Here's my trip report from me and partners 33 day trip in Japan. We are currently travelling Asia so this is more towards keeping it low cost. I wouldn't say we scrimped our way through but there were moments we were could have spent tonnes but had to hold back. There were also moments we decided to spend a bit more as you never know when you might be back!
Not quite sure what the most effective way of detailing it is but I will break the itinerary up below and then go into further detail under each one. Unfortunately won't be able to remember each and every detail but will do my best to reply to anything!
Japan is part of our 4 month travel across Asia so we hadn't planned everything possible as we are also getting things sorted for other countries so didn't want to be constantly planning. This meant alot of stuff was done on the fly but I'd say all accomodation was sorted a month before and bullet trains a week or so.
We have also got a spreadsheet going from the last 2 years of traveling so i will be able to tell you every penny we spent in Japan below.
Total on meals & drinks: £1,893.83
Every meal or drink out.
Total on Other: £810.18
We count this as souvenirs, laundry, general shopping
Total on activities: £243
This included things like entering shrines and temples,Tokyo skytree, team labs etc
Total on travel: £810
From IC card top ups, bus tickets & train tickets.
Total on Accommodation: £1881.74
Includes all guesthouse on Kumano Kodo, and all hotels.
Total groceries (conbini trips haha): £289.78
This is mainly conbini trips & vending machines
Grand total for 2 people in Japan for 33 days:
£ 4,434.43 (excluding flights to Osaka)
Trip Itinerary
Osaka 5 nights ( arriving from Singapore late & includes a day to Nara)
- trip to katsuoji
- multiple trips to different ghibli stores
- Nintendo store
- okonomiyaki & takoyaki multiple times
- trying out all the different conbini stores (Lawson is the GOAT)
- exploring downtown Osaka day & night most days
- stumbled into amerikura
- having a whole rikori Cheesecake for dinner
- visiting the massive don quioti store at dontobori
- premium custard fish, absolute dream
- insane deep fried cream custard sandwich thing near JR Osaka station
- Nara – deer parks, numerous temples, fresh mochi and our first ramen.
Kumamo Kodo Hike 5 nights (one of the highlights of our trip)
- 6 day hike across the kii peninsula, (multiple options,.we did the nakehechi route) visiting multiple shrines, some of which are major ones.
- stay at guesthouses and countryside accomodations, sampling local food and onsens at accomodation
- without doubt one of the best things we did on this trip
- incredibly hot, would not recommend in summer haha
- the track itself is very shaded and in the forest alot so while it's not full of view after view its an amazing way to experience rural Japan and meet new people
Osaka 4 nights ( post hike recovery and day trip to Hiroshima)
- Hiroshima is well worth the trip especially with the Kansai wide Hiroshima pass, basically pays for the bullet train itself and the extra
Koyosan (1 night) – wonderful relaxed and spiritual place
- a little underwhelmed by our temple stay but that may be because we experienced similar cuisine / experience on the kumamo kodo
- okunuin cemetery was amazing and definitely recommend going at night
- visited various temples and significant sites such as the red pagoda, Daimon gate.
Kyoto 5 nights ( could have easily spent double the time in Kyoto)
- just a perfect city, plenty of places to escape the tourists
- recommend hiring bikes as it was super fun and allowed us to see lots of the city comfortably
- visiting fushimi inari at 6:00am, practically empty but the day before arrived at 5pm and crowds were perfectly manageable
-old town area for sunrise - Arashiyma Bamboo Grove, visited at 4pm and again crowds were fine
- nishiki market was a lovely wander, similar to the market in Osaka
- pottery class at donoma studio with Matcha soba at neighbouring restaurant
- lake biwa fireworks ( absolutely unreal)
Kanazawa (2 nights) – awesome city with loads of museums
– explored the castle ruins
– got a museum pass and went to over 10 random little museums
– hired bikes again ( the best way to explore imo)
– went to a local craft market and had some local food and did a few craft workshops
– had the best pizza of my life (perche)
– explored the small geisha district
– went to the massive japanese garden (forgot the name)
Takayama (2 nights) – great little old town area and just a nice relaxed feel
– beautiful train journey from kanazawa
– lovely old town which imo matches Kyoto
– Open air folk museum
Nagoya (2 night) – could have easily spent another day hear, massively underrated city imo
– We went to ichiran for the first time here and then subsequently went 7 times for the rest of our trip haha
– Toyota museum was fantastic and again, didn't really have enough time there.
Hakone ( 2 nights, with one day written off due to cyclone)
– Hakone open air museum
– Sadly no Mt Fuji views due to the cyclone but we used it as a gap before Tokyo to recharge our batteries.
Tokyo ( 5 nights)
Can't remember the exact days but will summarise what we did below across the entire time.
-Arrived around 17:00 on the first day so just went for a relaxed walk around asakusa.
-Ichiran ramen again
– HEY arcade in Akihabara
– Visited Shibuya crossing and did a spot of shopping
– Shinjuku for the smalls lanes and bars. Also headed to the batting cage to embarrass ourselves at our attempt of baseball
– Teamlabs borderless ( worth a trip if you have spare time)
– Kura Sushi – conveyor belt sushi restaurant
– Torikizoku – restaurant chain where everything is 370 yen
– Tokyo Skytree at sunset
– Hit up round 1 in ikebukuro for some arcade gaming
– Stumbled upon the Kabuki Theatre and managed to get tickets. Highly recommend and you can get live English subtitles.
What's not mentioned on any of the above is the amount of time just wandering around and taking it all in! Me and my partner are keen photographers so we often spend a lot of free time just wandering around taking photos.
Our itinerary in hindsight wasn't perfect but I think it's important to mention this as you simply can't pre plan and do everything you want to do. We actual had a lull at one point on our trip because we were thinking we weren't doing enough as we could, but in reality, if we did any more we would just burn out.
A few added little tips that we feel should be mentioned:
Rucksacks on the trains ok – be considerate and book space for extra baggage on shinkansen. My 60L backpack actually fit above on most trains. Handy if you are on a budget and can't afford luggage forwarding
Summer Heat – Yes it is hot. And it is humid. But we didn't find it changed our trip too much. We actually found it gave us a reason to have a break as we were clocking well over 20,000 steps a day.
Instagram Perception – It's hard to ignore that Japan is all over Instagram and while that's amazing and really good for the country it, in our opinion gives you an almost unattainable image of Japan being this super futuristic country with endless amounts of fun and a constant dopamine rush. I guess it could be like this if you had unlimited cash but we felt that Tokyo for example was mainly shopping, but again when you aren't on a budget your approach could be different. We really enjoyed bar hopping around golden gai but between 2 bars and 3 drinks we shifted £50 between us, which for some would be fine.
Vending machines & plastic waste – We were genuinely surprised out of much plastic was being used so flippantly all around Japan. Conbinis giving you plastic cutlery, tissues in plastic wrapper, plastics bags. Temples giving you one time use plastic covers for your shoes.
We loved our time in Japan and wouldn't change a thing, yes we would ideally not go in summer but that in itself was an experience and on the whole was fine. We've already got a list of places we want to explore next time we come back!
Happy to answer any questions and would just like to say reiterate my advice isn't gospel and trips can be vastly different depending on your budget and how much you want to squeeze in!
EDIT: stupidly forgot to add accommodation into the budget.
by ben-southan
