I (28F) am looking to travel to Japan next year for the first time, as a solo traveler. The plan is a minimum of three weeks with most of my stay to be spent in Tokyo. I do not have dates in mind however, I’d like to visit in March/April or October/November.
I have several places noted that I’d like to visit such as museums, cafes, shops, and overall sightseeing.
The debate: should I carefully plan and literally write out an itinerary? Or is it okay to just wing it and do everything on my own time?
I currently work a job at 45-50 hours a week, sometimes more. The time off for this trip will be the only vacation time I’ll get to take next year so I do not want this trip to feel stressful by any means.
With hotel bookings, is it better to book all my stays in advance? I will most definitely book my first night or two a head of time once I’ve purchased my flight.
Within Tokyo, should I only stay at one place my whole stay? Maybe stay on one side of the city for a bit then travel to another hotel further away? I mean I don’t want to spend a ton of money on nightly stays and I probably won’t spend much time in a room anyways only to sleep and get ready in the morning.
Guess what I’m trying to say here is when looking online I’d pretty much be booking through a 3rd party and that makes me a bit nervous. So, here came my thought of booking while physically in Japan instead.
I am aware that weekends could be a booking issue if not done in advance especially to visit during cherry blossom season.
Any advice is very much appreciated! 🙂
In case this question ends up in the comments, I do know a little bit of Japanese. I can speak a decent amount of vocabulary and some phrases, I really just need to work more on grammar and sentence forming.
by h000ligal