What November Feels Like
You can find many highlights of autumn in November. All the colour that started up in the mountains back in September has finally made its way down to the cities and the famous temple gardens, and this is when it hits its peak in the places most people have come to see. Kyoto, Nara, Tokyo and the classic gardens are lit up in deep reds and golds, and it's right up there with the cherry blossoms, if not above.
But it's a lovely time to be there beyond just the leaves. The air is cool and clear, and the harvest is in, so the food is about as good as it gets all year. It's also prime onsen season, when a hot spring soak feels just right against the chill.
Why November Can Be a Great Time to Visit and How to Plan It
Like we said earlier, the foliage is the main event, but it's worth knowing how many options there are. Kyoto gets the classic temple and garden scenes everyone pictures, but there's also the mountain temples of Koyasan and the garden displays up in Kanazawa, so you're spoilt for choice.
Now you might think the leaves are only worth seeing in daylight, but you'd be surprised what they're like at night. A lot of the big temples and gardens light up their maples through the peak weeks, the lit trees reflecting in the ponds, and it's a completely different experience to seeing them by day. Eikando and Tofukuji in Kyoto are the best known, but plenty of places do it, so it's worth setting aside an evening.
The tricky part is timing. Kyoto's peak has been landing later in recent years, usually the last week of November and sometimes into early December, and warmer autumns keep nudging it back. The mountains just north of the city around Kurama and Ohara turn a week or two earlier, so if you're going early in the month, those are the areas to aim for. It's worth following the foliage forecasts that come out from September to narrow down which week to travel, and then booking early, because when the foliage peaks in Kyoto, a lot of places are fully booked. The best accommodation goes months ahead, so lock it in as soon as you can, reserve your shinkansen seats for the busy weekends, and if you'd rather keep things flexible, the autumn destination guides can point you to quieter spots that don't get as busy.
It's a good month for food, too. The winter specialities are starting up, with snow crab season opening on the Japan Sea coast, the first oysters of the year, and the new season sake appearing, all on top of the tail end of the autumn harvest. If you're heading to the coast, it's worth timing a trip around the seafood.
November Weather and the Autumn Colours
November gets noticeably colder through the month. Tokyo is about 11 to 17 degrees in the first half and slips to around 8 to 13 by the second half, with Kyoto much the same, so a warm coat and layers are worth having if you don't want to be shivering through your sightseeing.
Down south stays milder, with Inland Sea cities like Hiroshima and Okayama comfortable well into the month, while up north it's a different world. Tohoku and the mountains up around the Japan Alps are cold, with the first snow starting to fall high up, and the ski resorts in Hokkaido and northern Nagano usually start opening late in the month as the snow builds up. Everywhere else is about as good as it gets, the typhoons are done and the cold only really sets in over the last week or two.