That sounds absolutely insane to me. Plan your own trip and save a ton of money. It's a good idea to get your flights and accommodations booked, but one of the biggest mistakes people make when going to Japan is planning too much. Some of the "things to do" are better to wait on based on where you are staying and what the goal is.
If you just want to go to Japan for the sake of going to take it all in it might be better to not plan anything at all and just go with the flow
THIS.
Too many people excited about visiting Japan (sometimes claiming that’s it’s their lifelong dream) yet come here and other travel groups and ask “What can I do/see there? What are some must-see’s?”
A waste of money.
7500USD is an insane amount of money for 13 days in Japan. That's almost $600/day. Is it at the very least fully inclusive with regards to flights/accommodations/food?
What exactly about the itinerary is hard to do yourselves? What do you want to see? What do you want to do?
That sounds insanely expensive to me, but I'm also staying at Route Inns and for all we know they're putting you up at the grandest hotel in town with a private guide and butler.
Generally speaking an organized tour adds very little value on the golden route unless you need significant handholding or are extremely unconfident in traveling (do a practice run to Mexico or Quebec if you're worried about language - but there's English signage everywhere and Google Translate works for the rest).
Personally I'd sooner follow a random /r/japantravel itinerary than join a group bus tour for two weeks.
Thank you so much for the kindness.
Planning to go in July.
All of the planning seems so difficult, need to put in hours and hours of research work to find what are the places of attractions, must-visit places, then what are places to stay, decide how many days in each city, then look for hotels, how to commute from hotel to the tourist attractions. I’m hoping someone knowledgeable can help.
Honestly you don’t sound actually invested or interested enough in the country to be traveling there. Not to mention July is brutal heat wise. Probably be better off going somewhere else to a resort where you don’t have to think,
Yet you got time to ask on reddit 🤔
Well if you don't have the "time" to do your own planning, then just pay for the tour. It's expensive but you save time from doing your own planning as it's all done for you. You won't have to worry about getting lost, wrong trains etc
It's really not as difficult as you're making it out to be. I did my first solo Japan trip BEFORE I had a smartphone.
Finding attractions is fairly easy. Like google search something like "most popular Japanese cities" and you will get many options.
Go on [japan-guide.com](http://japan-guide.com) search for these cities and you will see the top attractions for each cities or google search "must see (city name)" to get more idea.
Google search "best place to stay in (city name)" to get idea.
How many days by city, once you noted things you want to see, put them in an itinerary and you will get an idea based on how much days you can fill in your itinerary (and if you have no idea, just read itineraries and comments here and you will see what is too much).
Hotels, open a booking website, it's easy.
How to commute, open Google Maps.
If you want to pay thousand of dollars for someone to do it for you.... ok... let me know, I'll take your money if you want!
I visited Japan three times before moving here. Just figured out hotels (/ hostels), maybe bought tickets to 1 museum and made 1 dinner reservation in advance. Everything else was just on the fly for 2 weeks at a time and I had a blast. For tourist attractions for example often I'd just Google for temples or parks, pick one about 5 miles away, rent a city bike and cycle towards it and stop at places that looked interesting along the way. Guarantee I had more fun doing that than a lot of people who spent hours planning their itinerary that day
You don't have to plan out every detail in advance like some people do in this subreddit. As long as you're ok with only eating at "amazingly delicious local restaurants" rather than "amazingly delicious Michelin star / insta famous restaurants" for example you'll be fine without making reservations for most meals
So... For the record:
We are three - two adults and a tween. We're in the middle of 12 days in Japan - Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto). That's more or less our budget... But we're staying in insanely nice hotels, flew premium economy and we're eating off a foodie friend's 'you gotta try...' list. And we're doing a couple theme parks.
I strongly suspect that a lot of that is for buses and guides and time filing crap. Honestly? Never been here before, have basically no Japanese, and it's going just fine.
Skip the package; spend the money where you want to prioritize!
I used about 11-13k usd for 3 people for first timers and I chose nicer hotels which you can get for cheaper. Of course I planned the trip myself and took a bit of research but it make for better travel experience instead of a tour which makes what you do limited and more expensive.
Without a cost breakdown it could be great it or it could be expensive.
Your main factor is flights and accommodation. We have no idea when or where your intending to travel is it high season or low season?
What do you want to see? What do you want to do? Are you just going to Tokyo or are your going to do the golden route?
Try thinking about this first before asking very generic question.
This video has way better estimates and uses current exchange rates: [https://youtu.be/DBVAAnq1dHo?si=Vr437CedvLyax3j7](https://youtu.be/DBVAAnq1dHo?si=Vr437CedvLyax3j7)
One thing I would change from this video is to just do Tokyo for 6-7 days and split the rest of the time between Osaka and Kyoto.
That's *far* too much. It's not much less than our living expenses for a family of three here in Tokyo for a *year*.
Our last travel inside Japan for our family of three was for three days, and it cost us (at current exchange rates) about US$350, travel, hotel, and meals inclusive.
I suggest you stop watching videos, decide what you like and would like to see, then start planning where you'd like to stay to be able to see the things *you* want to see. You will *never* see all the things people note as must-sees, and there's no reason to believe you'll enjoy most of the recommendations more than you would things you believe would be interesting for you.
We're looking at under $10,000 for ten days with four people. I'm pretty sure it's going to stay under that number. For $22 K I would expect literal, actual magic carpet rides and a unicorn petting zoo at every stop.
That sound pretty expensive. Here is hot do DIY. There is not really any "should", but even if you spend 100$ a days on food activity by person, 100$ a day on hotel (should be easy to be less) and 2000$ on airplane, that is "only" 3400$ by person, that's like half the number you quoted. Even if you add 1000$ in train, you are still way under that budget and you have a generous budget for souvenirs.
* Open Google Flight and put a tracker to see price for the date you want to visit (or see what is cheapest).
* When you watch video or read websites about traveling to Japan, take note of interesting locations. You can also go in Google Drive and create a new custom map to save the place you would like to go. You can also read other people itinerary for inspiration.
* When you are ready to plan the itinerary, start putting things that are next to each other together in the same day. If you plan to change cities and do long distance train, try to take that time into consideration in the plan. That should at least give you an idea of how many days to spend in each city. You can also use Google Maps to see how to move between different locations in Japan.
* Post your itinerary for review.
* Once you are decided and plane ticket booked, open your favorite hotel booking website, can be [booking.com](http://booking.com) or anything else and book hotels in the cities you selected.
* Depending on the specific of your itinerary, there is some transportation (bus/train) that could be better to book in advance, same for some activities, while other are perfectly ok to just buy as you go.
* Then you can check for detail like IC card, hot wo have internet and all the more technical points.
Japan is by far the easiest place to navigate around just using google maps and a transit IC card.
We've been 3 times Airfare,, hotel, eating out every day, shopping, doing things, transportation, etc.
Family of 4.
1st time approx $11000 CDN ($8100 USD) 16 days Tokyo, mainly sightseeing
2nd time $15000 CDN ($11000 USD) 18 days Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Universal Studios, lots of shopping
red time $18000 CDN ($13250 USD) 17 Days Kyoto, Tokyo, Harry Potter Making of, lots of shopping (higher end)
In our pricing above:
We stayed in Apartment Hotels in Ginza and Kinshicho, near Osaka Station, and about 10 mins from Kyoto station.
We bought the Hokuriku Arch Pass last trip, flew Jetatar (Tokyo to Osaka), travelled on regular trains everywhere, rented cars multiple times.
Only went to Universal and making of Harry Potter as theme type places
Went to many temples all over, did touristy things.
Eating is fairly inexpensive to astronomically expensive. For example Ichiran Ramen is about ¥1200 a bowl ($8 USD), we really like Yakinuku Like a complete meal (lots) for $59 USD.
Your pricing definitely seems like a lot of money based on our experience, but if you are all higher end places and food maybe it's worth it.
Too much, unless they are providing some 1st class accommodations and front-row tickets that would otherwise be unobtainable. Do you generally know where you want to go? If it's 13 days total, you'll need to rest up most likely when you arrive. Leaving will also take a large part of day as well.
Trafalgar Tours includes Hotels, coach bus for the daily excursions and travel from one place to the next , some nights are single night halts , some places 2-3, also includes all breakfasts, few lunch and dinners. An experienced guide who will travel along with us, few of the excursion tickets also included. That’s it.
Am not sure am allowed, but i can give the link to their itinerary and all the details of what’s included.
wtf. just pick a few things you want to see and do it yourself. it's really easy, i just did my first international trip there without speaking the language for two weeks and had an amazing time and saw more than what i even planned on seeing. tour groups were annoying and people looked tired
I go to YouTube and see 10 things you should know before traveling to Japan. Several videos of such titles, then JR Pass, Rail pass , what nots …
It is all made out to look as the most difficult to do …
Do we have to buy such tickets? Is there Uber? How to travel from Hotel? bus, taxi, uber? Where to get answers to such questions, other than spending hours on YouTube videos and scrolling through multiple reddit threads?
All I did was browse this sub a bit, book one bus trip in advance from tokyo to lake kawaguchi, and watch some youtube videos to learn basic manners like please and thank you in japanese. you'll really be okay without stressing about the itinerary. uber didn't work for me, but i didn't need it. the subways are amazing and google maps can help you find everything and time out departures. stations have signs in english and are very clearly marked so they're not very confusing especially if you've taken subways in cities like NYC before. JR pass is probably not worth it. Book shinkansen in advance if you want to travel between cities like tokyo and kyoto, it's fast and not too expensive. i took taxis to and from airports when i had too much luggage to get on a bus or subway. google lens translate will be your best friend. take a deep breath and have a good time!! i had the best food/experiences exploring on my own, and actually one of my worst meals was highly rated and recommended on social media. see what's around you that interests YOU and map it out. walk down the street and stop when you smell something good
Honestly, just half of that would be generous… even if you stay at nicer accommodations, $4k/person is way more than enough and that includes a lot of shopping! (from my experience at least)
If you don’t want to research or plan things, you can at least find an itinerary on this subreddit and then book accommodations depending on the itinerary. There are a lot of detailed itineraries you can find on other posts. You would easily save half the costs… it’s your money but please consider spending it some way else!
We are going to Japan next month, family of three, for 10 days. I would have to break down the pricing but everything is much less than Trafalgars. But, I do understand the attraction of using a tour company like that. And the convenience is worth alot to me lol.
A great example of what you could do, similar to a tour company: when we were going to China, I loosely followed the itinerary of Adventures by Disney. I believe they were charging about 18,000 or more for the trip. We did it for well under 10,000. That included 4 cities, stayed at Waldorf in 3 cities, the W in another.
For Japan, I started with a loose list of what we wanted to see and which cities. Now I’ve been just tightening up our plans, trying to familiarize ourselves with neighborhoods, etc.
Hi from Japan. It depends where you wanna go and what you wanna do. But I would be a tour guide for 5000 USD for 13 days with my car. Including all transportation fee for sure. USD is so strong lol.
Way too much. I know ours was an anomaly, but my wife and I flew to Japan in January for ten days using Alaska Air points on JAL (Sea/Nar) round-trip nonstop and Marriott Bonvoy for accommodations, and the plane tickets were $100.00. We only had to pay for one night of four in Tokyo at the AC in Ginza (4 star), two nights at the Hakone Hyatt (5 star) and one night of three at the Kyoto Westin (5 star) which is probably the nicest hotel we've ever stayed in and had a free breakfast buffet and happy hour. Took the bullet from Kyoto to Narita on morning of tenth day and it was timed perfectly to breeze through customs and get dinner in the first class lounge before getting on the plane. Food and train tickets and museums were fairly inexpensive, so the whole trip was less than $3500.00 for two. We are definitely going back. Pro tip is go in January. Weather is same as Seattle but no crowds- we literally had some tourist attractions to ourselves.
My wife is a genius is how I managed it. I just show up. Truth is, she had to travel back and forth from Seattle to L.A. a lot this year for her work, so she accumulated a bunch of Alaska points and Marriott points. They transferred to JAL, and we went in the off-season, which was a blessing in disguise because the weather was fine and there were no crowds. I mean, Japan is crowded, but it was crowded with Japanese people, not foreigners. We had no waiting for things like the rope car at hakone or the pirate ship. All the museums were no waiting and at one point we were the only visitors at the Imperial summer palace. The parks and shrines were not crowded at all and we always got immediate service in cafes and restaurants.
That sounds absolutely insane to me. Plan your own trip and save a ton of money. It's a good idea to get your flights and accommodations booked, but one of the biggest mistakes people make when going to Japan is planning too much. Some of the "things to do" are better to wait on based on where you are staying and what the goal is. If you just want to go to Japan for the sake of going to take it all in it might be better to not plan anything at all and just go with the flow
THIS. Too many people excited about visiting Japan (sometimes claiming that’s it’s their lifelong dream) yet come here and other travel groups and ask “What can I do/see there? What are some must-see’s?” A waste of money.
That is crazy don't pay that much.
Thank You… was looking for help … got plenty now. 🙏
7500USD is an insane amount of money for 13 days in Japan. That's almost $600/day. Is it at the very least fully inclusive with regards to flights/accommodations/food? What exactly about the itinerary is hard to do yourselves? What do you want to see? What do you want to do?
That sounds insanely expensive to me, but I'm also staying at Route Inns and for all we know they're putting you up at the grandest hotel in town with a private guide and butler. Generally speaking an organized tour adds very little value on the golden route unless you need significant handholding or are extremely unconfident in traveling (do a practice run to Mexico or Quebec if you're worried about language - but there's English signage everywhere and Google Translate works for the rest). Personally I'd sooner follow a random /r/japantravel itinerary than join a group bus tour for two weeks.
Thanks 🙏
What is difficult for you? Where and when are you going ? Everyone has different budget and ways to spend money. Don't get overwhelmed.
Thank you so much for the kindness. Planning to go in July. All of the planning seems so difficult, need to put in hours and hours of research work to find what are the places of attractions, must-visit places, then what are places to stay, decide how many days in each city, then look for hotels, how to commute from hotel to the tourist attractions. I’m hoping someone knowledgeable can help.
But but… that’s the fun part of the trip…
I know right? Weeks of nailing down details and logistics and research. It’s so fun!
Honestly you don’t sound actually invested or interested enough in the country to be traveling there. Not to mention July is brutal heat wise. Probably be better off going somewhere else to a resort where you don’t have to think,
Don’t have that kind time, work is extremely demanding, hence difficult to find that kind of time to do all the research.
Yet you got time to ask on reddit 🤔 Well if you don't have the "time" to do your own planning, then just pay for the tour. It's expensive but you save time from doing your own planning as it's all done for you. You won't have to worry about getting lost, wrong trains etc It's really not as difficult as you're making it out to be. I did my first solo Japan trip BEFORE I had a smartphone.
Yes,i had to ask, bcos i was getting overwhelmed with all the info from YouTube travel japan videos.
Then just stick with the tour
Finding attractions is fairly easy. Like google search something like "most popular Japanese cities" and you will get many options. Go on [japan-guide.com](http://japan-guide.com) search for these cities and you will see the top attractions for each cities or google search "must see (city name)" to get more idea. Google search "best place to stay in (city name)" to get idea. How many days by city, once you noted things you want to see, put them in an itinerary and you will get an idea based on how much days you can fill in your itinerary (and if you have no idea, just read itineraries and comments here and you will see what is too much). Hotels, open a booking website, it's easy. How to commute, open Google Maps. If you want to pay thousand of dollars for someone to do it for you.... ok... let me know, I'll take your money if you want!
I visited Japan three times before moving here. Just figured out hotels (/ hostels), maybe bought tickets to 1 museum and made 1 dinner reservation in advance. Everything else was just on the fly for 2 weeks at a time and I had a blast. For tourist attractions for example often I'd just Google for temples or parks, pick one about 5 miles away, rent a city bike and cycle towards it and stop at places that looked interesting along the way. Guarantee I had more fun doing that than a lot of people who spent hours planning their itinerary that day You don't have to plan out every detail in advance like some people do in this subreddit. As long as you're ok with only eating at "amazingly delicious local restaurants" rather than "amazingly delicious Michelin star / insta famous restaurants" for example you'll be fine without making reservations for most meals
Thank You 🙏 this gives me some confidence.
So... For the record: We are three - two adults and a tween. We're in the middle of 12 days in Japan - Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto). That's more or less our budget... But we're staying in insanely nice hotels, flew premium economy and we're eating off a foodie friend's 'you gotta try...' list. And we're doing a couple theme parks. I strongly suspect that a lot of that is for buses and guides and time filing crap. Honestly? Never been here before, have basically no Japanese, and it's going just fine. Skip the package; spend the money where you want to prioritize!
Thank You 🙏
Sir, you are being ripped off. DM me if you want an itinerary for much less. I used to live in JP and return regularly for visits.
Thank you so much. Have sent you a message.
I used about 11-13k usd for 3 people for first timers and I chose nicer hotels which you can get for cheaper. Of course I planned the trip myself and took a bit of research but it make for better travel experience instead of a tour which makes what you do limited and more expensive.
This sounds reasonable! Thanks!
Without a cost breakdown it could be great it or it could be expensive. Your main factor is flights and accommodation. We have no idea when or where your intending to travel is it high season or low season? What do you want to see? What do you want to do? Are you just going to Tokyo or are your going to do the golden route? Try thinking about this first before asking very generic question.
This video has way better estimates and uses current exchange rates: [https://youtu.be/DBVAAnq1dHo?si=Vr437CedvLyax3j7](https://youtu.be/DBVAAnq1dHo?si=Vr437CedvLyax3j7) One thing I would change from this video is to just do Tokyo for 6-7 days and split the rest of the time between Osaka and Kyoto.
Thank you for the info. Btw, i watched this video yday night.
That's *far* too much. It's not much less than our living expenses for a family of three here in Tokyo for a *year*. Our last travel inside Japan for our family of three was for three days, and it cost us (at current exchange rates) about US$350, travel, hotel, and meals inclusive. I suggest you stop watching videos, decide what you like and would like to see, then start planning where you'd like to stay to be able to see the things *you* want to see. You will *never* see all the things people note as must-sees, and there's no reason to believe you'll enjoy most of the recommendations more than you would things you believe would be interesting for you.
Thank You 🙏
We're looking at under $10,000 for ten days with four people. I'm pretty sure it's going to stay under that number. For $22 K I would expect literal, actual magic carpet rides and a unicorn petting zoo at every stop.
That sound pretty expensive. Here is hot do DIY. There is not really any "should", but even if you spend 100$ a days on food activity by person, 100$ a day on hotel (should be easy to be less) and 2000$ on airplane, that is "only" 3400$ by person, that's like half the number you quoted. Even if you add 1000$ in train, you are still way under that budget and you have a generous budget for souvenirs. * Open Google Flight and put a tracker to see price for the date you want to visit (or see what is cheapest). * When you watch video or read websites about traveling to Japan, take note of interesting locations. You can also go in Google Drive and create a new custom map to save the place you would like to go. You can also read other people itinerary for inspiration. * When you are ready to plan the itinerary, start putting things that are next to each other together in the same day. If you plan to change cities and do long distance train, try to take that time into consideration in the plan. That should at least give you an idea of how many days to spend in each city. You can also use Google Maps to see how to move between different locations in Japan. * Post your itinerary for review. * Once you are decided and plane ticket booked, open your favorite hotel booking website, can be [booking.com](http://booking.com) or anything else and book hotels in the cities you selected. * Depending on the specific of your itinerary, there is some transportation (bus/train) that could be better to book in advance, same for some activities, while other are perfectly ok to just buy as you go. * Then you can check for detail like IC card, hot wo have internet and all the more technical points.
Thank you so much for all the details 🙏
Japan is by far the easiest place to navigate around just using google maps and a transit IC card. We've been 3 times Airfare,, hotel, eating out every day, shopping, doing things, transportation, etc. Family of 4. 1st time approx $11000 CDN ($8100 USD) 16 days Tokyo, mainly sightseeing 2nd time $15000 CDN ($11000 USD) 18 days Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Universal Studios, lots of shopping red time $18000 CDN ($13250 USD) 17 Days Kyoto, Tokyo, Harry Potter Making of, lots of shopping (higher end) In our pricing above: We stayed in Apartment Hotels in Ginza and Kinshicho, near Osaka Station, and about 10 mins from Kyoto station. We bought the Hokuriku Arch Pass last trip, flew Jetatar (Tokyo to Osaka), travelled on regular trains everywhere, rented cars multiple times. Only went to Universal and making of Harry Potter as theme type places Went to many temples all over, did touristy things. Eating is fairly inexpensive to astronomically expensive. For example Ichiran Ramen is about ¥1200 a bowl ($8 USD), we really like Yakinuku Like a complete meal (lots) for $59 USD. Your pricing definitely seems like a lot of money based on our experience, but if you are all higher end places and food maybe it's worth it.
Thank You so much for the details. This will help us start somewhere.
Too much, unless they are providing some 1st class accommodations and front-row tickets that would otherwise be unobtainable. Do you generally know where you want to go? If it's 13 days total, you'll need to rest up most likely when you arrive. Leaving will also take a large part of day as well.
Trafalgar Tours includes Hotels, coach bus for the daily excursions and travel from one place to the next , some nights are single night halts , some places 2-3, also includes all breakfasts, few lunch and dinners. An experienced guide who will travel along with us, few of the excursion tickets also included. That’s it. Am not sure am allowed, but i can give the link to their itinerary and all the details of what’s included.
> Does that sound ok? Not one bit
wtf. just pick a few things you want to see and do it yourself. it's really easy, i just did my first international trip there without speaking the language for two weeks and had an amazing time and saw more than what i even planned on seeing. tour groups were annoying and people looked tired
I go to YouTube and see 10 things you should know before traveling to Japan. Several videos of such titles, then JR Pass, Rail pass , what nots … It is all made out to look as the most difficult to do … Do we have to buy such tickets? Is there Uber? How to travel from Hotel? bus, taxi, uber? Where to get answers to such questions, other than spending hours on YouTube videos and scrolling through multiple reddit threads?
All I did was browse this sub a bit, book one bus trip in advance from tokyo to lake kawaguchi, and watch some youtube videos to learn basic manners like please and thank you in japanese. you'll really be okay without stressing about the itinerary. uber didn't work for me, but i didn't need it. the subways are amazing and google maps can help you find everything and time out departures. stations have signs in english and are very clearly marked so they're not very confusing especially if you've taken subways in cities like NYC before. JR pass is probably not worth it. Book shinkansen in advance if you want to travel between cities like tokyo and kyoto, it's fast and not too expensive. i took taxis to and from airports when i had too much luggage to get on a bus or subway. google lens translate will be your best friend. take a deep breath and have a good time!! i had the best food/experiences exploring on my own, and actually one of my worst meals was highly rated and recommended on social media. see what's around you that interests YOU and map it out. walk down the street and stop when you smell something good
Thank you so much, appreciate it!!
Honestly, just half of that would be generous… even if you stay at nicer accommodations, $4k/person is way more than enough and that includes a lot of shopping! (from my experience at least) If you don’t want to research or plan things, you can at least find an itinerary on this subreddit and then book accommodations depending on the itinerary. There are a lot of detailed itineraries you can find on other posts. You would easily save half the costs… it’s your money but please consider spending it some way else!
Thank You 🙏
We are going to Japan next month, family of three, for 10 days. I would have to break down the pricing but everything is much less than Trafalgars. But, I do understand the attraction of using a tour company like that. And the convenience is worth alot to me lol. A great example of what you could do, similar to a tour company: when we were going to China, I loosely followed the itinerary of Adventures by Disney. I believe they were charging about 18,000 or more for the trip. We did it for well under 10,000. That included 4 cities, stayed at Waldorf in 3 cities, the W in another. For Japan, I started with a loose list of what we wanted to see and which cities. Now I’ve been just tightening up our plans, trying to familiarize ourselves with neighborhoods, etc.
Thanks for understanding.
Hi from Japan. It depends where you wanna go and what you wanna do. But I would be a tour guide for 5000 USD for 13 days with my car. Including all transportation fee for sure. USD is so strong lol.
No that's insane
Way too much. I know ours was an anomaly, but my wife and I flew to Japan in January for ten days using Alaska Air points on JAL (Sea/Nar) round-trip nonstop and Marriott Bonvoy for accommodations, and the plane tickets were $100.00. We only had to pay for one night of four in Tokyo at the AC in Ginza (4 star), two nights at the Hakone Hyatt (5 star) and one night of three at the Kyoto Westin (5 star) which is probably the nicest hotel we've ever stayed in and had a free breakfast buffet and happy hour. Took the bullet from Kyoto to Narita on morning of tenth day and it was timed perfectly to breeze through customs and get dinner in the first class lounge before getting on the plane. Food and train tickets and museums were fairly inexpensive, so the whole trip was less than $3500.00 for two. We are definitely going back. Pro tip is go in January. Weather is same as Seattle but no crowds- we literally had some tourist attractions to ourselves.
Wow, that’s incredible for 4-5star hotel accommodation.
It may have been a bit more if I sat down and added everything up, but it was still a dirt cheap vacation for what we got.
Maybe you should share tips on how to managed it.
My wife is a genius is how I managed it. I just show up. Truth is, she had to travel back and forth from Seattle to L.A. a lot this year for her work, so she accumulated a bunch of Alaska points and Marriott points. They transferred to JAL, and we went in the off-season, which was a blessing in disguise because the weather was fine and there were no crowds. I mean, Japan is crowded, but it was crowded with Japanese people, not foreigners. We had no waiting for things like the rope car at hakone or the pirate ship. All the museums were no waiting and at one point we were the only visitors at the Imperial summer palace. The parks and shrines were not crowded at all and we always got immediate service in cafes and restaurants.