Our trip to Japan took a lot of planning. Even after flights and hotels are booked there’s still so much to do! Here’s everything I did in the year leading up to it:
Plan out your days
I admit this seems like on obvious one, but it’s so important! With a limited amount of time in each city, it helps to plan out the things you want to see and group them together. This is especially true in such a large city like Tokyo where it could take you a long time to get around. Each day we laid out the general things we wanted to see and restaurants we were interested in based on where we would be that day. For example, with only two days in Kyoto, a lot of people like to break it up into exploring the east side one day and the west side the next.
There’s a caveat with this, however. While I would plan out general areas to go to and places you’d like to see, planning everything down to the minute will wear you out. If everything is super planned out, it leaves you no time to take a rest at the hotel room if you need it because of jet lag, or time to explore a side street you stumbled upon. I’ve seen some crazy itineraries that look absolutely exhausting. Don’t ruin your time by over planning and give yourself options!
Prepare for the language barrier
English is not widely spoken in Japan. Learning a couple of words like excuse me, hello, and thank you along with the proper pronunciation gets you a long way. Based on what I heard before we went I actually expected this to be worse than it really was. While it’s true English isn’t broadly spoken as a second language, we were able to get by with most interactions. A couple of times we wanted to say something a little more complicated so my husband broke out Google Translate and showed them the text of what we wanted to say. Google Translate also has a picture function where you can use the camera to read Japanese text and it will translate it on the screen. This was essential for things like menus or signs we couldn’t read.
Get an IC card on your Apple Wallet
IC cards (Suica or Pasmo) are prepaid, re-chargeable fare cards for train lines in Japan. While you can get a physical one on arrival, we got ours through our Apple Wallet. I was really happy we did this because it was one less thing for us to do when we got there and made charging the card with more money so easy. We started off with 3,000 yen and added more as we needed it. If you’re doing this out of the country, be aware that you can’t add funds outside of business hours in Japan and will need to wait. There was previously an issue with Visa cards not being able to add funds but I was able to use a Visa while I was there with no problem.
Familiarize yourself with Google Maps
Google Maps was essential to us knowing how to get around on the trains. We watched a pretty helpful video of someone breaking down the best way to use it and relied on it pretty heavily. We only got on the wrong train once or twice 😉
Set up an eSim
Since you’ll be needing the internet quite a bit, finding a way to connect while in Japan is crucial. I find eSim to be the best option as it’s easy to set up and you don’t need to carry anything extra. We set ours up while we were waiting for our luggage on arrival. Some people like to pick up pocket WiFi devices from the airport to rent but I didn’t like the idea of carrying one more thing around with us.
Airalo has been my go-to for eSims when I travel and I’ve had great connection that works well every time. My referral code is RACHEL4974 if you’d like to save $3 on your first purchase (and I get $3 as well).
Book Shinkansen tickets ahead of time
I found the train stations to be very overwhelming sometimes, so I was very glad I took the time to plan and book our train tickets ahead of time. Smartex is the website I used to do this the week before we arrived. You’re also able to reserve the seats you want (which I recommend so you can be on the Mount Fuji side) but this will need to be during Japanese business hours. We booked the green car which is what they call the first-class cars. These seats are bigger and nicer and I found it worth it for our longer Shinkansen rides. I recommend doing this after you get an IC card so you can attach your reservation to it to easily get through the station.
Decide what you’d like to do with your luggage
I brought a large luggage to check in for the first time in 7 years, as did my husband. The last thing anyone wants to do is drag large luggage through a train station in Japan, trust me. Consider how you’d like to get around with luggage and plan accordingly. Through our hotels, we sent our luggage ahead through a courier service. Each time we did this we were able to send it the day before we arrived to a new location and our luggage was waiting in our room for us. You really can’t beat that convenience and it wasn’t very costly. To plan ahead for this, make sure you have a backpack or small duffel bag to keep your toiletries and clothes for the next day.
You can also send it to and from the airport, but we ended up not doing this. When we arrived, we took a taxi to our hotel from Haneda airport because the luggage service was not doing same day delivery at the time. Thankfully we were able to check in super early and could drop our bags off before we went out to explore.
On our way back to the airport (this time Narita), we took the Narita Express which had plenty of room for bags.
I hope you found these tips helpful if you’re planning a trip to Japan!