10 Things You Need To Do When You Plan A Budget Trip To Japan — Part I

Michelle Varghese

My boyfriend and I only had 2 weeks to visit Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Osaka. 2 weeks might sound like a lot, but trust me you can’t even do Tokyo in 2 weeks. There’s just too much to see, taste and experience. We didn’t have the time or money to do a longer trip. Spontaneity is great, but when you’re pressed for time, you have to detail it all out so that you make the most of your experience.

Plan Your Final Itinerary

Once you have decided what part of Japan you want to visit (we largely did the Kansai and Kanto region), create a table of places, food and things you want to do. We were extremely nerdy and organised; we actually created a colour coded excel sheet. Yes, we went there. That was a life saver! You get to visit all the places you want to and you discover some pretty amazing ones too! We shared a Google document with each other and put down the things we wanted to do. Each place or activity had a key so it was easier to whittle down to the important ones. They were:

Great, but optional
Definite
If time permits
Luxury
Restaurants to try
Budget Friendly (the most important one)

All of the above had names, references and links gathered over time after scouring through this amazing subreddit, personal recommendations from friends and some brilliant YouTube Vloggers — Mark Wiens and John Daub.

2. Get The Japan Rail Pass

If you’re visiting more than one city, this pass is an absolute blessing! It is only available to foreigners and cannot be procured in Japan. You have to purchase it before you go there so plan this well in advance! There are a lot of websites online that sell it, we bought ours from JR Pass — tried and tested. They’re very professional and FED EX it to you in a week or so. The pass costs around $243 (16,547 INR) for 7 days. It gives you access to all JR lines/JR modes of transport around Japan, the ferry from Hiroshima to Miyajima and the best travel experience ever — the Shinkansen (excluding the Nozomi and Mizuho). $243 might seem like a large amount but it’s a steal if you check the price of a one way Shinkansen ticket — it’s brutally expensive (almost 13,000 INR!). With this pass though, you can travel all over Japan a number of times! True value for money, this one.

3. Sort Out Where You’re Going To Live

We’re suckers for AirBnb. We’ve had really great experiences living with people on this service so we didn’t think twice before booking our living arrangements here. Also, in a place like Japan, living with a local is probably the best thing you can do. Japanese people are gracious, polite and so incredibly warm, you can’t help but love them. We both had referral codes from our previous travels so we got a super discount on 2 of the 5 places we booked, so don’t underestimate the power of referring a friend! AirBnb is also lighter on the pocket compared to hotels and even hostels in Japan! They all have WiFi (some even give you pocket WiFi — more on that later), some provide breakfast and are lovely enough to pick you up from the station.

4. Pick A Place That Is Close To The City Or A Major Train Station

This is a tricky one. We were in Japan for 14 days but we picked a 7 day rail pass because our first 5 days were spent in Tokyo. It didn’t make sense to activate our pass immediately since we were only travelling locally. Our AirBnb in Tokyo was close to a big train station but not very close to Shibuya, Harajuku and the other important locations. It was 2 train rides away; doing this a number of times in a day can be expensive so pick an AirBnb that is in a major area to avoid extra travel time and money.

5. Scout For All The Free Tourist Attractions

There are tons of tourist attractions all over Japan that are free! I will list them down once I start detailing our trip city wise, but some of the best views and experiences in this beautiful country cost no money! Club them all together and visit the ones next to each other. You see a lot more of the city that way and of course, those crisp yen notes stay untouched, destined for a nice steaming bowl of ramen you can grab later.

Part II coming soon!

Disclaimer: All pictures in this post belong to Arshad Umrethi and Michelle Varghese.



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