Hi,
Anyone has experience traveling to Japan with someone on Wheel Chair? Will it be trouble some? I kinda worry on the travel, since in Japan mostly travelers will use public transport which either bus/train.
Also worry if the restaurants will have room for a wheel chair.
And also probably, which city will be recommended? I am thinking a still good touristy city, but not so crowded, to avoid packed people in the public transports.
Thank you.
3 comments
**Please check our front page for the stickied** [**Tourism Information Megathread**](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/) **for current information on re-opening.**
Thank you!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/JapanTravel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I cannot personally provide experience traveling with someone in a wheelchair.
However, I can tell you that Japan has increased its accessibility since 2000.
Buses can drop the height of the bus, and use a ramp to help up. Seats also fold up in the bus, and there are ways to attach the wheelchair.
Staff help you on trains to provide ramps up, and elevators to ride up to the platform.
The caveat. All of the above applies to Tokyo. If you want to visit the country, it can be much harder to find accessibility.
[https://www.accessible-japan.com/](https://www.accessible-japan.com/) This is a good site to learn a bit more about accessibility in Japan.
I am not a wheelchair user, though I see a relatively decent number of wheelchair users through Tokyo and have experience with wheelchair users in very dense urban areas similar to Tokyo/Osaka (Hong Kong).
You will have to pay attention to where you’ll have to go to reach accessible things like elevators or special escalators. This is especially important in very large train stations where a wrong turn could have you backtracking a good distance.
There are train stations beyond the major ones that may not be accessible for wheelchair users and may just be a train platform reached via stairs. However, these tend to be small stations most tourists would never go to, as they’re located in suburbs or commuter towns.
> And also probably, which city will be recommended? I am thinking a still good touristy city, but not so crowded, to avoid packed people in the public transports.
There isn’t really a city that would be good for general tourism that won’t also have packed public transportation in Japan. It’s the main mode of travel for a giant chunk of the populace, after all.
You’ll also want a more urban city because they’re usually the ones that have more infrastructure for accessibility and also have more English availability, if that’s important to you.
Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto are good options. Do expect them to be packed and busy cities because they are where people go to work, so they have increased daytime populations.
A “slightly” less busy city is Fukuoka, which is my personal favorite city along with Osaka. It is more compact, though I don’t know if I’d recommend it to a first-timer, though that’s just personal bias since I went there on maybe my 7th trip so I had already explored a lot of the typical cities.
Public transportation is usually busiest during work commute times (7-10 AM, 5 – 7 PM) and weekends, especially Sunday since that’s typically the day most people and students have off.
> Also worry if the restaurants will have room for a wheel chair.
Many restaurants are adequately sized and could accommodate a wheel chair. Do note a good number of restaurants are very small and compact, like the entire restaurant could fit into a 15 foot x 5 foot box compact because it’s just a counter with a handful of stools. These restaurants are usually located on side streets. If you’re in a large city there will be hopefully be plenty of choices for whatever food you’re craving.
Some small shops may also be rather inaccessible because they essentially only have room to fit a couple of people standing.