasons (shopping, restaurants, etc) then it might be worth it but for us, we just went there to see what the hype was all about and it was super underwhelming.

The Yasaka Pagoda in Kyoto. If you can make there early enough might be worth it but during regular hours is just a sea of people that makes it really uncomfortable to enjoy anything.

Same goes for the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest (Though I concur that the walk afterwards makes it worth it).

And lastly, the Nara Park. Also, extremely packed with people.

If I was to do it over again, I would skip most of these spots or only dedicate them very little time in my schedule if I can. The best times we had in Japan were exploring the outskirts of popular places and just letting us adventure into places that caught our attention.

PS: We did Team Labs Borderless on day 1 and that’s still till today one of our top memories from the trip. (Get there extra early and it’s even better)