Well, this is an update of the itinerary i’ve been building this month to travel with a friend to celebrate our college graduation
We’re thinking on travel March-April or October-November. Hanami and Momiji are something i want to see
Breaking down the budget it should be like this for each
$1550 the flights (Im from Venezuela, so i just have a couple routes. In this case the flight route is through Frankfurt)
$800 for Airbnbs ($400 each)
$400 for transport (to move inside tokyo, Hakone freepass, 7days jrpass)
$900 for food (A average of $15 per meal)
$90 for the travel secure
120$ (60ea) for pocket wifi
$200 for souvenirs and emergencies
More or less $3300 in total
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Now for the itinerary
1st day: arrive to tokyo and set up things on the airbnb on Shinjuku
2nd to 6th day: Visit different districts inside tokyo
Shibuya: Crossway, yoyogi park, Hashiko statue
Ueno: Museum and temples
Asakusa: Senso’ji
Chiyoda: Imperial Palace and Tokyo Ramen St
Roppongi: I mark it to go to any cinema there
Shinjuku: Shin-Okubo/Karaoke
Akihabara: Buy anime/Manga things and play arcades
I’ve never tried sushi before and i want to try it for the first time on japan, so im really exited to visit a Conveyor Belt sushi, if you know a good one. i’d like to take it on account
7th-9th day: Hakone
Using the Hakone freepass for 3 days with the round trip from Shinjuku
We’ll be there for the onsen and the Ropeway. But most general Sightseeing
On 9th day return to Shinjuku, active 7 days JR pass and prepare to take shinkansen to Osaka
9th day Osaka
We’re gonna use Osaka as a Basecamp. interspersing a daytrips and a free day
10th day Kyoto daytrip were i want to see some temples and the botanical garden
11th day Osaka Freeday
12th day Nara Daytrip Deers Deers everywhere
13th day Osaka Freeday
14th day Kobe day trips
15th day Himeji castle (Buying the Kansai Area pass for 1day/2400Y) and return to tokyo
16th-21th Repeat things i’ve liked on the first part, buy souveniers and prepare to return
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Do u think is it worth the JR pass? Maybe flight to osaka and pay local fare or any local pass could be cheaper?
I’ll thank you for any recommendation and sorry for any misspell, still learning 🙂
4 comments
Pocket wifi you can share one, unless you want to split and still both have internet access.
You do not have to return to Tokyo to activate the JR Pass. When you activate the pass, they ask you when you want to start using it. What make most sense is to take the shinkansen at Odawara and go straight to Osaka.
If you get the JR Pass, you do not need the Kansai area pass, because the JR Pass already cover it. You could consider doing Himeji as a daytrip from Osaka using that pas, but only if you are not getting the JR Pass an buy individual tickets instead.
For this itinerary you are quite close to the cost of the JR Pass, so it’s up to you to get it or not, but do not expect to save a lot of money using it.
What you can check is the price of multi-city airplane ticket, arrive in Tokyo and leave via Osaka. If it cost less than 14 000 yen more to do the multi-city ticket, then you would save that amount on the train (an in this case, of course not use JR Pass).
Using Osaka as a base to visit the Kansai area works really well. It’s also an interesting and fun city in its own right – much more so than Kyoto in my experiance.
Congrats on graduating mate! But $3,300 for a 21 day trip to Japan including flights, accommodations, trains, food, arcades, karaoke, coffee, booze, ice cream, etc. ain’t happening.
Have you booked your accommodations yet? $800 for 21 days is pretty good for AirBnb. You could also go real cheap and get $10-30/night hostels, which the majority of hostels in Japan are of excellent quality.
As for food, supermarkets like Aeon usually mark down their perishables after like 5-7pm so you can get some real nice deals on stuff like tonkatsu. For conveyor belt sushi, check out Genki Sushi in Shibuya. Also check out Menya Musashi in Ueno for $6-10 ramen. Matsuya also has like $2.50 breakfast of rice, beef bowl, miso soup.
For transportation while you’re in Tokyo, get 24-72 hour subway passes for $5-15. You can get these at the airport and then at information centers in subway stations by bringing your passport.
Unless you find a cheaper option, the JR pass might be worth it. Separate bullet train tickets from Tokyo to Osaka and back pretty much make up the cost of a 7 day JR pass. JR pass also covers most regular subway transportation, so if you’re spending $10-20 a day on transportation while in Kansai, JR pass would take care of that. I remember some stations in Osaka didn’t take the pass and I believe transportation to Nara is not covered by JR either.
Pocket WiFi can usually connect multiple devices so you may just need one if you’re going to be by your friend the whole time.
If this is your first time in Japan, I recommend going during March-April. The vibe and nature is quite nice during spring.