Japan On a Budget?

Legacy_user

Dear All

My husband and I really want to go to Japan for two weeks around about mid-spetember for our wedding anniversary. Our Budget is about £2000 for the whole trip. Would this be possible and can anyone recommend where to book or even methods to get a better deal.

Thanks

Sally

System

Hi Sally

My mother and I have just got back from a 19 day trip to Japan during June.

The whole holiday (travel and accommodation) came to about £900 each. The return flight via KLM was £350 through a travel company in London called Gendai Travel Ltd (https://www.gendai.co.uk).

We booked our western style business hotel on the internet for about £40 per room per night (including japanese style breakfast). The hotel company we booked through run a chain of hotels so we stayed in both Tokyo and Kyoto (taking the Shinkansen - or "Bullet Train" from Tokyo to Kyoto for about £65 each). The hotel company also provides free internet and telephone access at all their hotlels which was great as not only could we keep in touch with friends and family back home (via the internet) but we could also book sighseeing trips in advance (via the phone).

Japan is a fantastic place to visit and I can't recommend it enough! The 11 hour scheduled flight was a lot better and quicker than I expected and getting to and from the airports Narita airport (Tokyo) and Kansai (Osaka) was fairly straighforward. Expect to pay about £10 - 15 for transfers by Limosine bus).

We found eating and getting around relatively cheap too as the Yen was worth 200 to the pound. All in all we only spent about £300 each in spending money for the whole stay.

I booked my £21 travel insurance through a link on moneysavingexpert.com too.

Just a note of caution - we found it better to take cash as apposed to credit cards as quite a lot of places don't accept credit cards but cash is accepted (and preferable)everywhere. We got good rates of exchange at Going Places.

You can get free maps and tourist information at the Japanese tourist office (https://www.seejapan.co.uk) they also have a leaflet called "Japan for Free".

Have a great time!

Tracy

Edinburghlass_2

Sally you should speak to Andrea about Japan but she is having hard drive problems and off on holiday at the weekend I think so she might not see this immediately.

I am sure she will reply when she does see the thread.

System

:)Thanks for the ideas. I look forward to hearing from Andrea.

Sally

Argyle_Stinge

Don't believe everything you hear about how expensive Japan is....its certainly no worse than London!!

My partner, myself and a couple of friends we know all went out there in March this year. Given that we were there for a total of 15 nights and went from one end of the country to the other, we managed to stay on a budget of £2500 per couple.

WE basically did a lot of research before we went out there which proved to be a godsend. The lonely planet and eyewitness guide books are very handy for recommending hotels of various budgets and we found the reviews of these Hotels to be spot on. Remember to get the books out of the library as well...you can save money there!

Our flights cost about 370 quid each (https://www.airline-network.co.uk) with Lufthansa although we did have a stopover in Munich. We were so close to getting an upgrade but thats another story!

On our first and last nights we stayed at the Holiday Inn in Narita very close to the airport. By booking on line at the Holiday Inn website the rates are very reasonable and this includes a bus from the airport to the Hotel and a shuttle bus into Narita. Narita has more than enough to keep you occupied and is a nice induction into the
crazy japanese way of life!

Obviously the most important thing if you are going to travel around is a rail pass which you must buy before you get out there. Even if you take the bullet train from Tokyo to kyoto it is still worth buying one as the fares are expensive once you are out there.

Food is reasonable, you can get a nice meal in most places for about 7 quid and the portions are very substantial. The menus are quite hard to wrap your head around so try to go to places with the picture menus. We found that for lunch you can pick things up on the run from Lawsons or Seven 11 (trust me you won't have a problem finding them). They have some nice little snacks for about 50 pence that are tasty and filling. However without a doubt the best things they sell are Doughballs with various fillings. Again they only cost about 50p.

My advice is go for it...the place is awesome and you will not regret it!