Most articles that compare two destinations are written by someone who has no stake in the answer. This one isn’t. When we were deciding where to go, Rome and Kyoto were both genuinely on the table, and we picked Kyoto. Rome is still on our list. Here’s how that decision actually went, what Kyoto turned out to be like, and what the research says about Rome for anyone weighing the same two cities.
We Chose Kyoto Over Rome, and Here’s Why
Our trip was built around walking the Kumano Kodo, the pilgrimage route in Japan’s Kii Peninsula. Before committing to it, we seriously considered going to Europe instead and basing a trip around Rome. Both offered what we were after: deep history, walkable historic districts, and the sense of being somewhere that had mattered for a very long time.
What tipped it was that Japan let us build one trip around two different things. We could walk the Kumano Kodo and, on the same trip, spend a few days resting and exploring beforehand in the Osaka and Kyoto area. The pilgrimage was the anchor, and Kyoto was close enough to fold in without a separate flight or a second itinerary.
That’s the honest version of how most destination decisions get made. It usually isn’t one city being objectively better than another. It’s which one fits the trip you’re already trying to take.
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What Kyoto Was Actually Like Over New Year’s
We arrived in the last week of December 2025 and spent New Year’s in the Osaka and Kyoto area. On January 7 we took a train from Osaka to Kyoto, deliberately leaving early in the morning to get ahead of the afternoon crowds, and spent the day walking the main historic areas on foot.
Those two choices, the date and the hour, did more for the day than anything else we planned, and they are worth explaining because they are easy to copy.
The New Year period in Japan centers on hatsumode, the year’s first visit to a shrine or temple. It is one of the most significant traditions in the calendar, and it is why Kyoto’s shrines are full in early January rather than empty. But the window is wider than most visitors assume: while some people go on January 1, it is also considered perfectly acceptable to make that first visit any time from January 1 through the 3rd, or through the 7th. January 1 itself is the crushed day, so much so that locals commonly avoid it and go later in the window instead.
We went on the 7th, the last day of that window, and took an early train on top of it. The result was the New Year atmosphere with the peak-day crush already gone. If you are considering Kyoto in early January, that is the single most useful thing I can tell you: you do not have to choose between seeing the tradition and being able to move. Go a few days into the window and go early in the day.
The first thing that struck us wasn’t a temple. It was how clean and organized every single place we visited was. Not just the famous sites, but the streets and stations connecting them. It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t show up in a guidebook comparison and changes how a day of sightseeing actually feels.
We spent our time around Yasaka Shrine and its Nishimon gate, Hokan-ji with its five-story pagoda, and the surrounding Higashiyama streets. These sit within a short walk of one another, so you’re not planning transport between them, you’re just walking from one to the next through an old neighborhood. The history and cultural value of the temples, statues, and structures there was genuinely amazing to see up close.
The crowds we met were real but never excessive, and they never made the day feel like a fight for space. Many visitors had rented kimonos from local shops and were walking the historical areas in traditional attire, which added something to the experience rather than detracting from it. Visiting during the New Year period meant seeing these places the way they are actually used, still busy with people observing a live tradition rather than standing quiet as monuments. That turned out to be the point of going then, not an obstacle to it.
Being winter, we had packed for cold and got lucky. It never got too cold. With winter coats, gloves, hats, and scarves we were comfortable walking outside for hours. We also got something we hadn’t planned for: the areas were adorned with white snow, with the occasional snowflake coming down. That made an already good day trip feel special in a way we couldn’t have arranged deliberately.
Getting Around Kyoto Is Genuinely Easy
Local buses, subways, and trains made getting around straightforward, including between Osaka and Kyoto. This is worth weighing if you’re comparing the two cities, because it lowers the amount of advance planning a Kyoto trip needs.
One important correction if you’re working from older advice: the Kyoto City Bus One-Day Pass no longer exists. The city stopped selling it at the end of September 2023 as an overtourism measure, and remaining passes expired in March 2024. Plenty of guides still recommend buying it. The current equivalent is the Subway & Bus One-Day Pass, which covers Kyoto subway lines and city buses. Whether a pass is worth it depends on how much you plan to ride. Much of Higashiyama is walkable once you’re there.
What We’ve Learned About Rome, Without Having Been Yet
Rome is still on our list of places we plan to visit, primarily because of its history and the other amazing places to visit in Italy. But we have not been there in person yet, and I am not going to write about it as though we have. What follows is what we have learned so far while researching it, with the sources attached so you can check any of it yourself.
Timing. Our own conclusion was to go in early fall or mid-spring, when schools are in session, to avoid the summer crowds. That lines up with the general consensus that Rome’s shoulder seasons run roughly mid-March to early May and mid-October through November, with July and August both crowded and genuinely hot, regularly reaching the high 80s to low 90s Fahrenheit. One refinement worth knowing if you aim for mid-spring: Easter and the surrounding weeks draw large crowds to Rome and Vatican City, so a spring trip is better planned around that date than near it.
Booking is not optional. This is the single biggest practical difference we found between the two cities. The Colosseum requires a compulsory reserved time slot, and tickets are only released 30 days ahead through the official Parco Archeologico del Colosseo site. The standard ticket also covers the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. Practically, that means a Rome trip has a booking task that opens exactly a month out and can sell out, while our Kyoto day needed no advance tickets at all. That’s a real difference in how much planning each trip demands.
The Roma Pass is narrower than it sounds. A lot of write-ups describe it as free access to Rome’s major landmarks. What it actually includes is one free site entry on the 48-hour version or two on the 72-hour version, reduced prices at partner sites after that, and unlimited public transport. Most importantly, the Vatican is not included. St Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums, and the Sistine Chapel are in Vatican City and need separate tickets. If the Vatican is a main reason you’re going, the Roma Pass will not cover it.
Which One Fits the Trip You’re Planning
Both cities deliver on history. The more useful question is which one suits how you like to travel.
- Kyoto suits you if you want to walk a historic district without a booking schedule, prefer showing up and wandering, or are combining it with something else in Japan. Higashiyama rewards unstructured time.
- Rome suits you if you’re comfortable planning around timed entries and want ancient ruins with a documented, continuous timeline you can follow site by site. It asks more of you in advance and gives you a denser concentration of monumental sites in return.
- Winter is underrated in Kyoto. We expected to endure the cold and instead got manageable temperatures and snow on the temple grounds. If you don’t need cherry blossoms, the off-season has real advantages.
- If the Vatican is the draw, that’s a Rome trip, and you should budget separate tickets and time for it rather than assuming a city pass handles it.
If you’re going back and forth on this the way we did, the deciding factor probably isn’t the cities at all. It’s what else the trip has to accomplish. Ours had a pilgrimage attached to it, which made the answer clear.
Planning Either Trip
For a deeper look at planning a Japan trip, see our Japan destination guide, or our Italy guide if Rome is winning. If you’re still stuck between two places entirely, that’s the whole point of choosing the destination, the step of the process this decision belongs to.
For shoulder-season Rome especially, where the good accommodation goes early, it’s worth comparing hotel prices as soon as your dates firm up rather than after you’ve booked flights.
And if you want a structured way to work through this kind of decision instead of circling it, our Free Trip Planner Starter walks through it step by step.
If Kyoto is where you land, our Japan flight checklist covers the 24 hours before departure, from Visit Japan Web to which railway actually serves your arrival airport.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only. Always verify current travel requirements with official government sources before making travel decisions.
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