The post Saving Money While Travelling in Japan appeared first on Footloose.
Japan has a reputation for being one of the most expensive places in the world, but there are ways to save if you’re willing to cut a few corners here and there. I recently spent a month there this summer and I’d like to point out some of the ways you can make a potential trip less draining on your wallet – provided, of course, that you’re willing to make a few sacrifices. Some of this will be good as general travel advice but I’ve tried to point out a few things that are particular to the culture.
Of course, the first thing you worry about when making a trip abroad is the price of a ticket. If you have a Japan-centric travel agency near you, you can find some decent deals. I purchased my ticket just five or six weeks before I left, and it cost me 1200 with a student discount. This isn’t the greatest price out there, but considering the short time between the purchase and the trip itself, it wasn’t bad. (Other tickets I saw online ranged from 1500-1700). If you’re not a student, it would still be worth looking into local Japan-centric travel agencies to see if they have any other deals.
The next thing you’d worry about is lodgings. A lot of the tried and true options for cheap places to stay – such as hostels – naturally apply to Japan. When I went to Tokyo for a few days, I stayed at an excellent place called “Sakura Hostel” that was only around 30 dollars a day. (Incidentally, I also stopped over in South Korea for a few days, and I found a hostel with private rooms for around the same price). One other option for the traveler to Japan, however, is the “gaijin house”. “Gaijin” means foreigner in Japanese, and these are places that some foreign residents stay at when they don’t want to deal with the hassle and high fees of renting a Japanese apartment. The good news for you is that you don’t have to be a Japanese resident – many of these places also welcome travelers. I stayed for a month in a gaijin house in Osaka for 550$ – but some places also offer great weekly and biweekly rates. The one catch here is that these places, as you’d expect, are not very fancy at all. The staff at the one I stayed at was very competent and reliable, but the place itself was pretty run down, and you had to share showers and bathrooms. If these things don’t bother you, however, you can save a ton of money.
Another necessity you’d have to take care of is food. Despite Japan’s reputation for being expensive, I found there were plenty of options for cheap eating. In many restaurants you can get a decent meal for around 7-8 dollars, and many cheaper/fast food-type places will be even less. Another way to save is by eating microwaved meals at Convenience stores, which I found to be in the 3-5 dollar range, and surprisingly good. Certainly not that high-quality, but much more delicious than their American equivalents nevertheless. Many convenience stores will cook your meal right there too. Convenience stores are plentiful and excellent in Japan, and great for drinks, snacks, and some other necessities in addition to meals.
Finally, while Japan’s public transportation is well-known for its reliability, it can also be quite expensive. For more local traveling, check online to see if the region you’re in has things like daily passes for subways and buses. I spent most of my time in Osaka, and you could get a daily pass there for around 8.50. Considering regular fares can get as high as 3.60, if you’re traveling to more than one place in a day it makes sense to get the pass. I believe other places, such as Tokyo, also have similar deals. Also, check your local travel agency to see if you can buy JR Rail passes (for the Shinkansen). These will run you several hundred dollars, but if you’re doing cross country travelling it’s a steal since Shinkansen rates for individual trips can be quite high (a round trip from Tokyo to Osaka, for example, is around 300 bucks – you can get a week-long pass for that much and do much more traveling).
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