I’m 29, never left the country. My bucket list is visiting Japan at the very top. I have no idea what you do or if you have to go through travel agencies, how much money you should bring etc
You need a passport and a return ticket, but there’s no other governmental requirements; you don’t need to apply for a visa to visit as a tourist.
The State Department has an information page about travel to Japan. Something that surprised me from that page: Adderall and other prescription stimulants are illegal drugs in Japan.
That was interesting read. I hope I make it there some day. Guess better leave the weed at home as well.
I would disagree with renting a car.
Get a JR Pass instead - it lets you ride the bullet train unlimited for a specific period of time. This is a steep discount over buying tickets in the country. You need to get this mailed to your house in the US while you are outside of Japan, before you travel. They mail you a voucher and you bring this and pick up your pass at the airport (Japan is big on physical paperwork). Don’t forget to get an eki ben when you ride - it’s part of the experience.
The Ghibli Museum may still be closed to tourists so if you want to do that verify before you go. If it is open to tourists again, you also need to buy your tickets to that from outside Japan, have voucher mailed to home, and pick up as well from JR iirc.
Look into booking TeamLab Borderless (Tokyo) ahead of time, Kabuki is fun, sumo is fun (depending on when you go there may or may not be a basho going on & the city switches), and then just wander around and enjoy temples, sights, and food!!!
Oh yeah also get a suica card ahead of time and you can install it on your phone to tap in the subway and also pay for snacks at Family Mart if I recall correctly.
Wasn’t the JR pass made uneconomical recently, maybe even this month? I haven’t used the pass in a while but back on Reddit I feel like I heard about an incoming 70% or so price increase. Some commenters there indicated it would no longer be worth the price.
My last visit I paid for all the trains individually and didn’t come anywhere near the $500 or so it would’ve cost for a short two week visit on the new pricing. At the time it wasn’t in place yet, but it should be now. I like to visit just a few cities at a time though, so maybe if you’re trying to pack a lot in the pass may still be worthwhile?
Here is a good comparison calculator so OP can figure it out.
Someone else said you can’t bring some meds, make sure to double check what you can and can’t import to and from. There are things you can’t bring back (e.g. agriculture like potted plants or seeds) too.
It’s pretty easy like they said, doesn’t require a lot of planning or thought. Restaurant reservations for some places can be difficult to acquire if you don’t know locals though. You’ll have to go through your hotel concierge
I personally recommend avoiding touristy things. I’ve found they’re invariably kinda mid. Depending on how much time you’ll have, and how many times you plan to go, I would suggest spending a few days to a week in single cities and not overdoing it with activities. Exhausting oneself isn’t necessary if you’re going to go back, and you don’t really experience it to the maximum if you’re on a strict itinerary with limited time
Oh, also do the immigration paperwork online. Ezpz and saves you time on arrival. Give some leeway for learning transport, a lot of Americans don’t have or use public transport and my first time I struggled to get places on time.
- Buy a ticket
- Ensure you have a passport (existing plane ticket gets you rush service on the passport)
- Pack a few changes of clothes in a backpack or suitcase
- Show up at the airport
- Fly to Japan
- Police officers usually speak a little English
- Scramble to learn as much Japanese as possible
If you do plan to rent a car you’ll need an international driver’s license. You need to set that up in advance. Ask about it at the passport office.
Renting a car would not be a good idea. As others mentioned, public transit is excellent so you’d be making it harder in many ways (parking, traffic) but also driving in another country can be so unexpectedly different in minor but important ways. Different rules of the road, and driving on the left side just reverses so many instincts in where to look in the road.
I’ve traveled around a lot. The only times I’ve really been glad to have a car outside the US was in Oman (public transit is terrible) and to a much lesser extent, Norway (visiting family in smaller towns)
Hey, this is an exciting first step in planning your trip. I’m 27 and have traveled a lot on my own and with friends, if you need any advice or have any questions feel free to PM me.
- Get your passport - this let’s you leave your country and enter others. Depending on your country you may need to get a visa but assuming you come from the US you don’t need a Visa (if a passport let’s you enter into your native country, a Visa let’s you enter and stay in a foreign country under certain conditions).
- Book a flight through something like Google flights, no need to go through any company besides the airline’s.
- Book housing - if you’re going alone and packing light I would highly recommend a hostel. Hostels are shared rooms where you sleep in the same room, share bathrooms, etc. If you’re a light sleeper you may not like this, it will cause you to interact with other tourists which can be a pro or a con, and when you leave stuff in your room It’ll need a lock (no issues in my experience but I also wouldn’t bring 2 grand of electronics and lock them in the room). The main benefit is it’s cheaper for individuals. Eastern hostel culture is way better than western, and Japan has some of the best in my experience.
- Pack your stuff. You need clothes, but you can do laundry there if that interests you so you don’t need too many clothes. You need a way to get japanese currency. My card let’s me pull money out of international ATMs, you can also bring US dollars and convert it there in the airport, but Japan mostly takes card in my experience.
That’s the bare necessity. I got to stop now but like I said, I’d love to help past that.
Depending on where you’re going transportation can be handled entirely by public transit. Don’t get a car.
So that’s what a hostel is? I would rather get a hotel or something
Like I said, it’s got pros and cons. Hotels are good too.
Although hotels also terrify me because of the potential of bed bugs
You shouldn’t be scared of hotels. If you’re getting a reasonable room you’ll have an entirely normal experience. If you cheap out, then you are taking a risk in exchange for money.
But if you’re going to travel internationally, you should default to not afraid. It is by and large safe out there. Be smart, but not media-sensitized.
only thing id be worried about is bed bugs
Again, don’t be. I don’t have data off the top of my head, but I’d wager Japan has shockingly few cases of bed bugs in their tourist sector.
I only ask cause i just recently read how France for example is literally infested
First, get a passport. Go to the US State Dept. website and you can find all the requirements. iirc they have a list of countries that require a separate visa. You can apply for the visa online.
If you’ve never been, I’d suggest looking for tour groups.
The fact that people need to say get a passport is weird as an european
The problem is that international travel simply doesn’t make sense for many Americans. The U.S. only has two international borders - Mexico and Canada. Any other international destination is going to be a flight across an ocean (South America isn’t, obviously, but the distances/costs are similar), which can be $400-$1200 per person. The cost/duration of flights and need to adjust to a dramatically different timezone means that it really only makes sense to travel internationally when you can go for at least a week at a time. However, Americans tend to have very limited paid time off - usually only 10-20 days or so per year - and that is often a combined pool for vacation, sick time, etc. This means that a single international trip can chew up over half of the PTO for the entire year. So even if you can afford to travel, you don’t have enough time off anyway. Most of the time it makes much more sense to travel domestically and just take Thu/Fri off for a long weekend.
(This is speaking from experience, if you couldn’t tell, lol)
Yeah traveling abroad is the least of most people issue right now. And with how diverse north america is I understand why they don’t do it sadly
Make sure you have a plug converter so you can charge your electronics
Something I haven’t seen suggested in other comments is to rent a mobile wifi dongle and unlimited internet. This was fantastic when I travelled there since I could get directions and translation in real time through my phone without having to deal with the hassle of roaming charges.
The process to pick it up was super easy - either at the airport or main train station (can’t remember which), and returning it was as simple as putting it in the provided mail package and putting it in a mailbox.
Some other things - in my experience Tokyo at least is not super accessible for wheelchairs and the like. I recall that the first subway station I exited from had a two story stair climb with no alternative, and this was hardly a unique experience.
Also, Japan still very much runs on cash. I don’t know what it’s like for you, but where I am (outside US), we’ve basically transitioned to a cash-free economy for 90% of transactions so that was a big change for me.
(I’m not disabled in any way) when you say cash do you mean American dollars or yen? Like obviously I’m better off converting my dollars to yen?
Local transactions would be in Yen (also all vending machines such as train tickets - very important for getting around).
I would say you’d want to have at least a few hundred dollars worth of Yen when you arrive, and you could possibly get more when you get there, depending on how your bank works. Another option is to get a prepaid Visa card which you can then use to withdraw money in Yen from their ATMs.
See if you need a visa, go on skyscanner to search for flights, book it and look for hotels/hostels/whatever
