GRcade

Thanks guys! Outrunner, your tips and links are great and i will spend a few weeks researching before deciding on how i will proceed.

It looks like i should book a few hotels and travel by train using the japan rail pass, which covers 70% of their railways.

Personally, i would love to do the trip by booking it and experiencing free without a tour operator holding my hand, but felt that i did not have the confidence to do so, especially with it being apparently unfriendly for tourists.

Tomous wrote:Okay, Japan is expensive but £10-£12k is an absolute pisstake.

I'd recommend getting a JR pass for the trains (about £350 for 2 weeks from memory). Make sure you sort it before going and be mindful when planning your route it doesn't let you get any train, only certain ones are applicable.

We did the following route over two weeks:

Tokyo (with day trip to Nikko)
Kawaguchi (Fuji 5 Lakes area-the highlight)
Kyoto (with day trip to Narra)
Osaka
Hiroshima (with day trip to Miyajima Island)

I'd recommend all of that, and assuming you're flying in and out of Tokyo it's very easy to get back from Hiroshima with the bullet train-we got it in the morning for a late afternoon flight.

Thanks for the info - how much did it roughly cost in total?

christmasforever wrote:

Tomous wrote:Okay, Japan is expensive but £10-£12k is an absolute pisstake.

I'd recommend getting a JR pass for the trains (about £350 for 2 weeks from memory). Make sure you sort it before going and be mindful when planning your route it doesn't let you get any train, only certain ones are applicable.

We did the following route over two weeks:

Tokyo (with day trip to Nikko)
Kawaguchi (Fuji 5 Lakes area-the highlight)
Kyoto (with day trip to Narra)
Osaka
Hiroshima (with day trip to Miyajima Island)

I'd recommend all of that, and assuming you're flying in and out of Tokyo it's very easy to get back from Hiroshima with the bullet train-we got it in the morning for a late afternoon flight.

Thanks for the info - how much did it roughly cost in total?

1 million dollars

christmasforever wrote:

Tomous wrote:Okay, Japan is expensive but £10-£12k is an absolute pisstake.

I'd recommend getting a JR pass for the trains (about £350 for 2 weeks from memory). Make sure you sort it before going and be mindful when planning your route it doesn't let you get any train, only certain ones are applicable.

We did the following route over two weeks:

Tokyo (with day trip to Nikko)
Kawaguchi (Fuji 5 Lakes area-the highlight)
Kyoto (with day trip to Narra)
Osaka
Hiroshima (with day trip to Miyajima Island)

I'd recommend all of that, and assuming you're flying in and out of Tokyo it's very easy to get back from Hiroshima with the bullet train-we got it in the morning for a late afternoon flight.

Thanks for the info - how much did it roughly cost in total?

To be honest I'm not sure as it was in the middle of ten months of travelling so I didn't really track costs for just those two weeks. I also flew from Indonesia and then from Toyko to Hong Kong so my flight costs weren't so much. Plus I was staying in cheap accommodation.

UK flights and decent accommodation I reckon you're looking at £2.5k pp minimum.

Skarjo wrote:

Bunni wrote:Also going this year for a second time. It's fairly easy to tour yourself. Get a rail pass and jump between cities. We're hoping between £5-7k for a month, via Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Hit me up when you're in Honkers and I'll take you bowling!

Should be around 27th July for a couple days.

christmasforever wrote:Thanks guys! Outrunner, your tips and links are great and i will spend a few weeks researching before deciding on how i will proceed.

It looks like i should book a few hotels and travel by train using the japan rail pass, which covers 70% of their railways.

Personally, i would love to do the trip by booking it and experiencing free without a tour operator holding my hand, but felt that i did not have the confidence to do so, especially with it being apparently unfriendly for tourists.

No problem, I'm happy to help if you have any questions or need any itinerary ideas. A breakdown of the costs for my trips tends to be along these lines (I have the exact breakdown somewhere but I can't lay my hands on it)

Flight - £450 return (I fly with KLM and they often have great deals)
Hotels - £1200 (three weeks)
JR Pass - £385 for three weeks (the two week one is currently around £300 - the price does fluctuate

Bunni wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Bunni wrote:Also going this year for a second time. It's fairly easy to tour yourself. Get a rail pass and jump between cities. We're hoping between £5-7k for a month, via Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Hit me up when you're in Honkers and I'll take you bowling!

Should be around 27th July for a couple days.

5-7k seems very expensive IMO. Although I think I might have spent around 2k all in for two weeks back in 2013.

lex-man wrote:

Bunni wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Bunni wrote:Also going this year for a second time. It's fairly easy to tour yourself. Get a rail pass and jump between cities. We're hoping between £5-7k for a month, via Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Hit me up when you're in Honkers and I'll take you bowling!

Should be around 27th July for a couple days.

5-7k seems very expensive IMO. Although I think I might have spent around 2k all in for two weeks back in 2013.

Flights, ferry, travel etc £2k
Average hotel, plus two nights in a fancy hotel £2k
Activities £1000
Daily spending money £1000

This is for two people mind.

Managed ten days in Japan, 7 in China and 4 in Hong Kong for £1500 including flights, accommodation and a JR Pass back in 2016, but it was strawberry floating tough. Would have been better with about double that, but £5,000+ per person and you can live like a king I reckon.

Im going with two of my daughters in late august early September.

I only spent about 1k but I stayed with family in central Kyoto the entire time.

Kyoto and Nara are underrated. The nice thing about Kyoto is you can actually explore all of it like London. There is a good mixture of traditional, modern and contemporary and the downtown is good. The shopping is great. And you can cycle everywhere. Nara is the original capital so visit the gardens. Arashiyama mountain and Fushimi Inari are basically miniature mount fujis. I never went to Tokyo. Osaka Den Den town is insane and is a very short trip from Kyoto.

If I went again I still think I'd stay in Kyoto and get a bus to Tokyo. But honestly it's all the same stuff, I actually wish I saw more of the countryside than the city.

Yeah Kyoto is amazing. Where we were staying it was a 5 minute cycle to the most amazing temples and gardens, and from there a 2 minute walk into the woods and hills surrounding the city. I guess most people (especially on here) are more into Japan for video games, nerd culture, the cool 'futuristic' cities and stuff. And while that's all amazing, when we go back I'm hoping to go to Yakushima and Hokkaido and places like that.

Heading to Japan for a few weeks and trying to see as much as possible - hopefully a solid mix of 'real' culture like temples and shrines, and anime & games stuff - is definitely on my bucket list. Can't drop 4 figures on something like that at the moment, but one day!

smurphy wrote:Yeah Kyoto is amazing. Where we were staying it was a 5 minute cycle to the most amazing temples and gardens, and from there a 2 minute walk into the woods and hills surrounding the city. I guess most people (especially on here) are more into Japan for video games, nerd culture, the cool 'futuristic' cities and stuff. And while that's all amazing, when we go back I'm hoping to go to Yakushima and Hokkaido and places like that.

For me it's the Zen gardens. One day, one day....

Bunni wrote:

lex-man wrote:

Bunni wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Bunni wrote:Also going this year for a second time. It's fairly easy to tour yourself. Get a rail pass and jump between cities. We're hoping between £5-7k for a month, via Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Hit me up when you're in Honkers and I'll take you bowling!

Should be around 27th July for a couple days.

5-7k seems very expensive IMO. Although I think I might have spent around 2k all in for two weeks back in 2013.

Flights, ferry, travel etc £2k
Average hotel, plus two nights in a fancy hotel £2k
Activities £1000
Daily spending money £1000

This is for two people mind.

So, £6k for two people all in? That would be brilliant, if possible.

Dual wrote:I've never got the appeal of Japan. Is it just a geek culture thing that makes you want to go?

Edit: That sounds more ignorant than I intended to.

food, scenery, history

Bunni wrote:

lex-man wrote:

Bunni wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Bunni wrote:Also going this year for a second time. It's fairly easy to tour yourself. Get a rail pass and jump between cities. We're hoping between £5-7k for a month, via Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Hit me up when you're in Honkers and I'll take you bowling!

Should be around 27th July for a couple days.

5-7k seems very expensive IMO. Although I think I might have spent around 2k all in for two weeks back in 2013.

Flights, ferry, travel etc £2k
Average hotel, plus two nights in a fancy hotel £2k
Activities £1000
Daily spending money £1000

This is for two people mind.

Bunni, how long is that for please? I’ve been a Japanophile nearly all my life but never been! Hoping, maybe, maybe, next year.....

I’ve always wanted to go, but have always been put off by the price and the fact that i had no one to go with. It is one of my dreams, just to see the culture, the mountains and the weirdness and technology.

You can go cheap. Get a flight on China Eastern through Fukuoka and then get the train down to Tokyo. Staying at manga cafes will save you a packet.

still wrote:

Bunni wrote:

lex-man wrote:

Bunni wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Bunni wrote:Also going this year for a second time. It's fairly easy to tour yourself. Get a rail pass and jump between cities. We're hoping between £5-7k for a month, via Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Hit me up when you're in Honkers and I'll take you bowling!

Should be around 27th July for a couple days.

5-7k seems very expensive IMO. Although I think I might have spent around 2k all in for two weeks back in 2013.

Flights, ferry, travel etc £2k
Average hotel, plus two nights in a fancy hotel £2k
Activities £1000
Daily spending money £1000

This is for two people mind.

Bunni, how long is that for please? I’ve been a Japanophile nearly all my life but never been! Hoping, maybe, maybe, next year.....

Couple nights in Singapore, couple in Hong Kong, maybe 5 in South Korea and nearly three weeks in Japan.

Should probably turn this into a meet up thread. We'll be in Japan from start of August, arriving in Kyoto/Osaka around 4th and in Tokyo around the 9th till we leave on 21st.