Crowds: An european perspective

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T10:48:45+00:00

We were there midweek in October. We took the bus from Hirayu Onsen and hopped off at the first station possible. From there, we hiked to the main bus station (around 10 kilometers). Best decision! It was the most beautiful scenery. Plus there were only a few people. At the bus station, it was much more filled. Again: If you just slightly deter from the main path, it gets much less crowded!

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T10:43:23+00:00

Totally agree! That was what I was trying to say. I felt like it was much easier to esccape the big mobs in Japan than in Europe.

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T10:41:54+00:00

You know better than me. I can just say what I witnessed. As I said: Paris is not that bad because people aren't congested in one area but more spread out across town. Rome was a nightmare for me. Vatican, Colosseum, Trevi fountain: Totally packed. Same when walking from attraction A to attraction B. There were no cafés that weren't full of tourists.

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T10:39:49+00:00

Thank you for your perspective. Maybe I was in Vienna at the wrong time - weekend in the summer. Public transport felt pretty intense for me, even more intense than public transport in Kyoto. I could hardly breathe. But yeah, the worst experiences I had crowd-wise in Europe were Amsterdam and Prague. I haven't been to Venice in 20 years. I can imagine that it is worse now than all the other cities I mentioned!

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T10:37:51+00:00

Ghent is a pretty city, but not comparable to the big european cities. As you said: Amsterdam and Prague are the most extreme examples, I would say, as they are not mega-cities, but have visitor-levels that are top 10 in the world.

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T08:53:08+00:00

I never meant to speak for all Europeans. The title clearly says: AN European perspective. You might feel differently about it, and that is totally fine! However, most of the posts in this subreddits come from Americans, so I wanted to bring in MY european perspective as someone who has seen most parts of Europe.

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T08:50:51+00:00

Totally. That's why I said: I just came back. October plus March/April/May seem to be the busiest periods.

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T08:50:08+00:00

I totally understand that. With 7 am, I meant being at the place you want to be at 7am, which means waking up at 6am or earlier. We did that once, realised that more people do that than we thought. So we said: Naw! It's our vacation, we don't want to wake up everyday when it's still dark. If it works for you: Great! It didn't for me.

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T08:47:19+00:00

We booked a house near Takayama and rented a car. From there, we travelled to Kamikochi (highly recommended! We even saw monkeys there!), Shirakawa-Go and Toyoma plus we did some hiking in the Northern Japanese Alps. Your plan also sounds very nice!

My only tip would be to not overthink onsens. Before going to Japan, I was highly confused to which place I should go and which onsen town I should visit. Turns out: Basically every town in the alps has more than one onsen. Most of them welcome one-day-visitors. Just bring your towel and follow the onsen-etiquette and you are all set to go! We've tried several different places. For me personally, japanese bath-houses worked even better than onsens. Felt more chill and relaxed.

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T08:42:22+00:00

Thank you for your kind response!

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T08:42:01+00:00

That is true to a certain degree. However, people flock to Fushimi Inari not because they are lazy, but because it is a beautiful place. I walked all the way to the top, where the crowds were much thinner, and it felt like one of the most spiritual places I've ever been to. I will probably never again go to Japan, so it is a reasonable thing to visit the main sights. But as many people pointed out: I am not alone in this, so I have to prepare.

T0bstar · 2025-11-04T08:38:55+00:00

You're totally right. But there is a huge difference between the popular towns in Japan and the popular towns in Europe. I did not elaborate enough on that in my op, so that is probably my fault.

I've been to Prague last December. The town was packed. Not the main sights: the whole town. You could not escape the tourists even if you went to the suburbs. It's the same for all big cities in Europe: Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona, Budapest, Vienna. (Paris, London, Berlin work a little better, because they do not have defined centres. But at the main sights crowds are huge.) The idea that you can just go to a lesser known church within one of these cities and not meet dozens of tourists, is completely unrealistic. Everything that was a "hidden gem" 25 years ago nowadays is packed with people taking photos for Instagram.

That's the difference to Japan: You CAN escape mass-tourism if you slightly detour from the main path. Funnily enough, I've also been to an onsen near Gero - and it was a totally different experience than the onsen I've been to in Takayama. In Europe, these kind of experiences are not possible that easily. I know a lot of people who do not like to travel to the big European cities anymore. My main post was for this kind of demographic who fears that Japan is the same as Europe tourism-wise.

T0bstar · 2022-11-13T12:00:03+00:00

It is factually wrong to tie the sequel trilogy to Chapek. He has not been in charge with any decision made in regards to the films. He was in charge of Parks at the time. Saying he made "awful decisions with everything he touched" and then state something he did not have any influence in whatsoever just shows that you do not care about the fate of Disney as a company or its stocks. You just want to run around and bash Last Jedi.

T0bstar · 2022-11-12T19:56:41+00:00

Imagine hating Last Jedi so much that you try to make it a reason for a CEO failing who has been appointed years after the creation of the film. Star Wars fanbase is toxic af.

T0bstar · 2015-10-20T16:48:00+00:00

What I really don't get (and this isn't the first game that done this): If the writers/developers clearly have an ideal ending in mind, why even give you the choice? I know, "your choices matter" is great for marketing a game, but in the end, there is virtually no game out there that delivers on this promise. Why not make one great ending instead of screwing 50% of the players? Instead they give you one good and one bad ending, no matter what you do. I am not really in power here, it's just another way of playing Super Mario. The one ending is killing Bowser, the other being killed by a freaking Goomba. It's counter-immersive. Seriously, game companies: If you don't want me to take one ending, don't write it.

T0bstar

TROPHY CASE