15 Japan Travel Mistakes Americans over 50 Always Make

15 Japan Travel Mistakes Americans over 50 Always Make

📖 Buy the book: “Before You Land in Japan” : 37 years at the concierge desk, every question a first trip asks → https://marikoaono.com

A couple came down to my desk one morning holding a piece of paper. “We think there has been a mistake,” the gentleman said quietly. There had been no mistake. It was a hospital bill from the night before, for his wife, and it was due that day. Then he said: “But we have Medicare.”

Original Medicare does not cover you outside the United States. Not in Japan, not anywhere. And here is what all fifteen mistakes have in common: not one of them happens in Japan. Every one is made months earlier, at a kitchen table in America, by somebody who had not been told. I spent 37 years at a hotel concierge desk in Tokyo fixing decisions made long before anybody boarded a plane.

1. Putting five cities into fourteen nights
2. Choosing the hotel by the neighborhood instead of the station
3. Booking the beautiful old inn without asking one question
4. Buying the rail pass before doing the arithmetic
5. Carrying your own suitcase through the stations
6. Packing shoes you can’t get on and off standing up
7. Putting something on the schedule for the day you land
8. Booking the window seat on the bullet train
9. Losing money twice on the same dollars
10. Travelling with one pair of glasses
11. Leaving your passport in the hotel safe
12. Assuming the pharmacy will have your brand
13. The thing in your bathroom cabinet that can stop you at the airport
14. Assuming you can sort out the money at the hospital
15. Assuming Medicare comes with you, and the one word in your supplement nobody notices

🗒️ Mariko’s kitchen table checklist

– Three nights minimum anywhere you stop
– Pick the hotel by its station and its exit number
– Ask the ryokan: is there an elevator, and can we have a ground floor room?
– Add up your long train fares before buying the 7-day rail pass
– Send your suitcase ahead with luggage forwarding, keep an overnight bag
– Withdraw yen at a convenience store ATM. When the card machine offers dollars, always choose yen
– Two pairs of glasses, a spare in the other person’s bag
– Your passport goes with you every day
– Check your medicines against Japan’s rules at least two weeks before you fly, in original packaging, in your carry-on
– Travel medical insurance that includes medical evacuation
– In the book: chapter 12 (choosing a ryokan), chapter 15 (money), chapter 18 (your body and your medicines)

💬 Which of these fifteen were you about to make? Be honest. I think it will be number twelve or number one. I read every single one.

If someone you know is planning their first trip to Japan, send them this video before they book anything.

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