Arashiyama With Kids – familytravelfever.com

Arashiyama is the best half-day trip in Kyoto with kids. The bamboo grove really does look like the photos — towering green stalks curving overhead, light filtering through. Free. Always open. And if you get there before 8:30am, you might have it nearly to yourselves.

Twenty minutes by JR San-In line from Kyoto Station, covered by the JR Pass. Half a day covers the highlights. A full day adds the monkey park, river activities, and some genuinely good street food.

The Bamboo Grove

The walk through takes about fifteen minutes at adult pace. Maybe twenty-five with a five-year-old touching every stalk. Free. The path is flat and stroller-accessible.

Go early. Before 8am if you can swing it. By mid-morning on weekends or during cherry blossom season, you’ll spend more time looking at other people’s phones than bamboo. One family who visited in February had the grove nearly to themselves at 8:30.

Rain makes it better. The bamboo glistens, crowds thin, and the sound of rain on the canopy overhead is genuinely beautiful. Don’t cancel for weather.

The grove connects to Tenryuji Temple (¥500 adults, ¥300 children) — the garden is worth walking through, especially in autumn.

A DR 45 blog that ranks for this topic mentioned Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple on the quieter north end of Arashiyama — over 1,200 stone statues called rakan, each carved with different expressions. Some praying, some laughing, some pulling faces. Kids find the variety hilarious. Fifteen minutes north of the main bamboo area and almost no travelers.

Togetsukyo Bridge and the River

Visitors strolling through the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto

The wooden bridge crossing the Katsura River. The bridge itself is basic — it’s the view from it that makes the postcard.

Swan-shaped paddle boats on the river cost about ¥1,500 for thirty minutes. The Hozugawa River cruise (¥4,100 adults, ¥2,700 children) takes two hours floating through a gorge with views you can’t get from the road. In winter they put heated blankets on the boats.

Arashiyama Park along the river is flat, open, and one of the few Kyoto spots where kids can run without worrying about temple etiquette.

The Monkey Park

Iwatayama Monkey Park sits on a hillside. About 120 wild Japanese macaques. Twenty to twenty-five minute walk up — steep, not stroller-friendly. Leave pushchairs at the entrance (designated parking at the bottom, though one blog noted there’s a steep staircase before you even reach the trail).

At the top, you feed monkeys through a wire mesh fence from inside a feeding hut. You’re inside, monkeys outside. The rules are strict — no pointing cameras at them, no feeding outside the hut, no getting too close. One parent who’d had bad experiences with monkeys in Indonesia said these ones were completely different. Calm. Disinterested in humans outside the feeding area.

¥550 adults, ¥250 children. There’s a playground at the top before the monkey area. Views of Kyoto from up here are worth the climb regardless.

Honest take: kids 5+ usually love it. Under 5 is harder — steep walk, cold in winter, some toddlers find the monkeys unsettling. If your kid is scared of animals, skip it.

Street Food

The main shopping street between the stations and bamboo grove:

Yakitori skewers ¥200-400
Matcha ice cream ¥350-500
Taiyaki (fish-shaped pastries, red bean or custard filling) ¥200-300
Senbei rice crackers you grill yourself ¥200-300

Restaurants close early — most by 5pm, some by 4pm. Convenience stores near both stations have the usual fallback options.

Getting There

Two stations: JR Saga-Arashiyama (JR Pass) and Hankyu Arashiyama (¥230, closer to river). Both are ten minutes’ walk from the bamboo grove. A taxi from central Kyoto costs roughly ¥3,500 — worth it if navigating stations with luggage and a toddler.

Bike rental near both stations from ¥1,000/day, some with child seats. The flat paths along the river are perfect for cycling.