Family-Friendly Hotels in the Kyoto Station Area: A Handy Shinkansen Base

When you're choosing a family hotel around Kyoto Station, it's easy to feel torn between putting sightseeing convenience first and putting comfort in the room first. Kyoto Station is the city's main gateway, where the Shinkansen (bullet train), local train lines, and buses all come together, so it's an area where you can keep travel stress low even when you're juggling kids and plenty of luggage. If you look beyond the station itself to include Kawaramachi, Shijo Karasuma, Gion, and Higashiyama, you can choose from 13 hotels.

The first thing to check is the sleeping setup. 10 hotels lend baby cribs and 5 hotels lend bed rails, so you have a fairly wide choice even at the stage when rolling over or falling out of bed is a worry. For families who'd like to spread out on tatami (traditional woven straw mats), 7 hotels offer Japanese-style or combined Japanese-Western rooms. Some, like RIHGA Royal Hotel Kyoto, have rooms with low beds or tatami beds.

For meals, 8 hotels handle food allergies and 4 offer toddler meal menus. If you'd rather eat without worrying about other diners, the 4 hotels that serve meals in your room, or places like Miyako Hotel Kyoto Hachijo with private and semi-private dining rooms, are easy options to consider. For bathing, 4 hotels have rooms with a private bath or an open-air bath, so even families with little ones who aren't ready for a large shared public bath can enjoy bath time at their own pace. Some, like Kyo Yumoto Hatoya Zuihokaku, offer both a toddler meal menu and in-room baths.

From Kyoto Station it's easy to reach Kyoto Tower, Toji Temple, Kyoto Aquarium, and the Kyoto Railway Museum, which makes it simple to combine kid-pleasing spots with temple and shrine visits. Cherry blossom season in spring and autumn foliage season tend to be crowded, so staying near the station makes getting around more predictable and lets you head back to the hotel easily when the kids get tired. Kyoto Prefecture also has other areas, such as Kyoto, and choosing your hotel location based on where you'll spend most of your sightseeing makes a family trip much easier to plan.