Hello!
I’m trying to start mine and my wife’s trip to Japan late October. It’ll be our first time ever in Japan, my first time ever out of the US. We want to stay for about 2 weeks but depending on how much it starts to look like budget wise we might slim it down to 12 days. I think not really finding a clear answer on how much roughly is enough for 2 people on this subreddit is messing with me. I’m thinking 6-7k should be okay based on Google, but when inflation and all i don’t know if that’s changed.
Since it is our first time we don’t want to fit a bunch of things at once and be on a train going to new cities every day either.
Our main goals are:
-Anime/Kawaii things
-cute cafes
-shopping
-Japanese bath house
-new foods to try (wife is vegan)
Main cities Osaka – Kyoto – Tokyo
Once we go and kinda get a feel for it, our next trip will involve more exploring.
3 days each if the first bad last day involve traveling back home and to Japan.
Day 1-3
Day 1) Land Osaka Kansas airport
Eat, go to hotel
Walk around shops/nearby night life
Day 2) universal with fast passes (whatever we get done that’ll be ok)
Day 3) ichiraku ramen, dontonbori, castle park travel to Kyoto and hotel
Day 4) arishyima bamboo garden – iwatama monkey park
Day 5) ghibli park if we obtain tickets. If not sight see more in Kyoto
Day 6) not sure yet. End of day travel to Tokyo
Day 7) make it to Tokyo and relax this day – cat cafe – spa
Day 8-11 mostly likely take it easy, relax, walk around shop around well know malls for anime etc.
It’s kinda early still so there’s my rough draft. What’s really throwing me off is again how much to save for. Is 7k including flights enough? Thank you and open to any input
Please don’t take down really needing insight here.
3 comments
>7k…
Like… $7000 USD for the entire trip?
>..thinking 6-7k should be okay
again clarity: 6000 to 7000Y per day… 6000 – 7000 USD for the trip? ?
Edit: … what are you considering for train travel? JR Passes? .. and is this part of the estimate? ( I have no idea what 7 or 14 day JR Passes could cost.. there is a *wide* variety of them)
Clean up you post .. and get back to us.. there are dozens of these posts up per day and noone will reply if you are not clear.
For two people, I was able to find a hotel and flight for 2-3k max, both. Transportation in Japan, specifically Kyoto, Tokyo and Osaka is around $272 or $300 round trip. Here’s a calculation site that’ll help with specifics:
https://www.japan-guide.com/railpass/
Is that 6-7k with airfare inclusive, because after accommodations, airfare tends to be the most expensive part of the trip, and how much it costs will also be dependent on where you are starting from.
Your wife is lucky, there are a lot more vegan options in Japan than there once were. My tween and I loved Uzu Ramen. There is a branch in front of Team Lab Planets as well as one in Kyoto. Their vegan ramen is incredibly good. I want to say Cosme kitchen had some really good vegan options and they have a branch in Osaka and in Skytree. I liked Mumokuteki, my tween not so much. We are vegetarian, but I like vegan options because then I know the food is safe.
I am finding a Ichiraku Ramen in Ninjen no Mori and Fukuoka. Both are a hike from Osaka (though Awaji is of course closer) but I can say with all honestly, chances are good that it will not have anything vegan because the vast majority of ramen in Japan has a pork based broth unless you find places specifically offering vegan ramen.
I would do a cat cafe in Osaka. It has two with rescue cats and one even serves vegan food!
If you are flying into Osaka and out of Tokyo and your only long train trip is Osaka to Tokyo, you are not going to want to a rail pass and it will also sort of keep travel expenses within Japan lower.
Our last trip to Japan our big expenses were airfare! I think I spent more on airfare than accommodations! We also went an expensive time of year, New Years, and had a weird open jaw ticket, Honolulu to Tokyo, Tokyo to our home state and we didn’t want to go back through Honolulu even though it would have saved us $900 per ticket.
If you can get $1200 airfare per person or 2400, that leaves you with 3600 for everything else, assuming you want to spend $6k, but again, I can’t tell you what airfare costs from your location and in October.
Hope this helps!