About ten years ago I had a whole website* dedicated to tips on how to travel in Japan on the cheap. After so many few years without visiting, though, it felt very out of date – and with the yen now reduced to 50% of what it was, living off convenience store rice balls and staying in the cheapest of cheap hotels no longer feels so necessary.
Besides, other people now have that whole thing covered.
But this year I finally got to go back – with a kid in tow, and with ten years more of Japanese under my belt. So here are a few notes on what’s changed, and what worked well for us.
Train Travel
Japan Rail Passes have become a bit more expensive, but then the currency rate does offset that a fair bit, and they’re still ridiculously useful. You can also now buy them more easily. Loads of companies will sell you a JR pass, but crucially, so will JR itself – just use a bank with good currency rates (Starling, Monzo) and pay in JPY. Here’s a link for JR West, and one for JR East.
The big advantage is that you can then reserve Shinkansen seats before you arrive – much easier than doing the “head to a ticket office and spend ten minutes trying to book 20 separate trains while a queue forms behind you” thing. On arrival, pick up the pass and all the tickets are waiting for you.
The JR office at KIX airport even had a special place to collect a JR Pass in English (and if you speak Japanese well enough to not need it, you can skip that queue, so it works for everyone!)
We used the Setouchi area pass from JR West, which covers a nice loop from Osaka to Fukuoka, including several ferries to access Shikoku. It’s a good one and would be worth considering even if you fly to Tokyo – just pay for one train to Shin Osaka and you’re set. I did wonder whether we’d be able to reserve tickets outside of the West area, but it worked fine – I could book seats on a JR Shikoku Tokkyuu service.
Also worth noting: other private rail companies that you might want to use are now easier to book online, too. I reserved tickets on the Nankai RAPI:T online.
IC Cards
If you’re travelling other than on a JR pass – so things like subways and trams – you’ll need an IC card – these are stored-value cards, so you load up, say, 1000Y and then use it to pay for travel and other bits and pieces.
These days, if you have an iPhone, you can just generate one – chose a SUICA, ICOCA or whatever from within the Wallet app on a modern iPhone (instructions from Apple here). If you have an old card, the balance can be transferred across, and you can add more anytime you need, as long as you have internet access. The IC system is more universal than ever – even on the trams in Hiroshima and across Matsuyama.
If traveling with a kid under 12, do get them a child’s card, which reduces all fares. To do this, go to a JR ticket office in the first big station you visit – you need their passport, and to supply their name and date of birth, it’s very simple.
Cash
I used to warn everyone visiting that Japan is a cash society, and that you could never, ever assume that an international credit or debit card would be accepted. That has now changed.
I would suggest taking a decent amount of cash in 1000 or 5000 yen notes to pay in smaller restaurants, bars, stalls and the like. Plus you’re going to want to build up lots of 100Y coins for buying water etc from machines.
However, all the hotels we stayed at were now equipped to take cards, as are convenience stores, and the bigger shops we visited, and I even saw card terminals in some smaller restaurants. Again, use a bank card where you’re not being charged currency fees, and decline any option to pay in £ for a silly fee.
The best place to get *more* cash remains a convenience store, and when I did that this time around the ATM even had an English interface. UK English readers: tap the “Checking Account” option!
Specific personal recommendation: I used my Starling current account card, it worked perfectly.
Internet Access
Japanese hotels have, at long last, embraced WiFi – no more need to arse around with network cables and adapters like it’s the 1990s. So that’s great.
Out and about, I used a data eSIM from Sakura Mobile. This cost about £3 per day. The service was great – fast and reliable – but just note that you need internet access for a few minutes on arrival to activate the eSIM (and it’s worth looking up how to do that in advance). If your phone doesn’t do eSIM you can still buy a physical SIM instead.
If you’re wondering how much data you need, my pretty heavy use of Google Maps (no streaming music or video) ran to about 5GB over ten days, so I would go for 1GB/day to be on the safe side.
Note that the Sakura SIM doesn’t have voice calls – I had to use Skype to make a few phone calls at one point.
Hotels and Child Rates
On this trip we used a few Dormy Inn (sometimes “Premium”) places, which I’ve liked before and liked again this time too. The ones with a big sento-style bath still make for a good way to unwind after a long, hot day, and they hit a nice mark somewhere above a business hotel but below a posh place.
We also used two “JR Clement Inn” hotels – another part of the massive JR group, and note the Inn part of the name, which marks them out as a cheaper option. Both were nice, clean, very standard business hotels, with things like coffee in the reception. A little bit nicer than a Toyoko Inn, still often very cheap and with a similarly good cancellation policy. Here’s Takamatsu.
In Osaka we also stayed in the Just Sleep near Shinsaibashi, which was really great for the price – a refurbished business hotel run by a Taiwanese chain with upgraded amenities and really nice service. Would recommend.
In Matsuyama I decided to spend a bit on an onsen hotel, and we stayed at Funaya (room only, as I wasn’t sure how T would get on with kaiseki food). It’s more hotel than ryokan, but with Japanese-style washitsu rooms, really nice baths and a lovely garden. If you’re planning to visit Dōgo Onsen Honkan, it’s great.
Something I learned travelling with a kid for the first time – many hotels in Japan charge by the person, not by the room, so watch out for rates multiplying when you book. But they also offer greatly reduced – or even waived – costs for kids who will sleep in the same bed as a parent. You might be asked to pay a little to cover their use of facilities (a sento bath, for example) and breakfast, if you’re buying that.
Related: in one other case I found that a hotel showed no rooms available when I searched for one adult and one child, but had availability for two adults (and, when I called to ask, were happy for me to book that). It seems this is a way to avoid discounting too much in a more expensive location.
I would still recommend using the hotel chain’s own websites to book where possible – many have English options – as you’ll be offered more price options and the ability to pay on arrival in just about every business-y hotel.
* Some of it is still online, here