Home Walking tours by city Kyoto
Self-Guided Walking Tours in Kyoto
Kyoto was laid out in 794 on a Chinese grid model and was spared bombing in 1945, so it holds around 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines in a city you can cross by bicycle.
The grid makes Kyoto unusually easy to navigate for a Japanese city — streets run north–south and east–west and many are numbered. The temples cluster along the eastern and western hills, which is why the Philosopher's Path and the Arashiyama area work so well as walks: they string a dozen sites along a single route rather than scattering them.
Takes about a minute. Kyoto is already filled in — choose your time, pace and interests and the route is planned around them.
What to build a Kyoto walking tour around
Fushimi Inari
Around 10,000 vermilion torii gates up a mountainside, each donated by a business. The full loop is 4 km and two hours, and almost everyone turns back in the first ten minutes.
Kinkaku-ji
The Golden Pavilion, covered in gold leaf, rebuilt in 1955 after a monk burned it down — an event Mishima wrote a novel about.
Kiyomizu-dera
A wooden stage 13 metres above the hillside, built without a single nail. The phrase "to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu" means to take the plunge.
The Philosopher's Path
Two kilometres of canal-side walk under cherry trees, named for a philosopher who walked it daily to Kyoto University. It links a string of temples.
Arashiyama bamboo grove
Best at dawn, genuinely — by 9am it is a queue. The Ōkōchi Sansō villa garden just beyond it is almost empty and better.
Gion
The geiko district, with wooden machiya townhouses along Hanami-koji. Photography is restricted on some private lanes, and the restrictions are enforced.
Three routes worth walking in Kyoto
The Higashiyama temple walk
Kiyomizu-dera down the preserved slopes of Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka through Gion — the classic Kyoto walk, and worth doing before 8am.
The Philosopher's Path
Ginkaku-ji down the canal to Nanzen-ji, past Honen-in and Eikando — 2 km of cherry trees and small temples with few crowds.
Arashiyama at dawn
The bamboo grove, the Togetsukyo bridge, Tenryu-ji's garden and the monkey park across the river.
Practical notes for walking Kyoto
- Terrain and surfaces
- The city floor is flat and grid-planned; the temples are on the hills either side and involve stairs — Fushimi Inari in particular is a mountain climb. Summer is oppressively humid in a basin that traps heat.
- Best time to walk
- Late March to early April for blossom and November for autumn colour — both spectacular and extremely crowded. May and early October are the quiet compromise.
- Driving here
- Buses and bicycles beat cars here. Driving is useful for Nara, Uji or the Miho Museum out in the hills.
- Size
- Kyoto, Kansai, Japan — population about 1.4 million.
Neighbourhoods worth a route of their own
Not just walking
The same route planner covers Kyoto on foot, at a run, by bike, by car and with wheelchair-accessible routing that avoids steps and kerbs rather than simply relabelling the walking route. Pick the way you are getting around and the stops, distances and timings are planned for it.
Start one now for Kyoto: driving tour · wheelchair-accessible route · cycling tour
Or read more: self-guided driving tours · accessible tours · audio tours
Questions about walking Kyoto
How early should you start a Kyoto temple walk?
Genuinely early — 7 or 8am. Kiyomizu-dera, the bamboo grove and Fushimi Inari are transformed before nine and shoulder-to-shoulder after ten. Most temple grounds open at 6am even when the buildings do not.
Can you walk between Kyoto's main temples?
Within each cluster, yes — the Higashiyama walk links five or six in 3 km. But Kinkaku-ji, Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari are on different sides of the city and need a bus or train between them.
What is a self-guided walking tour?
A route you walk on your own schedule, with the commentary delivered to your phone instead of by a guide. There is no meeting point and no group — you start when you want, stop as long as you like at anything that interests you, and skip anything that does not.
How is this different from a guided walking tour?
A guided tour runs to someone else's schedule and someone else's route, and it covers what the guide covers. This builds the route around the time you actually have, the pace you want to walk at and the things you said you were interested in — and it will wait as long as you like at any stop.
Can I do a driving tour instead of walking?
Yes. Walking, running, cycling, driving and wheelchair-accessible routing are all supported, and each uses routing built for that mode — a driving tour follows roads and sensible parking, a walking tour uses paths and crossings.
Other cities
- Self-guided walking tours in Tokyo
- Self-guided walking tours in Singapore
- Self-guided walking tours in Hong Kong
- All 43 city guides
A 24-hour pass is $6.95 and covers unlimited tours. Joining someone else’s tour is free.