Following our first Japan video, the question I dreaded the most was “what was the cost
of your entire trip”. And I’ll explain why at the end of this video. Because the
most important thing for you, watching this, is that for our 2nd trip to Japan I was ready.
In preparation for this video, I made sure that I wrote down EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION.
And I’m talking everything. I made a note of every train journey, every entrance fee,
meal, cheeky trip to the supermarket, onsen, car rental, and hotel. And then I put everything
Which as you can imagine, was an actual joy!
And then I put everything into this glorious spreadsheet. This is real life data, from a real life holiday, that
includes all the ‘being a tourist’ stuff that you just don’t think about - such as
this delightful Pumpkin Cheesecake.
If you’re new here, we make travel movies from around the world, hoping you might just
find your next holiday inspiration.
This is Suitcase Monkey on the real cost of an actual Japan Holiday.
So I’m going to go through the full costs we had for transport, food, accommodation
and sightseeing, then I’ll total everything up at the end. But first, here’s my fascinating
disclaimer…
So lets first begin with the thing we enjoyed spending our money on most - the food! All
of the following prices are the total for us as a couple so just half the amounts for
solo travel. Now we were in Japan for 2 weeks and spent just over ¥100,000 on all food.
That’s everything from breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between. This works out
as ¥8,000 per day which in hindsight is actually pretty reasonable considering everything we had
Our dinners averaged at almost ¥5,000 per night but there was quite a range each evening.
Our most expensive meal was In Pontocho in Kyoto. Here we ordered a bunch of courses
and side dishes as it was Chiaki’s birthday so it was one of the occasions we added alcohol.
But the next night, for some comparison, we had a filling noodle meal at only ¥1,500
altogether. I think that is around the bottom end of what a meal for 2 could be, without
going out of your way to find the cheapest diner in town.
You’ll notice that this bill only has 2 items on it. And this is why sometimes dining
out can be relatively cheap in Japan. For one, there is no tipping so that’s out.
And second, bottomless water or hot tea is often provided for free and it isn’t considered
as rude if that’s all you drink. For us, this was sometimes all we wanted.
I would say in general however, that we tried to save money on breakfast and lunch so we
could treat ourselves for dinner. Here’s a few things that worked for us.
First, we would often search out bakeries. They were a perfect way to start and could
cost anywhere from ¥400 to ¥1000 for pastries and/or coffee. The Combini’s such as Family
Mart or 7/11 also have a surprising range of hot and cold food on offer and we frequently
used them as a takeaway. It was nice to grab an outside spot and watch the world go by.
This fried chicken, priced at only ¥168 was incredibly tasty and when mixed with fried
potato, was perfection considering the price. Check out my 45 Mind Blowing Details about
Japan video for more thoughts on why Combinis are destinations in themselves.
For relatively cheap eats, also try a local search for conveyor belt sushi. Although it
wont be high quality sushi, its the cheapest way to get a sample at a low price. Also try
searching for Family Restaurants such as Jonathans or Saizeriya. These are like the Dennys or
Little Chefs of Japan, affordable and do the job. Their picture menus have pretty much
everything you could think of with staggeringly low prices. Then of course, there’s all
the street food and markets dotted around. Particularly if we had a small breakfast,
topping up on these would happily keep us going throughout the day.
Next, let’s look at sightseeing which basically means the entrance fees to temples, museums
or excursions. The total for both of us came to ¥38,500 which is probably at the top end
of what you might spend. That’s because we booked 3 fairly expensive activities, being
the Hozugawa River Cruise, TeamLab Borderless and the Shin Hodaka Ropeway which all combined
came to ¥21,000 alone. Taking those out would then make our sightseeing activities amount
to only ¥1000 per day. And that’s because for us, in general, the sightseeing costs
were pretty sparse. Temples usually hover from ¥500 to ¥1000 per person, and the rest
of your time is just walking around. Just wandering the cities and towns in themselves
was usually the most satisfying part of our time so I don’t think you need to budget
much for sightseeing, aside from any big activities you might want to visit, as mentioned earlier.
Next was our biggest expenditure: Accommodation. This is all on a per night cost with 2 adults
sharing 1 room.
Over a total of 12 nights of paid accommodation, we spent ¥165,000 on accommodation or ¥13,800
per night. Again, there were a mixture of price ranges here. When looking for hotels,
we never just try to get the cheapest thing we can find. Usually, location, transport
links and cleanliness are our must haves and then we look for extra features, or just the
vibe of a place to make a decision. Most of our hotels ranged between ¥11,000 to ¥14,000
per night. Our Tokyo hotel was pretty much just a room, but was one train ride from the
airport and was easy to get to Tokyo station the next morning for our train to Kyoto.
We stayed in our Kyoto hotel for 5 nights so wanted something cozy. This was ¥13,500
per night and gave us easy access to most attractions we visited during our time here.
The cheapest hotel was ¥5,500, in Takayama. It was walking distance from the station,
included breakfast and we had zero complaints. One tip I should say, is always, where possible,
make sure you are booking a non smoking room. Smoking rooms are pretty standard in Japan
and they smell worse than a big night out in 1990s! We were actually given one here,
but asked for a room change because it I could literally feel my lungs closing in on themselves.
So, just be aware when booking. It’s also worth noting that for the best prices, you
usually want to be booking 3 to 4 months before travel. I actually checked the pricing for
this hotel a few weeks before departure and it had doubled from what we had paid.
All of these hotels will be linked in the description, which if you click it and book
any hotel, will support us, at no extra cost to you.
In terms of the Japanese hotel experience, I think if you want to treat yourself, there
are 2 ways to spend your money wisely. The first is booking one with easy access to an
onsite onsen.
In Gero, our hotel had a private onsen that you could book as a guest. We do love the
onsen culture in Japan but usually they’re separated by gender so this is an easy way
around that. The hotel itself was ¥14,000 a night and one hour in the private onsen,
was an additional ¥2,000. They also had a public geothermal foot spa which lovely. Due
to their connections with the Yakuza, tattoos are generally not allowed in onsens, so a
private hotel onsen is an easy way to get around this. It also means you wont be showing
your foreign willy to a bunch of Japanese men. So that works out pretty well too.
As a slight side not, you might remember on our first Japan trip, we booked a hotel where
the onsen was actually part of our room, with a view of Mount Fuji. On top of the room price
itself, that added on an extra ¥14,000 a night for the privileged. But I think for
the experience, it was totally worth it.
The most expensive hotel we stayed this time round was in the Japanese Alps, at ¥24,000
per night, but this was half board. Very much cut off from society, what it lacked in transport
options, it made up with its food presentation and the best public onsen I’ve ever experienced.
I think if you are staying in Japan, its worth having at least one night in a hotel or ryokan
that serves a traditional Japanese breakfast or dinner. Be aware with these, that the food
is very Japanese, with no catering to the western palette. You will quite often have
no idea what you are placing in your mouth but that’s part of the fun. The mixed outside
onsen was the clincher when choosing this hotel and with the added bonus of snow, was
about as picturesque as it could be. Again, links for all of these are in the description.
The next biggest category for cost was public transport. Together, we spent ¥80,000 over
12 days of use. And as I mentioned at the start, this was for everything from a bullet
train to local trains, single bus rides, and day passes.
Contrary to popular belief, the Japan Rail Pass is not always the cheapest way to travel
and it wasn’t for our specific route, so this was all pay as you go. I’ll leave a
link in the description for a handy website where you can input the stations you’re
travelling to and it will tell you if you can save money with the JR Pass.
So just looking at the big train journeys we did, we had Tokyo to Kyoto, Kyoto to Gero,
we drove this part so I’ll cover that next, then Matsumoto back to Tokyo. The other ¥28,000
was made up of day trips to Nara, Odaiba, taking a local train to the next town, or
just moving around within a city.
Now, we spent 6 days in the Gifu Prefecture, where transport isn’t as frequent as the
big cities. Here, we rented a car through Toyota for 3 nights which cost ¥40,000 with
insurance. This was slightly higher than usual since we were dropping the car at a different
location than pickup. We paid a further ¥6,500 for toll roads which were around ¥1000 yen
each, as well as parking and petrol. Petrol was actually surprisingly cheap to what we’re
used to so it turned out to be ¥46,500 for 3 days use of a rental car.
Adding car costs with public transport, meant we spent an eye watering ¥126,000 together
for everything that moved us. Ultimately it was the car rental that pushed the price up
so high. 2 JR Passes for 2 weeks would have been just under ¥100,000, but there are some
exclusions with the Pass, so that would have closed the gap a little. We wanted the freedom
of having a car, especially when we were in the countryside and transport was infrequent
at best and not available at worst. But overall, don’t underestimate the cost of travelling
around the country once you have landed.
So what does all this mean when added together? For 15 nights, as a couple, we spent ¥437,753.
Accommodation was the largest chunk at ¥165,000, then transport at ¥126,000, food at ¥107,000
and sightseeing at ¥38,000. I’ve broken these figures down as daily averages for you
also if that makes it easier for your potential trip. Flights are the only thing I haven’t
included, which will massively vary for everyone but from the UK, you’re looking at £600
per person upwards.
I said at the start of this video, that I dreaded answering the question of how much
our holiday cost. And that’s because there are so many factors that go into a holidays
price tag. Prices vary so massively from one thing to the next and one persons cheap is
anothers expensive. But I hope that by just showing you everything we spent, this helps
gives a better idea of where your money might end up.
I would definitely recommend you check out the holiday that this video was based on,
my 45 Mind Blowing Details in Japan video as well as the 20 Must Visit Things to do
in Kyoto. If you’ve gotten this far, please hit the like button below which really helps
us and subscribe for more travel content from around the world. Thanks for watching Suitcase Monkey.