Travel Guide to Visiting Japan in 2022-2023

Hey guys, I went to my honeymoon to Japan in 2022-2023 and wanted to share my top travel tips for people planning a trip. Here are my travel tips for japan! Here is the Reel in case you prefer videos.

1. Purchasing a SUICA card!

We purchased one at the train station! You can also download the app but it wasn’t working for us. You can transfer your card to your Apple wallet and just tap it on the card readers when going from station to station. Works on buses too. You can also purchase the JR passes but for our trip it was more cost effective to just purchase the tickets. Check out JR EAST for ticketing prices! We used google maps to navigate everywhere. There can't be refilled through visa cards so don't upload them to your phone unless you have compatible payment.

2. Wifi Box rentals at the airport.

There’s plenty of vendors that sell them and you can reserve in advance to save money. We went with this one for about 5-7 bucks a day for unlimited internet. The box was shared between 2 people and the battery lasted us like 12+ hour a day. You can drop them off at different Japanese airports. You can rent a SIM card too.

Here is the link to the one we used

3. Ship your luggage!

You can do it from the airport to your hotel or even from your hotel to hotel. It was about 20-30 something bucks to ship both our large luggages and it was next day shipping. We just asked our hotels to do it but you can go to a Yamato center or a convenience store too. We even shipped our luggage from the hotel to the airport. There’s very little luggage space on trains and it’s hard to wheel around luggage in Japan in my opinion with lack of elevators and escalators.

Here is a link to Yamato Website to read more.

4. Restaurant Reservations

I reserved restaurants through omakase, table check, Ikyu, a Japanese friend, and using my visa concierge. You can use your own credit card company to make them just search online to see how to reach your concierge.

5. I do recommend Reserving some restaurants as there are a lot that are reservation only.

Your Hotel can also call and reserve. We asked Visa to call Hitomi to reserve for us! They were reservation only.

6. Visit attractions on weekdays early morning or during off seasons

otherwise you’ll be shoulder to shoulder with people and it’ll be stressful!

7. Make sure to withdraw plenty of cash.

Many spots in Japan are cash only. Almost every restaurant I went to was cash only. We almost exclusively used cash when traveling in Japan. Make sure to withdraw plenty. We converted korean money to Yen at Marunouchi Exchangers.

8. Use tabelog to pick out restaurants!

It’s a form of Yelp and it’s great! You can look up the city and type of cuisine. All the tabelog ratings are spot on and it tells you accurate hours and reservation details. And costs.

9. Have a back up plan.

Many spots don’t follow google hours or just close and post it on a website or social media.

Safe Travels!

Click here to check out my guide for Osaka

Click here to check out my guide for Kyoto

Click here to check out my guide for Kawaguchiko

Click here to check out my guide to Tokyo

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