Adventures We Seek: Kyoto

Kyoto Printables for Kids

Ages 3 to 13

Three printables so far, 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 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

Buy · $6.99 What it is

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

Buy · $7.99 What it is

For the whole family

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

Buy · $1.99 What it is

More on the way

London has the full library, ten printables and six bundles, and Kyoto is getting the same. The History Hunt and the Explorer Journal are next, then the Family Cookbook and the Keepsake Pack, and the bundles after that. If you want to know when they land, 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.

And if you would rather hand the whole thing to somebody, that is my actual job. Tell me who is coming and when.