I (25M) went on a recent solo trip to Japan coming from the US – lasting two weeks from April 15th through 29th.
In that time, I visited 6 different cities.
The order of cities visited were Tokyo -> Hakone -> Kyoto -> Nara -> Osaka -> Hiroshima, and back to Tokyo at the end
Wanted to share my perspective on my trip, so it can help other solo travelers out there.
Cost:
Transportation: $1500 (Flights were about $900)
Hotels: $2000
Food: $1850
Shopping: $600
Attractions: $150
Other/General: $100
Total: $6200
If you would like a full list of what I did on each day, I have it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13hutFmdSa0y3VzhHtaH78QZNkJEPxmbbpqoUpOh-JCM/edit?usp=sharing
To keep this relatively brief, I'll share my overall experience
My overall experience was pretty incredible. It was my first solo trip, so I did a *ton* of planning in advance.
Pretty much every day in my itinerary was packed. Every single full day in Japan, I hit 20,000 steps, with about half of them going over 25,000. It would be super rare that I would even get back to my hotel to rest during the day. It certainly was tiring – definitely not a relaxing vacation, but I think I saw so much that in even though it was sometimes tough to get through in the moment in retrospect I'm glad I managed to see everything that I experienced.
Some things I really liked:
– I have to start with how incredible the food was. As part of my research, I picked out basically every restaurant I was going to go to in advance, and made several reservations months in advance. I treated each meal as the experience – not as an afterthought to whatever experience I was nearby in the area. Tabelog was massive for this – being able to sort by highest rated is so nice. In over half the places I ate at, I was the only non-Japanese person in the restaurant. And these meals were just incredible; especially when you think about how cheap they are. Even in a city like Tokyo, you can get a very good meal for 1000 yen or less. That's just insane.
– Tokyo was my favorite overall city due to the amount of things to do, but Osaka had my favorite vibes. It's the city you think of when you think of those neon light youtube images with synthwave music playing in the background. I would just walk through Osaka being so happy at how over the top everything is – the signs, the lights, the people – all just amazing. I certainly am glad I spent 3 nights in Osaka
– The people were so friendly. There's this stereotype that Japanese don't like foreigners intruding on local spots, but despite being the only foreigner in a lot of local places, I didn't feel that at all. The chefs/waiters/shopkeepers did their best to communicate in English, going out of their way to explain dishes to me specifically in English, and if things failed – we would just have a Google Translate conversation. My very first night in Japan I started talking with the Japanese guy next to me and he ended up paying for my meal. We went out drinking later on in the trip. Those experiences are the ones I'll remember.
– Exception to the security guy at Haneda airport who saw me in a line and told me "Indian passport – you can't be in this line!". I'm American.
Something I didn't like
– Ironically, the trains were the most confusing outside of Tokyo. In Kyoto, there was this one train that suddenly became 'out of service' before arriving at my stop – which there was no English announcement for. Thankfully a Japanese guy told me about this. Meanwhile, in Osaka, the stations were just incredibly confusing – particularly the Nankai and Namba stations which are two separate stations (?) but it's very hard to find the specific line.
Overall Tips:
– Don't be afraid to pay money for good food. I know the amount that I spent on food earlier may have raised some eyebrows, and when you consider how cheap the average meal is, it might appear as the only good strategy is to get cheap meals everywhere you go. Or even just get konbini food everywhere – as a lot of people do. Don't do this. The relative cheapness of Japan shows itself on the lower end, but also on the higher end as well. This means I can get some of the best meals of my entire life for less than what it would cost in most other countries. This is especially true in Japan due to the presence of shokunin – masters of their craft who specialize in doing a single thing incredibly well. You won't find this level of dedication anywhere else, and while certain times it may be expensive, it's worth being fed by a person who's dedicated his entire life to putting that specific food on your plate. I took the approach of booking six 'fancy dining' ($100+) restaurants, while the rest of my restaurants were generally sub $10. I was not disappointed a single time by any of the restaurants I spent a lot of money on, and if I were to go again, I would spend even more on food overall.
– A check-in luggage is honestly fine to deal with. The only places where it was annoying were the train stations and lugging them up/down stairs when escalators were not present, but overall there was certainly enough space the other times. You don't have to travel super light if you don't want to
– Kinkakuji was the one thing that I did that I thought was pretty overrated. It was just walking around half a pond where you can view the temple, and the temple viewing is done in like 20 minutes. It also takes super long to get to. Not worth it in my opinion
– TeamLab Borderless is so much better than TeamLab Planets. I did both, and it's not even close
– Always pay attention on your train. I got on the wrong train several times during my trip, which is going to be inevitable. Sometimes you can get off early and rectify this, sometimes it presents more of an issue, but either way it's useful to notice as early as you can. For example, there are multiple versions of Ltd. Express Romancecars going from Tokyo to Hakone
– Put in the effort to learn Japanese phrases! It doesn't have to be a lot, I just spent a few hours in total on a Quizlet of like 50 cards beforehand. This paid off so well – I used a lot of these phrases very often. The only downside is that sometimes they would think I speak Japanese and start speaking fully in Japanese to me, but this did actually make me happy inside. I saw so many people that spoke zero Japanese whatsoever – and you can absolutely survive that way – but it just improves your experience so much if you learn basic phrases, especially if you can surprise people with them
– Assume luggage forwarding is going to be next-day unless explicitly told same-day. This burned me in Kyoto
– The drinks are so cheap. I spent so much less on alcohol than I thought I would going in
– Vending machines are an absolute savior – specifically those bottles of green tea that have 25-40 mg caffeine and cost less than a dollar. Those became a daily staple for me to get through the afternoon
Solo Travel Tips:
Since this is my first solo trip, wanted to share some things I realized about solo traveling
– It's a lot of work. Like a lot of work. This can be difficult at times. Of course, if you take it super easy, come in with no plan, and chill for a couple weeks, it becomes very easy. If you're like me and had several different things to see each day and had to switch cities/hotels every couple days, it's not easy. The amount of transfers, navigation, and logistics that need to be kept track of by one person is a lot, and it's harder when you don't speak the language. I wouldn't say I was ever overwhelmed, but I did make mistakes along the way (like taking the wrong train, etc…). Traveling with multiple people lets you offload at least part of the responsibility on someone else.
– There are no limits. You can do absolutely whatever you want. If that means staying out until 4 am one night, there's nothing stopping you from doing that. The same can be said for deciding last minute to do something expensive. I loved this, but if you're the type of person who relies on others to tame down your impulses, this will be difficult
– You feel the culture way more solo traveling. When you don't have anyone to talk to – you end up a) noticing so many things about the country and culture and b) talking to more people, especially locals. I had so many amazing conversations I would not have had if I went with other people that I knew. This was talking to the guy next to me, or the chef or waiter at a restaurant, or a random shopkeeper. So cool.
– There are times where you're walking around alone at night, and you see a lot of people enjoying with their friends, or their partner, that it does feel a bit lonely.
My vacation left me with so many things I'll remember for a long time.
Will I be coming back? Probably not solo, but I would love to come back with a group or with someone else. It's not due to anything with the country – more that I would want to experience other countries I haven't been to yet for solo trips – but sharing the experience with someone is something that would be awesome. Again, despite it being super tiring, I don't regret anything that I saw.
Happy to answer any questions about my trip in the comments!
by ThrowAB0ne