How One Booking Mistake Changed Our Takayama Itinerary

Takayama was meant to be our base for visiting Shirakawa-go, but getting there didn’t go exactly as planned.

Originally, everything was supposed to be straightforward.
We had already booked and paid for the scenic train ride from Nagoya to Takayama — one of those slower journeys where you can just sit back and enjoy the countryside views.

But two weeks before the trip, we realised something was very wrong.

The Mistake

Our plan was to pick up a rental car and drive to Shirakawa-go from Takayama.

But when we double-checked the booking…
we realised we had selected the wrong car pickup location.

Instead of Takayama, the pickup point was Tateyama about 2 hours away.

At that point, there wasn’t much we could do:

• The car booking couldn’t be easily changed
• The location didn’t make sense with our train plan

So we had to rethink everything.

Last-Minute Change

With only two weeks to go, we made the call to cancel the train ride (which we had already paid for) and switch plans completely.

Instead of taking the scenic route, we decided to drive from Nagoya to Takayama.

Not ideal — but the only way to make the car logistics work.

The Drive Instead

The drive from Nagoya to Takayama turned out to be:

• longer than expected
• but still fairly straightforward

Even though we missed out on the train experience, driving gave us:

• flexibility with timing
• the convenience of having the car with us right away

Sometimes it’s less about the “perfect plan” and more about making things work.

Takayama as a Base

Despite the change, Takayama still worked well as a base for Shirakawa-go.

It’s a quieter town compared to bigger cities, but:

• well-positioned for day trips
• easy to navigate by car

Having a car also made it easier to move around without depending on bus timings.

This was one of those moments where:

• planning didn’t go as expected
• a small mistake snowballed into a full itinerary change

But in the end:

• we still got to Takayama
• we still made it to Shirakawa-go

Just… in a slightly different way than planned.