Traveling with my wife. I am 80% sure the budget looks okay, wouldn’t hurt to grab opinions.
Have a trip that is roughly
* Tokyo – Near Yushima Station (\~3-4 days)
* 2 Full no travel days
* Kyoto – Near Nijo Station (\~3-4 days)
* 1 night at hotel onsen
* 2 full no travel days
* Osaka – Near Tanimachi Station (\~3-4 days)
* 2 full no travel days
* Tokyo – Near Hatagaya Station (\~2-3 days)
* 1 full no travel day
We don’t have many major attractions planned and want to play it by ear. We would rather have food be our priority and whatever we can casually see locally or search for. Ex/ We’ll be near Tokyo U and a Football Museum, not sure if we’d visit or walk around until then.
# Transportation
By complete happenstance, Tokyo -> Kyoto -> Osaka -> Tokyo travel days fall within 7 days for me to get a JR Rail Pass. I believe the math works out to have cost savings just on Shinkansen alone. Considering this to subsidize any local public transportation during this period.
Outside of the fare from NRT <> Tokyo, I read that 1K Yen/day is sufficient for local public transportation.
1. **Is 7k Yen enough for two people (load 3.5k on each IC card) given the circumstances?**
2. **Will the JR rail for local public transportation, given the stations we will be near, be a PITA where it would probably be worth paying for certain transfers/legs that are not covered by JR Rail Pass?**
# Food
This is where things get kind of silly.
* Breakfast at FF like Starbucks: 12 USD for two
* Fast Casual Lunch: 30 USD for two
* Decent sit down Dinner w/ drinks: 70 USD for two
Converting as if 100 Yen = 1 USD for sake of simplicity, that’s \~11K YEN a day for two (3.7k/meal). I think I can bolt on an additional 1K as margin for snack/dessert. There seems to be a good amount of wiggle room for lunch and dinner from my research. Ex/ is an *average* ramen place here would be $13.5 USD for tonkotsu vs japan where it would be at most $9 USD
Below is our general food hitlist (ranked) to get an idea of eating habits.
1. Konbini
1. Probably at least 3 meals here to try out different things and/or stores (7-11, Lawsons, Family Mart)
2. Shinkansen Bento
3. Market (Nishiki | Dotonbori | Tsukiji)
4. Izakaya / Yokocho / Tachinomiya
5. Ramen
1. Probably at least 2 meals, Shio and one for heartier tonkotsu/paitan
6. Zaru Soba
7. Chain Kaizenzushi
8. Teishoku / kosupa
9. Mid-range sushi
10. Sukiyaki
11. Okonomiyaki
12. Specialty fried stuff (tempura | tonkatsu | tendon)
13. Yakiniku
That said, **is 12k YEN / day enough for two people with 1-2 dinners being splurges?**
If anyone has recs for local/hole in the wall/mom & pop places around the areas above, let me know. If I can find a bunch of places like this: [https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1311/A131102/13141848/](https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1311/A131102/13141848/) where I could just pick out a piece of korokke / tonkatsu, it would be around our style.
4 comments
>Converting as if 100 Yen = 1 USD for sake of simplicity
Normally this would be a fine estimate, but you’re in luck. The yen has been plummeting all year and currently 1 USD is worth 143 yen.
JR Pass is not a must. If you mostly use it to cover the round trip Tokyo-Kansai, you might as well not get one as there is little to no savings to be done. Instead, get the flexibility to ride the faster nozomi shinkansen and you will also not be limited to use JR to try to maximise savings in Kansai, because no, JR Pass does not cover subway/tram/bus/private railway. Not using JR can be just more convenient, for example Kintetsu station is 1km closer to Nara park compared to JR station. However, if you plan several more expensive daytrips using JR around Kansai, ok, it might be worth it.
1000 yen a day by person is more than enough for local transit in Tokyo, if you plan to do several things in each area and take the train/subway twice a day, you can do days at less than 500 yen. Actually if you are over 500yen a day inside of Tokyo, you could check to use some pass, JR and Tokyo Metro both offer pass that could save you money (they might also not save anythign depending on your plan).
For sure you can start with 3500 yen and it’s easy enough to recharge if you use more than expected (like use it in Kansai) or start paying for other things like konbini and vending machines, with the card.
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Food budget is fine for me. To be honest, breakfast I would usually go for much cheaper and just get stuff in konbini. Overall, I think it is realistic, depending on how expensive a splurge dinner is for you. Tip if you want to go to fancier restaurant, they sometime have much cheaper lunch menu (compared to their dinner menu), but ok, it can still be more expensive than an average place.
Just remember Family Mart is your best friend.
Izakaya and Yakiniku are really the only food options you’ve got there where it can get pricy all of a sudden. As others have mentioned, you should be able to get $1:140¥ exchange rates or better for the foreseeable future.
If you aren’t going to be doing numerous dedicated train trips, the current exchange rate for the jr pass just doesn’t add up for round trip tokyo to osaka. As gdore mentioned, you’re better off taking the faster nozomi trains and saving 30+ minutes on the train and up to 30 minutes waiting for the jrpass eligible shinkansens each way.
Also remember that japan does not have a tipping culture and includes tax on the displayed price, so the price on the menu is what you will pay.