Everything you need to know before your first trip — from a team that has been many times.
Japan is consistently rated the best first-time long-haul destination by travellers who've been there — a country where everything works as promised, where the gap between expectation and reality closes rather than widens, and where most visitors leave wondering why they waited so long to go.
Cherry blossom season (late March to early April) is spectacular but you need to book 6–9 months in advance and accept that major sites will be busy. Autumn foliage (mid-November) is equally beautiful and marginally less crowded. Spring and autumn both offer ideal temperatures (15–22°C) for walking. Summer is hot and humid; winter is cold but clear, and views of Mount Fuji are at their most reliable.
Most first-time visitors do a Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka combination. Tokyo is the megacity — overwhelming in the best way. Kyoto is the cultural heart — temples, geisha districts, bamboo groves, ryokan inns. Osaka is louder, cheaper, funnier and home to Japan's finest street food (takoyaki, okonomiyaki, kushikatsu). All three are connected by the Shinkansen — 2.5 hours from Tokyo to Kyoto.
The JR Pass covers unlimited travel on most JR trains including the Shinkansen bullet train and must be purchased before you arrive in Japan. For a standard Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka itinerary of 10+ days, it almost certainly pays for itself. We include it in all our Japan packages.
Japan is still predominantly cash-based outside major hotels and tourist-focused restaurants. Carry yen. Bowing is the appropriate greeting — not handshaking. Remove your shoes before entering homes, ryokan rooms and some restaurants. Be quiet on trains. Rubbish bins are nearly nonexistent — carry a small bag for your waste. These details matter because they reflect a culture of extraordinary consideration for others.
Mid-range Japan is more affordable than its reputation suggests. A bowl of excellent ramen costs $8–12. A 3-star hotel in Tokyo runs $80–120 per night. Public transport is excellent value. Fine dining and luxury hotels are expensive by global standards. Budget $100–150 per person per day for comfortable mid-range travel.
No — but learning the alphabet (hiragana and katakana) helps significantly with reading menus and station signs. Download Google Translate with Japanese offline and you'll be fine almost everywhere.
From the US west coast, approximately 11–12 hours to Tokyo. From the east coast, 14–15 hours. From Europe, 12–14 hours depending on routing. We book flights with the optimal connection and layover times for your itinerary.