Nara Deer Park: How to do a Day Trip from Osaka

Have you ever heard about the bowing deer of Nara? Apparently, there is a park full of Japanese Sika deer in Nara, and it’s located only a short day trip away from Osaka. So during our trip to Osaka, we naturally had to go visit this exciting park.

We ended up spending a full day exploring Nara Deer Park, and we had such a good experience that we’ve decided to share it with you in this guide.

So in this travel guide, we’re going to tell you EVERYTHING there is to know about doing a day trip from Osaka to Nara Deer Park. We’ll talk about how to get from Osaka to Nara, prices and opening hours, how to behave around the deer, and we’ll share our own experience in the park.

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How to do a day trip to Nara from Osaka

This section is for those who wants to do this day trip by themselves, but if that’s not your cup of tea, then check out this private day tour from Osaka to Nara.

Nara (奈良) is located in the northern part of the Nara Prefecture in Japan’s Kansai region about 30 kilometers away from Osaka. This makes it super easy to do a day trip to Nara while staying in Osaka.

So let’s dive into how you get there, how much it costs, opening hours of the park, and everything else you need to know in order to do your own day trip.

How to get from Osaka to Nara Deer Park

It’s pretty easy to get from one city to another because Japan has a great infrastructure, so you can simply just take the train from Osaka to Nara.

We took the Yamatoji Rapid Line from Tennōji Station in Osaka directly to Nara Station. The train ride takes a little over half an hour.

How much does the train from Osaka to Nara cost

It costs 510 Yen for a one way ticket to Nara from Osaka if you ride the Yamatoji Rapid Line. Please take good care of your ticket. Glenn accidentally lost his on the train, and he had to buy a new one to be let out of the station in Nara.

The Yamatoji Rapid Line is a JR Line, so you want to take this train if you have a JR Pass because then you can ride it for free.

There are other train lines that you can take on your day trip from Osaka to Nara, but this one was by far the best and cheapest we could find.

How to get from Nara Station to the Deer Park

Once you exit Nara Station, you have to walk through a shopping street until you reach its end and Nara Park begins. The street is called “Sanjo Dori Street”, also known as.. “暗越奈良街道”

Before we went to the park, we decided to go for a bite and found a Coco Ichibanya on this street, here they make delicious Japanese curry for an affordable price! Yummy!

Arriving at Nara Deer Park – Things to Notice

In this section, I’ll shortly cover the entrance fee and opening hours of the Deer Park in Nara. And, I’ll share some advice on how to behave around the deer, which you’ll hopefully follow!

Nara Deer Park Entrance Fee

How much does it cost to visit the deer in Nara Park? Good news, there is no entrance fee to Nara Deer Park, it’s completely free to come and go as you please!

Nara Deer Park Opening Hours

What are the opening hours to visit the deer in Nara Park? – 24 hours every day!

The Deer Park is public, so you don’t need to worry about entrance fees and opening hours, which is perfect when you’re just visiting Nara on a limited day trip.

How to behave around the deer

We would like to remind anyone who visits Nara Park that the deer are wild animals. Even though they might seem super cute and very domesticated… Deer are still wild animals.

So don’t feed the deer human food because it’s not good for them.

If you want to feed the deer, then please buy the deer crackers for the price of 200 yen for one pack. You can buy the deer crackers from the stands that are located around the park.

Don’t touch the deer. We saw many people trying to pet the deer and the deer were often trying to avoid this. Remember that they are not domesticated animals. So don’t touch them.

The deer in Nara, which are called Sika deer, are considered sacred. The sika deers is a messengers for gods in the Shinto religion, just like foxes are messengers for the Inari god at Fushimi Inari. So act modest around the deer.

And please don’t leave any plastic in the park. Sadly, a lot of deer in Nara Park have died from eating plastic. Humans left plastic from food wrappings in the Park, which resulted in the deer trying to eat the plastic. Remember that you are in nature, so take your trash with you.

Be aware: Deer can be aggressive. We saw a deer that tried to attack people – especially the people openly walking around with the deer crackers.

Okay enough lecture from us. Sorry, this blog post was supposed to be fun! Our best advice is to just read the signs in the park if you are not sure about how to behave around the deer in Nara. Now we think it’s time to share our experience with the deer in Nara Park on our day trip from Osaka.

Our experience in Nara Deer Park on a day trip from Osaka

We always get super excited when we see wild animals. In case you haven’t read our blog posts on walking with penguins in Chile or spotting seals in New Zealand, we’ll tell you now, we love animals!

So in this section, we’ll share our experience on our day trip to Nara.

Seeing the first deer of the day

Naturally, when we saw the first deer of the day, we got super excited.

However, it felt a bit strange because so many people were standing around it, and they were all making sounds like “aaaw”, which indicated just how cute it was. At some point they kind of ran after the deer while trying to touch it. That’s when I started to feel bad for the deer.

We kept on walking for a bit, and more deer started to appear in the park. While Glenn went around to film and take pictures of the deer in Nara Park, I decided to sit down, have a look at all the deer, and just enjoy this day trip.

All of a sudden a deer walks towards me.

Even though I love animals, I can get a bit edgy around them because I never know what they want. It’s not like they can speak, you know.

However, it just came to me and had a lie down right by my feet. How cute is that?! So naturally I started talking to the deer, and I really felt like we shared an intimate moment there.

Feeding the deer special crackers in Nara Park

After a while, we decided to go deeper into the park, and we found a deer cracker stand on the way. A woman was at the stand, trying to buy the crackers all the while she was being attacked by a deer. The deer was obviously trying to get the crackers.

It was a pretty funny scene.

Every time we went by a deer cracker stand, it was always surrounded by deer. It’s like they were waiting for someone to buy deer crackers, so they could stalk the person with the newly bought crackers, and intimidate the person into giving it all to them. Deer bullies!

I went to buy some deer crackers myself but I made sure to keep my distance from all the mad deer that was around.

The thing is, as soon as you have the crackers on you, the deer go mad. They literally start following you and they bite your clothes. You can see this in the travel vlog we made from Nara.

It made us wonder whether this whole deer cracker business was healthy for the deer. Probably not. Sorry, my dear deer, we didn’t mean to contribute to your madness.

Anyways, here I was with my deer crackers.

I thought that since the deer went so mad for these crackers, they must be amazing.

So I decided to take a tiny bite of a deer cracker, just to see what the fuss was about. But it was without a doubt the driest bite of a cracker I’ve ever had. I can’t recommend them for humans, they truly are made for deer.

So I started to feed the Nara deer these godsend crackers and they just loved them!

I also read somewhere on the internet that if you bow to them, then they will bow back. So we started bowing to each other before I handed them the deer crackers. And that’s why they are called the Bowing Deer of Nara.

Our best advice to see the deer on a day trip to Nara Park

Our best advice to anyone visiting the deer in Nara would be to just go as far into the park as possible. The further away you get from the temples and the city center, the more you’ll have the place to yourself.

There is a reason that Nara Park is such a popular place in Japan. It’s a historical place set in a park full of deer. Doesn’t that just sound incredible?

However, it does get really crowded with other tourists, so just keep going deeper into the park to escape the crowds and get the place to yourself. Trust us, you’ll still see many deer on your way.

Other things to do on a day trip from Osaka to Nara

Apart from the deer, there are a lot of Japanese temples and shrines both in and around Nara Park. We went to see Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji, which are two very old buddhist temples situated in Nara Park.

The temples are very impressive. However, we have chosen not to include my experience of the temples in this post since both of the temples were very crowded the day we went, so we didn’t go inside and sadly don’t have any pictures to share.

Please, if you go to Nara, don’t be like us. Don’t miss out on the many temples and shrines! Some day we hope to go back and do another post on the impressive temples of Nara. Luckily for us, Nara is only a short day trip away from Osaka, and we’re definitely going back to Osaka some day!

On our next visit, we will also go deeper into Nara Park and hike to the summit of Mount Wakakusa (342 meters above sea level) for a great viewpoint over Nara. Just a tip if you’re into hiking and viewpoints!

Is it worth going on a day trip from Osaka to Nara

Yes! 100% Yes!

Nara is actually the ancient capital of Japan, which means that there is a ton of history to learn here!

We need to go back to Nara some day, maybe on more than just a day trip from Osaka. We would actually love to spend a few days here and see the place in the evening without the big tourist crowds.

But even if you’re just looking to go on a day trip from Osaka to Nara, then you most definitely should.

It’s affordable, it’s easy to get there, and it’s a great way to see something different in Japan. And if you don’t want to go by yourself, then you can always just join a day tour from Osaka.

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Thanks for reading this blog post about visiting the incredible Nara Deer Park on a day trip from Osaka. All in all, it was a really good day, and we can 100% recommend a day trip to Nara for anyone staying in the cities nearby.

Thanks for reading and happy travels!

Never been to Japan before? Check out this blog post: First time in Japan