Family travel advisor. Worldschooling mom. I've done this trip. Let me help you plan yours.
Kyoto Printables for Kids
Adventures We Seek: Kyoto
Kyoto Printables for Kids
Ages 3 to 15
Seven printables, all of it about Kyoto itself rather than a generic city with a torii gate on the front. The river they will actually cross on stepping stones. The matcha they will actually be handed. The wooden stage they will actually stand on.
By Nicole Damiano, ASTA Verified Travel Advisor · Certified Family Travel Advisor with FG Luxury Travel. Made for Adventures We Seek, my travel blog and planning resource.
What this actually is
This library started as things I was making for my own three kids, before it was ever something to sell. Adam and I lived in Japan before the kids came along, and Kyoto is the city that was planned on paper before anyone lived in it, a grid laid out in 794 that is still there under the buses and the bicycles, with a mountainside temple, a shogun’s castle and a weaving district inside it. Kids notice all of it if you give them a reason to look.
Gavin, Jake and Avilene are on the pages doing the same job your kid will do with the book in hand. Look closer. Ask a real question. Keep something to bring home.
Ages 3 to 7
Small people cannot read a guidebook and will not fill in a journal, so these are built around looking, finding and collecting instead of writing.
Ages 3 to 7Poppy’s Kyoto Discovery DeckPoppy is our dog. She is quite sure she is a person, and in this deck she finds Kyoto one clue at a time, the red gates at Fushimi Inari to trace, a bamboo stem to stand as straight as, a persimmon to taste. Forty cards plus the read aloud story that goes with them.40 cards
Ages 4 to 7Kyoto City Activity BookKyoto wakes up, morning light reaches the tiled roofs and the Kamo River, and Jake has brought his curiosity. Look, count, draw and match your way through the city, then take home a postcard they made themselves.44 pages
Older kids push back on anything that feels like school, so this hands them something real instead: a book of their own to fill with what they actually see.
Ages 8 to 12Kyoto Explorer JournalNine creative studios built around Kyoto itself. Meet Hasegawa Tohaku and the space he left empty on purpose, draw Kinkaku-ji in five shapes, design a kimono textile repeat, storyboard a moment at the Minami-za, taste with words at Nishiki Market. Look, then make.56 pages
These are not Kyoto books. They are for the plane, the train, the car, the wait at the gate, one book for each stretch of kid.
Ages 4 to 6Travel Day Little ExplorersThe travel day book, not the Kyoto book. For the plane, the train, the car, the little wait at the gate. Point to your ride and make its sound. Circle what goes in your travel kit. Make a pretend Kyoto ticket. Follow the crayon roads. Count the wheels. Avilene and Poppy have their own story running through it.32 pages
Ages 7 to 9Travel Day Junior NavigatorsA navigator looks, thinks, asks and changes the plan when needed. Crack a grid detective puzzle, find the quickest route across a practice network, read a departure board, add minutes across the hour, spend a pretend travel budget. Window field notes, a Kyoto second look challenge, near sounds and far sounds. Jake is the navigator.36 pages
Ages 10 to 15Travel Day Co-PilotsA travel day is a set of small problems about time, space, money and people, and this notebook hands them to your teenager. A decision matrix for whose priorities win, three ways to a 10:50 meeting for a family of four, an exchange rate trap, a two stage cipher, then a six page project to plan and pitch a real Kyoto day. Gavin is the co-pilot in this one.56 pages
Grown upsDear KyotoThis one is for you, not the kids. A watercolor on every page, a line from a writer who knew Kyoto, and one question to answer. Use it on the train, in a garden, or at the end of a long day when everyone else is asleep.Printable PDF
Bingo is the cheapest thing here and the one that gets used the most. A card in a small hand changes a long walk completely.
All agesKyoto Adventure BingoOne card, seven print sizes, twenty-four things to spot in Kyoto and a free space in the middle. Print one per kid and see who calls bingo first.1 card
London has the full library, ten printables and six bundles, and Kyoto is getting the same. The History Hunt is next, then the Family Cookbook and the Keepsake Pack, and the bundles after that. If you want to know when they go up, the free Kyoto guide below is the easiest place to check back.
Planning the trip too?
The full Kyoto family travel guide is free and sits right here on the site, and the wider Japan guide is next to it: where to stay, how many nights, what is worth the queue and what is not.
