8 MUST know Japan Travel Tips | Hacks for your Journey to Japan
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You think of this video or what videos you’d like to see next and without further Ado this video is basically going to be off the top of my mind things that I think will be tremendously helpful while you’re traveling in Japan especially if you’re traveling here for the first time
The first thing I recommend is flying into haneda airport I think it’s a little bit easier than Narita Airport and it’s more accessible to the things around Tokyo or connecting airports so I recommend flying in or out of haneda I just think that’s way easier as far as
Travel is concerned the second thing speaking of travel is this is my S card I’m covering up my name it’s about the size of a credit card and there’s more than one variety of basically train IC cards um you can use those to purchase your your train
Tickets so what you’ll do is you will charge money onto your card I’m going to add a video into this like right here you can click on it if you want to know how to put money on your card basically I just did a quick video showing how to
Do that you’ll basically use Japanese Yen uh and then put it into the machine charge up your card and then you’ll be able to pay for your train that you’re taking usually you will swipe your card when you enter the station and when you exit your your station if you want to
Check the balance on your card so how much of a balance is remaining on your card you can do that at the little kiosk again for this video here the other important thing to note is when you’re taking trains uh Google is a really helpful tool that you can use I use
Google Maps all the time to help me know which train I need to like get off at or if I need to transfer Google will usually show you what station you’re currently at so if you’re currently at Yokohama station it’ll kind of like bold or like make those letters like more
Noticeable so you’ll know which station you’re at so if you turn on Google Maps while you’re traveling it’ll show you each station you’re progressing through and that’ll help you keep track of like where you’re at also a lot of times Google will show you the fair for your
Train so for example if you’re traveling from to this is just random numbers not the actual cost right but let’s say that you’re traveling from Tokyo to Osaka by train right and it’s going to cost you 10,000 Yen right Google if you type in like directions
And you put the station like let’s say you’re leaving Tokyo Station and you’re going to arrive in a station in Osaka right if you plug in the stations into Google and then show for the directions you can allow in your settings if it doesn’t show automatically usually it
Shows automatically you can see the toll the fair how much it’s going to cost um for you to go from one place to another and um toll I don’t know why that word came to mind but toll is another thing that is helpful so if you’re driving in
Japan um for me because I’m here more longterm I kind of like have uh a license to be able to drive which is not really super relevant but I think AAA has an international license and I believe this because I called on behalf of friends to the Tokyo go-kart company
That does like the go-kart tours where you see people dressed up in costumes and they said that they ask for that license I will go ahead and put like the name here if that’s correct I’m going to double check and I also put in the description um that company so you can
Look into that if you’re interested in driving here if you do drive here uh the fastest way to get around is toll roads uh toll roads kind of like let you take like the most direct route you do have to pay for those uh if you’ve
Been here for a long time you probably will have access to an Etc card uh a lot of times those are already in the in the car if you get a rental car then you should ask and confirm like if there’s already one available if there’s not um
You can just again pay with Yen um if you’re paying with Yen though you should stick to the lanes that have the green it’s like a big green circle over green means money so if if you know that you don’t have an Etc card um then you
Should just stick to the green green light lanes and you’ll be good um and then the other thing is traveling with bags like through stations or like around like through cities um I think Japan is a super safe place to do that however if you’re doing that all day
Long and it’s going to be like we down with all your stuff uh you’re probably going to get a back ache if you’re anything like me you definitely get a back ache so sometimes like if I overpack my back my knees will be hurting a lot so usually if I know I’m
Only going to be traveling for a little bit I just bring this backpack um I got it here in Japan it has a ton of pockets um I got it from just like a random store in Yamaguchi prefecture it’s great um I think pretty much any backpack
Would work just fine but I wouldn’t overload it the other thing is uh most hotels are going to have like very simple toiletries so maybe like toothbrush um like U body body wash shampoo conditioner and towels um so that way you kind of like already know
Like if you don’t mind using hotel brand of those items maybe you could just skip those or pack less of those items especially if you know you’re going to be carrying bags around with you a lot the other thing you could do is bring a luggage with you that has wheels I would
Definitely not recommend like a strap like shoulder strap duffel bag that’s really heavy um usually that ends up being really painful as well I have found airb and B and hotels both to be super helpful usually if I’m looking for hotels here in Japan I will check the
Ratings and reviews and then just kind of like see what people are talking about especially recently and then also see if the hotel or like accommodation is responding quickly to whatever the inquiry or request was if the hotel is responding in like a courteous and friendly matter and it seems the problem
Was resolved um I still might be interested in it even if the review is not perfect um the other thing is if you’re trying to travel on the cheap um you could look into capsule hotels although a lot of times capsule hotels is going to be like one person per capsule
Um or you can look into internet cafes we stayed at an internet cafe in yakola and that was nice I’ll include the short here um that was nice but if you’re looking for like a very like luxurious like comfortable stay uh internet hotels may not be the
Way to go they’re super cool I would definitely recommend them if you’re like an adventurous traveler an adventurous Traveler I feel like it was kind of like crashing on a friend’s couch um they did though have free blankets like free little like slippers that you could use while you
Were there and then you were able to get like I think unlimited drinks including the drink machine was able to make like hot drinks for you like if you wanted like like a like a Machel latte or coffee which was good so definitely don’t sleep on internet cafes if you’re
Trying to travel in the cheap um the other thing is there are love hotels in Japan they kind of like have a reputation that supers seeds them but we’ve stayed in a love Hotel before we didn’t record there cuz we were super busy um cuz we were looking for our
House at the time but it was a really really pleasant experience um so I think love hotels might be a nice option too it’s just a lot of them don’t really accommodate for advance reservations because they’re kind of like supposed to be a discreet option if you need like a
Rendevu point you know what I mean yeah so not all of them do reservations so that’s something that you might want to think about um the other thing if you’re traveling to Japan is um although I love Tokyo I absolutely love Tokyo my anniversary is coming up and I’m looking
At going to Tokyo for that potentially um don’t just only stick to Tokyo there’s some amazing places outside of Tokyo to visit so if you’re thinking like Tokyo might not quite be your speed or you’re worried about maybe like the cost of going to some of the most iconic
Places in Japan other places that I visited and personally love are Osaka okanawa we enjoyed uh Nagasaki um where else would I recommend Hiroshima Hiroshima those are some other places that I would really really recommend if you want to visit Japan and you’re kind of like eh I want
To visit Tokyo but maybe I don’t want to stay there or you just want to look into some other places to stay besides Tokyo some places that are on my list besides the places that I already listed are uh Kyoto and I’m kind of looking at inoshima but I’m vegetarian so if you
Have specific eating requirements you might want to look into what that place has to offer Osaka has a huge range of food so if you have any specific dietary needs Osaka would be a good place to visit I also recommend Tokyo for that and okanawa actually has a lot of
Diversity in the food that they have available there plus okanawa is really really beautiful and I feel like it’s also underrated but it’s not really connect Ed to Mainland Japan so you’re if you’re visiting to okanawa specifically and you’re like oh yeah I’ve heard everything about okanawa and
I definitely want to visit there just understand that if you want to visit Tokyo as well you’re probably going to have to like take an airplane or maybe like a cruise or something because you’re not going to be able to just easily drive up to Tokyo it’s not going to be convenient or
Possible yeah it’s not going to be you’re not going to be to just drive up to Tokyo you’re going to have to take like uh a plane or a boat or something to go to Tokyo and other than that other than that I think the only other thing that I forgot to mention
That I think is helpful is that um one time we were traveling and we were overloaded with stuff and my husband found like a little Locker at the station that you can rent and store your luggage in and and you basically like rent the locker when you come back you
Retrieve your stuff um I think that’s really helpful if you know that you have too much stuff but for whatever reason you’re going to just like use the station go someplace and come right back and you don’t want to carry all your luggage with you some stations might
Have something like that so that also might be something to look into um yeah I think that is pretty much it I think that’s pretty much all of my tips for traveling in Japan that I can think of right off the top of my head hopefully you guys enjoyed this video
Hopefully it was helpful for you planning your trip to Japan and other than that I hope you guys had fun if you like this type of content please don’t forget to comment like And subscribe if I forgot anything please add that in in the discussion I’ve only been
Here 3 years Al together and two of those years were in okanawa so if there’s something I forgot or if you’re a subject matter expert in Japan then please go ahead and and comment and and maybe I can learn from you too other than that bye
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Chapters
Intro 0:00
Best Import 0:32
Taking Trains 0:54
Maps 1:58
Tollways 3:32
Bags 5:10
Where to stay 6:45
Where to go 9:30
Lockers 11:53
Outro 12:37