Sept 2023 itinerary: Tightening up & Recommendations

15 comments

1. What do you mean by mid level? My tokyo accom 3 stars for 2 people for 2 weeks is $200 aud per night in shinjuku

2. Your accommodation costs are in the backpacker range

3. Accommodation is expensive, even in business hotels.

4. I think you’ll be fine. My budget for 2 this Oct in $CAD is $8-9k. The flights I was able to secure were $1150pp. With the strong USD I’m sure you’ll be alright. The trip I’m planning is 14 days in Japan.

5. Your accommodation pricing is unrealistic. We’ve recently visited and the cheapest place we stayed (out of 9 different hotels) was £67 per night (which Google tells me is $85) and that was a capsule hotel in Fukuoka.
   For a mid-range business hotel (for example a Dormy Inn) we paid £80-£110 per night (depending on day of the week and city), so that’s $100-140 dollars per night.

   However your total price of $9000 is entirely reasonable, we paid $5700 equivalent for 18 nights- you just need to redistribute your funds into different areas – perhaps a reduction in the more expensive activities, or more nights with ramen noodles!

   I highly recommend the sumo, we had a great day when we went in Tokyo! We used buysumotickets.com as the intermediary to purchase for us, and had the tickets delivered to our hotel – it was very straightforward and their correspondence was friendly.

6. 9k USD = $13400(ish) AUD for my fellow Aussie lurkers!

   My partner and I are planning a 3 week trip and have a budget of $7500 AUD per person in total costs – this includes the cost of flights / JR Pass and spending money. Our flights are booked, we are flying Qantas PER>SIN>HND.

   We are intending on splurging for a nice hotel somewhere in Nikko that has a private Onsen in the room (partner has tattoos) so that will be the most expensive accommodation for the whole trip – from what I’ve seen this is about $2k AUD (or roughly 1300USD) for around 3-4 nights. The booking website you use does impact the cost.

   Most websites say it’s $60 or whatever per night this is for a single most basic literal bed in a room – and you share a bathroom with the rest of your floor. If that’s your vibe, go for it.

   So yeah definitely keep that in mind, private Onsens and larger beds will certainly impact your accommodation costs.

7. I got a decent hotel in Shinjuku (for January) for like £50 a night and every time I’ve gone out there I’ve not spent much more than that
   It’s very possible, but might be harder to do leaving only a couple of months.

   Also sorry to be that guy but animal cafes are cruel.

8. For accomodation: get free cancellation from 3rd party websites eg booking – I started planning my itinerary 2 months in advance but periodically check the prices online. The prices fluctuate so for a few hotels I was able to get a better deal for the same room at different times..

   I think 9k/2pp for 2 weeks is manageable, but stretch it to 3 and you will have to budget your accommodation or meals..

   I would calculate the cost of all internal transportation (that is not included in JR pass) and accomodation, then see how much spending money you have left over per day..

   Clothes and souvenir shopping are not cheap… and they do add up given how many places you are planning.

9. You can skip Nagoya. I don’t think there’s anything there that’s not done better in other cities (unless you like cars maybe?)

   I don’t really understand your north of Tokyo section – are these day trips? It doesn’t seem day-trip distance, though I guess it’s possible with the magic of fast trains – lots of travel though. Northern Japan is absolutely worth exploring, but I feel like your time is too limited to be getting too far off the beaten track unless you’re specifically into that. I feel like Nikko would make more sense if you’re doing a short foray up there, and you can do the onsen thing there too.

   I don’t really understand why you’re doing Okinawa. I’m sure it’s a nice place, but you’re missing out on so much stuff that’s easier and cheaper to get to.

10. I just finished my itinerary a couple of days ago with the help of this amazing forum. I do know that as a first timer in Japan the initial phase of planning your trip can be super overwhelming. But try to focus on your interests and then go from there. Japan is way to big and diverse to fit everything into 3 weeks and that’s ok – trying to do so might actually hinder you in enjoying your trip to the fullest. Are you sure you want to go to Okinawa for example? You will lose a lot of time travelling. Your “north of Tokyo” could be stretched into a week and you still would be able to see the a lot. My itinerary for Oct is – Tokyo – Kusatsu Onsen – Takayama (with day trips to Kamikochi, Shirawago) – Kanazawa – Osaka – Koyasan – Kyoto – Tokio. This is just an example. But the forum and studying other’s itineraty really helped to have some idea.

11. When booking accommodation, make sure to read the bed configuration and sizing as these are smaller than Western hotels

12. We booked in November for our May trip, and averaged $80/night for nice hotels in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. So book early! We had to change to add a night in Kyoto a couple months later, and the price for one night was double as much as when we booked.

    Either way, for our 2.5 week trip, my husband and I spent about $8k, but we did go to a few super nice, somewhat expensive dinners and went to many breweries that tend to cost more than other bars. Definitely could have spent way less if we needed to.

13. I just spent 14 days in Kansai in April, and 9 this week. 100 to 120 a night is doable at most 3 star hotels.

    April, my 14 day trip which included 7 nice course meals costs me 2k without counting airfare or shopping (shared hotel room, food, internal transportation, usj). Our group was 9 deep.

    May, my trip was higher and it was about 1800 but we are and drank more and our transportation was less spread out (2 people).

    I don’t know about Tokyo but I think it’s wild that people spent 400 a night there. Last time I went to Tokyo, the business hotels were 90 bucks a night

14. i have just booked my hotels for tokyo in oct and i spent 92k yen and 102k yen for 3 nights at both but i’m staying at art boutique hotels as is my preference which comes out to about 250/night. one is 33m sq and the other is 80m sq. my hotel in osaka was much cheaper like 250 for the whole stay. hope that helps

15. Be prepared to spend more on hotels