Japan's airports and train stations were jammed on Saturday as the country's autumn 'Silver Week' holidays kicked off — and this year's edition was a big one: a five-day stretch, the longest in 11 years, running through to Wednesday.
The Japan Railways Group's six regional operators expected train passenger numbers between Friday and Wednesday to come close to the levels normally seen during New Year and the summer holiday season — the two busiest travel windows on the Japanese calendar. That's a striking figure for a break many people would normally consider a modest autumn long weekend.
Air travel was just as tight. Airlines reported that many flights out of Tokyo's Haneda airport were fully booked on Saturday. The classics dominated: Hokkaido and Okinawa remain the holiday getaway staples. But interestingly, flights arriving at Haneda were also crowded — a sign that plenty of travellers were heading into Tokyo rather than away from it.
Not everyone was flying long-haul, though. One traveller quoted at the start of the break, 52-year-old Tokyo resident Shigeru Matsuyama, was heading west for a bike trip along the Shimanami Kaido, the celebrated cycling route that hops across islands in the Seto Inland Sea. His reason for travelling rings true for many Japanese workers: long blocks of consecutive days off are hard to come by, so when they appear, people use them.
That's the essence of Silver Week. It's not a fixed annual event — it only lines up when the September public holidays (Respect for the Aged Day and the Autumnal Equinox) fall in exactly the right pattern, creating a rare run of consecutive days off. Hence the name, a companion to spring's famous Golden Week, and hence the roughly once-a-decade scale of this year's rush.
For visitors, the takeaway is practical. If you're in Japan during a Silver Week year, expect the domestic travel network to be operating at holiday capacity: shinkansen seats, budget flights and popular ryokan sell out well in advance, and iconic sights get significantly busier. Book early, travel mid-week if you can, and consider pointing yourself against the main flow — if everyone's heading to Hokkaido and Okinawa, places like the Seto Inland Sea, Tohoku or Shikoku offer room to breathe.
And if you're tempted by the route Matsuyama chose, the Shimanami Kaido is a genuine highlight: roughly 70 kilometres of road and bridge-hopping between Onomichi in Hiroshima Prefecture and Imabari in Ehime, with bike rentals available at both ends and short-cut options for those who don't want the full distance. Autumn is arguably its best season — mild temperatures, clearer skies and the coastal scenery at its best.
Silver Week doesn't come around in force every year, which is part of the appeal. When it does, Japan travels — and travellers who plan around it get to see the country at its most animated.
Original report: Japan Today