Japan - convince me!

[MaraScottie]

I've always loved Japan, spent a few days in Tokyo years ago and loved it. Would love to spend 2 weeks travelling around - the culture intrigues me, the food is the best in the world, and the tech is fascinating!

I also have 2 kids age 9 and 11 who are obsessed with sushi and are adventurous and would love the opportunity. So am tentatively thinking about last week in March to 1st week in April next year.

However ....the cost is holding me back! Its going to be astronomical. We can afford it in that we'd take money from savings but flights will be more than 5k euro, that's before we even get a meal in.

So tell me, was it worth it for you? Would you go for it? I'm more than happy to eat in local restaurants and stay in hostels too, but did you find you just haemorrhage money when you were there?

Part of me wonders what I'm waiting for, life is short, it'll be too late if one of us gets sick etc, and there are no pockets in a shroud ... but it seems so indulgent too whereas in other countries your pound/euro will go a lot further.

Thanks for your feedback.

Thanks all - I was also hoping to do a multi-stop and fly into Osaka/Kyoto and in/out of Tokyo but it's really time consuming to find the cheaper flights - agents aren't particularly cheap either.

Does anyone know of any flight websites that will help find the cheaper days to fly without having to search all the different combinations manually?

Thanks!!

Japan can be as cheap or as expensive as you like. We spent 2 weeks there last year, skipped Tokyo this time around and travelled around Kansai using a mixture of their trains and car rental. We are a family of 4 and were quite carefree with our spending, cost about £20k all in. I'm sure you can probably do it for 10 or 12k though.

We took our luggage with us on the trains. It was no trouble at all. There is loads of space on the trains. The luggage forwarding can take a day or too to arrive so you still have to carry a change of clothes etc.

I do know about GF food there! I took a card downloaded from some website which explained the problem in Japanese, and a bottle of GF free soy sauce, and everywhere I went I gave them these two things. This technique worked perfectly. Pretty much nobody had heard of gluten problems, but every, even those who spoke no English, understood the card and couldn't have been more helpful in cooking me something special.

@DrCoconut Am I right in thinking the happycow app (I think it's called that?!) will give you info regarding places to find GF free food. I think it's called happycow, not 100% sure

@MaraScottie I found Qatar airways to be the best, both price wise and they seem to be good to fly with (have won a recent best airline award etc) Direct through their website is easier to book with. I was checking Skyscanner but it seems to track your searching and adjust price upwards constantly!...even though they claim it doesn't..

Throughout Asia as well (Singapore, HK, etc) which is what will push the crowds and prices up astronomically. It will be way cheaper to go off peak

Gluten free food is almost everywhere in Asia although it will not be labelled as such. Rice is the staple meal and has no gluten. Even most carbs are made with rice flour, like rice noodles and rice flour bread/snacks. Seafood, meat and veggies are usually cooked fresh.

Most seasonings like sesame oil, chilli oil, fish sauce, bean sauce, belacan (shrimp paste), or sides like kimchi and miso soup are usually gluten free. As a precaution, you can bring your own gluten free soy sauce (eg liquid aminos). If you're extremely sensitive to any iota of cross contamination it will be hard though.

We are planning on visiting Japan too. So will October be better than Easter

We went years ago to visit friends and it was amazing! We stayed and ate cheaply when we traveled. The best flights we found were with Finnair via Helsinki, worth looking at. Have an amazing time, I want to go again when kids are old enough.

Use google flights then click on price graph to see if moving a day or two either way can save you

It checks all airlines and you can choose non-stop, or number of stops

Ryokans are great authentic accommodations, there are some lovely ones in the Fuji Hakone area and the bullet train is great from Tokyo to there

You can fine lots of cheap places to eat too - mostly the menus there are photos with prices next to them

I was there in October and it was lovely, you will probably save around £1k on price of 4 flights going then (but cherry blossom looks amazing!)

Don’t take too much luggage as there won’t be much space to store it in room. Also a good number of hotels have washing machine in the rooms. Use Google Lens with Google translate to effortlessly translate menus. I used Momondo to check for flights.

I'll check Momondo, thanks.
Has anyone flown with Air China? They're giving much more affordable fare.

Well we booked it! 18 days departing mid March. Not sure if we're nuts but have started planning already and it's overwhelming but so exciting!

Thanks for all your stories and advice, would love to hear more!

That would be cherry blossom season so one of the most busiest, expensive times to go.

Honestly, Tokyo can be very meh - tricky to get around, very packed, you;re going at a super popular time....some areas are great to visit for first time toursim (Meiji JIngu shrine for example) but the countryisde.other areas outside tokyo for cherry blossom season are STUNNING, and tbh farmore worth exploring than being stuck in Tokyo.

Well done OP I've been to Japan twice and it's one of the only places that would seriously get me on a plane again, I've given up flying pretty much. It's a truly wonderful place.
2 things - yes you can eat cheaply, loads of little cheap places and you can always pick up a bento box etc. The other thing is there's a brilliant Facebook group called Destination Japan where people share loads of info and ask any kind of question about travel to Japan, from the profound to the trivial. Check it out!
Have a fabulous time!

Does anyone know of any flight websites that will help find the cheaper days to fly without having to search all the different combinations manually?
in the past I have used Dial a flight. They got
us a really good price and times for our flight to Australia. I’m going to use them for our Japan flight and also ask them to suggest an itinerary.

Never heard of Dial a flight. I found the cheapest combos through Kayak in the end and then booked directly with ANA.

I am fully aware its the busiest and most expensive time but it's really the best option for us timewise and weather wise so we'll suck it up.

We are planning to go in 2024 or 2025 thanks to a decent premium bond win last month. Its one of those places I've always dreamed of going to and can't see we would do it any other way so I've earmarked the funds specifically for it.

Make sure you visit Gion and do the dusk walking tour of the Lanes - the most atmospheric walk I've ever taken part in. To see a Geisha with her Meiko walking to an appointment was the cherry on the cake!

So glad you're using that win for some fun!

I went as a female solo traveller in winter 2016 specifically at that time of year when you can see the autumn colours - visiting about 5 prefectures across the country using JP pass on the bullet trains (as well as local trains cheaper than UK). The country is jam packed with trees and mountains which was a very unexpected surprise.

I stayed in Airbnb and found them to be very reasonable ie. £25-30pn in single rooms, hostel rooms, traditional teahouses and even a whole house in Hokkaido. Food was very cheap compared to the UK with double meals at around £6, or normal set meals about £8. Had some nice seafood meals at £30. Airbnb hosts were really friendly, some spoke good English and gave me tips for their local area (one gave me a free pass for a beautiful onsen (thermal spa),they recommended places to visit such as a vintage fair, wasabi farm. I stayed for 4 weeks at a cost of total cost of 2.5k (treated myself a lot, but could have saved £500). DM me if you want some Airbnb reccys.

I want to go to Japan.was thinking easter 2025 or 2026 but could move it up to October 2024 if easter is that bad. Would have to take the dc out of school for a week. Might get in trouble.

If we went at Easter then we could stay longer because they get 2 weeks then.

@MaraScottie do you mind me asking how much flights were? My own looking has shown 5k per person just for flights!

We paid EUR 4,880 ex Dublin via Zurich with Swiss Air for 2 adults+ 2 kids- it was the best deal we could find!