Family trip to japan

[Climbles]

We are planning a trip to Japan for 14 days in October. My DH, DD (12) and DS (9).
We are flying in and out of Tokyo. Any recommendations for places to go, hotels to stay at etc?

Im in early planning stages for May half term 24. Looking at 10/11 days for 2 adults & 12yr old. 6 days Tokyo Kyoto 4?
So far im tracking flights - cheapest around £2500 so far (book early or hope for a better price?)
accom £100 - 200max per night
Hotel or apartment recommendations would be great - need 3 beds, clean near train station.
Never done a trip like this before 😬so much to think about and plan!
Any help, recommendations, must sees appreciated TIA

@DancingMachine sounds like a fantastic trip! I have been to Japan a fair few times as my DH is Japanese and there's always more to do and see. I would recommend spending around 2 nights in Osaka as it is a totally underrated city but has the best food in my opinion and is very easy to get around. I would actually suggest taking the 6 nights in Tokyo down to 4, and doing 2 in Osaka instead. Whilst Tokyo is amazing, it can be a lot to take in, and you might like a break from the fast pace. From Osaka you can also do a day trip to Nara (to see the deer) which is always a hit with kids.

Those flights sound quite expensive to me - is that per person? We typically pay around £1500 max, always a connecting flight (via eg Beijing, Helsinki) which honestly is well worth the cost saving imo. The journey is long either way!

In terms of hotels, check out the APA hotel chain, or the Toyoko Inn hotel chain. Budget-friendly but perfectly good hotels usually located conveniently. Loads of each in every city 😀

@lenalove Thank you, Nara was somewhere we looked at - and having a few days chill from Tokyo might be a good idea. Will also look further at Osaka.

£2500 total for the flights (around 840 each with Quatar)

Going to check out them hotels as well. Need to start booking some things in now.
We have never done this type of holiday before - usually a couple weeks in Europe spent at the beach, so this is going to be a real adventure, really looking forward to it. 😄

Hi! I have just returned from Japan. I booked via Logitravel www.logitravel.co.uk/. Really reason price for 3 adults (£4200) in Sept. Includes flights to & from Japan, transfers to from airports and all hotels (2 rooms). You can do a budget package like we did. Hotels were all perfectly located and very very clean (like everything in Japan. We stayed 2 nights in Osaka (only because we wanted to do Universal) 3 nights Kyoto, 4 nights Tokoyo.

Would like to know more about your experience .

Will look further into this, maybe a good option for us. Thanks

@Nofixedabodewell We got them to organise our trip and had an amazing three week tour of Japan about five years ago. What made it so great was not just that they sorted everything, and gave us instructions for things like how the heck to get out of Shinjuku Station, and organised tickets for the Ghibli museum and Universal, but they also suggested things we would have never done ourselves - like a ninja class or staying in a traditional guesthouse. We also used a couple of their recommended guides, and the first one, a middle aged lady on our first day, was a godsend as she taught us to use the subway and what to do in a temple!

They will try to slightly over-organise you and over-travel you, so we cut out one destination and gave ourselves some free days for shopping and gawping.

And I say this as someone who has never used a travel agent to organise a holiday before, and probably won't ever again. Unless of course we go back to Japan. Which we will...

@DancingMachine They worked really well for us. I originally booked for June 2020 but obviously it was cancelled but they were really good to deal with through covid so had no hesitation booking once travel to Japan was possible. They’re very flexible and you can plan your own itinerary online. My sons are 19&23 and certainly didn’t want anything too organised. We did our own thing and saw what we wanted (Teamlabs in Tokyo was brilliant - an immersive art installation). We just used the excellent and frankly cheap trains/underground to get around.

Thinking maybe going next summer after DD's GCSEs. Is that a reasonable time of year to visit?

Also would people recommend an organised tour for 1st time visitors? We are not confident independent travellers and would hate not to maximise the experience

@yesno124 July and August are best avoided due to incredible heat but if it’s the only time you can go (as it was for us), then it’s still worth going! Just be prepared.

We didn’t do any tours and we found it very easy to navigate and get around. Public transport is great. Google Maps and Translate are very helpful.

You should be able to top up your Suica. You can also transfer your Suica balance onto your phone (Apple Wallet certainly and I assume on Android)) and then just use your phone.

@yesno124 as a PP says, July/August can be unbearably hot, I was just there in July and spent most of the time running from air conditioning to air conditioning as it's really tough being outside. That being said, if you have no choice, it is still worth going as they are pretty well equipped for it. Just be careful with the sun as well as it is extremely fierce and can burn you without you even realising!

Resurrecting this thread to see how everyone's trips went as I'm looking at booking

Absolutely incredible. I wrote a huge blog post about ours and everything I learned that I thought might be useful to others. Hope it helps someone

affordacool.wordpress.com/2024/04/25/japaneasy/

We had an awesome time.

We ended up spending somewhat less than we expected. Flights ended up being much more than we intially expected (£1900 per person in economy!) but accommodation came in at £620 per person, which was significantly less than we expected. We then allowed for £1000-1500 per person for other spends but everything else came to less than £700 without us consciously trying to limit spending. Eating out was really cheap.

We did USJ, Disneyland and Disneysea, which were our priciest days. I’m glad I did them, but I wouldn’t bother going back to USJ or Disneyland. Disneysea was awesome and even the Disney haters in our group were won over.

I thought the flights had totally blown our £4000 per person budget, but we ended up coming in well under the £3500 mark. Flights were 60% of our costs for the two weeks.

What I enjoyed most on this trip has also informed plans for our next trip in Spring 2025. We’re going to go back and spend more time on day trips outside of our base cities. We’re going to use Osaka (which we loved) as a base for exploring other places, spend less time in Tokyo (which we’ve now been to twice) and make getting down to Hiroshima a priority. I will not be going back to Kyoto in spring.

So excited; we are going second half of August. I hope we can manage the heat

@HRTea this is BRILLIANT! Thank you so much!

Oh dear we are planning on going in the spring! Is it horrific?

We went in March. Flights booked last June, £5k for 4 people. Budgeted another £4k for hotels (was slightly under) and £1k for Shinkansen and other travel expenses.
Eating out could be very cheap and we offer just grabbed sandwiches etc from a 7/11.
USJ was our expensive day but it was our sons birthday so we went all out on fast pass tickets (essential) and ate at the Mario cafe and Hogwarts.
Spent probably another £1.5k on souvenirs but most of that was our son who is a huge gaming/anime geek!
We loved Japan although I wouldn’t go back due to distance.

@KenAdams really pleased the blog post is helpful Spring is a wonderful time of year to go. Yes it will be busy but as I've written in my post if you wander just slightly further beyond the crowds you can find pockets of peace everywhere

It’s not horrific and if my trip to Japan was a once-in-a-lifetime one then I’d definitely not skip Kyoto, but I found it very overcrowded. I feel the same way about Kyoto as I felt about USJ, glad I went but not rushing back at that time of year.

We’re going to save our return visit for another time of year or a time when the yen is much stronger so hopefully fewer tourists.

We plan to go back to Japan pretty regularly so I don’t feel any need to rush back. There’s so many other beautiful places to see in Japan. This trip I learned that I enjoyed some of the less famous sites much better than the “must see” ones. It’s good to have seen them, but they weren’t the days that I had the most fun.

We had a couple of amazing days in Nikko, about 2 hours north of Japan, which was fabulous. On our way back to Tokyo we took first a steam train and then the very latest luxury ("normal" express, not Shinkansen speed) train called Spacia X. Had to stay up until 1am UK time to book the Spacia X because tickets sell out like Glastonbury, but it was worth it.

I'm in Japan with my teens and husband now. We booked with Inside Japan. It has been excellent from them!

We spent 4K per person for flights, accommodation and trains/ IC card etc as well as some activities such as guides, Team Labs in Tokyo, universal in Osaka etc.

We are here for 15 days, going to 5 places.

So glad you had a good time We found the same about costs while there. Eating out was so cheap. And we came home with half the spending money.

Why wouldn't you go back to Kyoto in Spring? That was our favourite place. I wish we'd spent more time there.

It wasn't when we were there. It was stunning and blissful. All the cherry blossom along the river, and lit up at night in the geisha quarter - it was beautiful. Nara and Fushimi Inara were gorgeous - busy but not heaving. The only place that was too busy was the Golden Pavilion. But I still wouldn't have missed it for the world. It was exquisite. And all the other temples and gardens were idyllkic in spring. You can also buy delicious super cheap yakitori and sushi in the amazing food market or 7-11 stores and have hanami picnics every day surrounded by Japanese people doing the same.