I read a lot from people about how expensive Tokyo and Japan in general is... we went to several cities, saw lots of sights, and while I would say it is far more expensive than, say, Mexico or something, it was still really cheap. So I thought I'd put together some quick tips to save money while out in Japan:
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Biggest expensive is the flight itself. Use Scott's Cheap Flights if you are a frequent traveler (or sign up for free and get occasional emails if not) to help find cheap flights to the country. We bought our tickets for $450 round trip.
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Use hostels, APA Hotels, etc. Hostels are the cheapest way to stay in Japan, and they are quite nice. We stayed in several, and if you book early you can get some really amazing ones that are gorgeous for cheap. They also have the benefit of local knowledge and lots of flyers of local events coming up. We attended a festival our second day we had no idea was going on. We actually browsed on hotels.com as well, scored an APA hotel in Kanazawa for less than the price of both of us staying at a hostel--and it came with roof-top bathing. (EDIT: It has been pointed out that APA hotels may be owned by some unsavory people. Business Hotels in general, something APA is, are cheap nice hotels that get the job done, so if you want more ethical purchases, you might steer clear of APA.)
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Pack LIGHTLY. A backpack should be the most you are carrying because there is LOTS of walking in Japan; if you want to visit several cities like we did, you'll have your work cut out for you. You can get taxis and such, but that's part of what drives the cost up, and you don't want to be lugging tons of luggage on trains either. Hostels have laundry services many times, so you can wash clothes during the trip.
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Get a Japan Rail Pass. This is THE BEST way to tour Japan and it is super cheap for tourists to do so. Taking a bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo takes literally ZERO more dollars thanks to this pass, you can flash it as you walk by like Leeloo Dallas. It can seem expensive up front, but once you get there and realize how much it would cost just to wander around Tokyo, you realize how cheap and valuable this thing is. (EDIT: There is a lot of controversy apparently about this pass! I absolutely found it worth while and worth the money spent. It took a lot of the "I need to plan everything right to spend my money accordingly" out of the equation, and I didn't worry about catching the wrong trains or if we could afford to go to x city last minute or not. If train travel is an anxious thing for you, I definitely recommend this as it makes everything much easier.)
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Konbinis are everywhere. Convenience stores (shortened to Konbini) have cheap food and we mostly used these for breakfast (if the hostel did not have one) and lunches. We got dinner at ramen shops, street food, conveyor belt sushi shops, small mom-and-pop shops, chain curry shops, etc. but you can shave a lot off of your food expenses with these. They actually have LOTS of healthy food in them. Many Americans are wired to think 'gas station style' stop-and-gos are full of fried food... these have that, but also healthy sandwiches, onigiri, etc. We kept our food costs waaay down thanks to these shops. The key is, Eat Japanese Food. If you eat specialty foods they will cost more than bento boxes, onigiri, etc.
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Gardens are everywhere, and free to do for the most part. Small donations are encouraged (and we always did) but it costs very little to go see gorgeous quiet gardens. If your travel buddy wants to see the hustle of Harajuku and the noise and crowd is just too much, a HUGE garden is literally across the street and is somehow instantly quiet.
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Carry cash on you. You need lots of it in Japan, and everything is very much so still cash-based wherever you go.
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There are cities that are less expensive than others too! Takayama, for example, is gorgeous, thriving culture and community with SO much to do, and it is far cheaper than the heart of Tokyo. You can even get a cheap Ryokan ($75ish a person vs over $150-200 as the standard price) there (look up Nomadic Nerd's article on it as that's how we found it) there and have a beautiful luxury evening and meals included. I think we would have spent more if we stayed in just Tokyo. Kanazawa has lovely Geisha and Samurai districts. Matsumoto has one of the oldest castles ever. etc.
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Stay away from Tokyo's big tourist traps. Robot Restaurant, for example, is a big one, but there are a lot of tourist traps in Tokyo where those areas tend to jack up the prices. This is true for most tourist areas of course. (EDIT: Hahaha this was ALSO a big point of debate! Some people really liked the outlandishness of it all, some people found it uncomfortable. For me, definitely, the whole area it was in + the RR itself was awful and a waste of money.... Thoough, I more enjoyed the gardens, temples, street vendors, etc. So take it for what it's worth and try it out if it sounds good to you. Don't take my word for anything, I may have different tastes than you!)
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The airports and train stations actually have some cool souvenirs. If you're waiting to buy souvenirs or seem to have forgotten some last minute, the airport (and the train stations) actually isn't totally overpriced like you'd find in the states. You can get insanely cute cakes and such that make great take-home souvenirs without having to carry them everywhere with you the whole trip.
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If you're looking for a cheap Yukata or Kimono to take home, consider stopping by Chicago second hand store in Harajuku. I bought 2 yukatas for $20 each and 1 obi that matched both of the for around the same price. Tokyu Hands is an insane department store in Tokyo (EDIT: Rightly pointed out, not JUST in Tokyo, but there IS one in Tokyo) that has floors of cool gifts and stuff--I bought a couple terrific bento boxes from there.
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If you have a job where you use pens a lot, consider buying some in Japan! Im a nurse, and use different color pens to help organize everything, and Japan had my back with awesome professional looking combo-color pens.
Anyways, that's all I got, feel free to add more here in the comments too!
EDIT: There absolutely IS a whole subreddit about traveling to this amazing country and I recommend checking it out before you go.
EDIT 2: People were asking about my budget.
It was $3,500 for 2 people for 2 weeks.
I only spent $2,500 in Japan itself including the flights.
The flights were $450 each from San Fran to Narita. A small part of why the flights were cheaper was because we got free flights to San Francisco from the East Coast (I have a friend that works in the airport and I did her a solid, so she repayed me with that.) However, South West has cheap flights in country in the US, and I would recommend catching a flight to the West coast and trying to fly to Japan from there to save loads of money on the flight. We were going to do this and book the flights for around $100-200 (I can't remember, somewhere between those numbers) one way when we got the free deal as an option. Still, $1,300 for both people to fly is pretty cheap! We did spend slightly outside of that budget in China, but we had overnight lay-overs in China 2 nights (one there, one back). I did not include that in here because we chose that lay-over over direct flights, and we could have slept in the airport, but opted to get out and sight see.
The hotels/hostels costed around $10-20 a night depending on where we stayed.
We spent around $10 (mostly close to $10) a day each on food. I count some odd ball luxury items food-wise as 'entertainment' if we were there for other purposes (historical site, or something like that) so some of that IS in our activities fund, but this is probably 10/14 days worth. Hostels with breakfast included FTW.
The JRP was ~$200 a person.
January 09, 2018 at 02:26PM
