I think too many people the word budget
and Japan seem to be something of a
contradiction there's this assumption
that the cost of visiting Japan for a
two-week holiday would be enough to
bankrupt a dictator but it doesn't have
to in the last year's Japan has
experienced a boom in tourism from 8
million overseas tourists in 2007 to 24
million last year and with it it's led
to a whole new wave of hostels and
hotels rail passes buses and low-cost
domestic airlines that made it cheaper
to experience and travel the country
than ever before in fact this year in
the UK Tokyo was ranked as the cheapest
long-haul destination thanks to a fall
in the value of the yen in this video
we'll be looking at ways that you can
save money on transportation
accommodation and dining out and giving
you a general idea of how much you could
be spending on any given day the boom in
tourism has seen an explosion of new
hostels and hotels opening across Japan
especially in Tokyo but whether you're
staying at a hotel motel or Holiday Inn
the cheapest place to stay in Tokyo is
the area of Asakusa and when'll where
the majority of the hostels are so the
absolute cheapest option accommodation
wise is staying in a hostel in a
dormitory where you can find a bed for
as little sometimes as 2,000 yen if I'm
travelling in a group that's usually the
option we go for the second best option
is staying in a capsule hotel which is a
bit more expensive between 3 to 5,000
yen per night if I had to choose between
a hostel and a capsule hotel I would
usually go for a capsule hotel just
because the beds are bigger there's some
degree of privacy with the shutter and
you get your own TV what more could you
want
after capsule hotels the next cheapest
option is to stay at business hotel
where you can find a single room for
about 5000 yen per night if you're lucky
but typically between 5 to 7,000 yen I
could recommend some budget hotel chains
like toy or Korean or APA hotels but
actually I've found over the last year
the best way is to just go online and
compare prices for about half an hour
the three best web sites are probably
booking com Japan I can calm & Racquet M
travel and hostile world if you're
booking a hostel you can find bargains
on Airbnb
as well
especially if you're traveling in a
group of like three or four people but
if you're traveling solo I tend to find
Airbnb works out to be more expensive
and I use it more for the experience of
staying somewhere interesting rather
than to travel on a budget
finally the wild card option is to stay
in a love hotel where you can find a
room for about 8,000 yen per night on
average although with a love hotel
you're paying for the room rather than
the people in it so if you're going with
two people then it still works out
cheaper than a standard hotel room and
it's typically a lot bigger than a
standard hotel room with things like
cages teddy bear caves and jacuzzis at
your disposal try and book all of your
accommodation at least three months in
advance
at the save quite a bit of money and
also for hostels it's kind of essential
given that they are still a bit of a
rarity so try and boot the ball three
months in advance to not only get a room
but to get one the cheap as well and the
last option and one that I use a heck of
a lot are over night buses which leads
us on to transportation
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Japan's transportation infrastructure is
legendary riding on trains is an
effortless joy they're never late
they're always clean and passengers
aren't shouting down the phone about how
drunk they were last weekend with their
friends Barry and Deborah but it is a
little bit pricey especially the bullet
trains and the first conundrum most
foreign travelers have when coming here
is whether or not to get the Japan Rail
Pass where for about 46,000 yen you can
travel the country freely for two weeks
on Shinkansen and local trains and save
quite a bit of money and have peace of
mind along the way to give you an idea
of how much you could save if he came to
Japan for a two-week trip visiting Tokyo
Kyoto and Hiroshima the cost of catching
bullet trains on a round-trip would be
around 43 thousand yen if you take into
consideration other costs such as subway
trains and buses that had likely add up
to another 10,000 yen at the minimum
you're saving about six thousand yen but
probably more and more importantly it'll
save you the time and stress of standing
around at ticket machines every day for
two weeks buying train tickets and bus
tickets and that alone is a good enough
reason to consider it however there is
an even cheaper way of travelling the
country some friends recently visited
and we traveled the same route from
Tokyo to
Hashima instead of using three bullet
trains on the roundtrip we used two
night buses and a domestic flight from
Hiroshima back to Tokyo on top of that
we probably spent another ten thousand
yen traveling around the cities on the
subway trains that gave us a total of
thirty four thousand yen which is quite
a bit cheaper than getting the Japan
Rail Pass if you're travelling Japan on
a budget
late night buses be your secret weapon
because as well as being half the price
of a bullet train
if you travel through the night you're
also saving on accommodation as well for
example we traveled on the night bus for
two nights and thus saved two nights of
accommodation which would have been
around another eight thousand yen that
said if you are traveling by night bus
there are a few additional costs for
example you'll need to spend at least
another six hundred yen on a bottle of
wine to make sure you're fully knocked
out for the duration of the trip I'd say
fifty percent of the time I'm able to
sleep on the night bus and the other 50
percent of the time I arrive at my
destination a broken man cursing the day
that buses were ever invented the two
best websites are booking our Willer
Express and Japan travel bus calm which
are both in English and a nice and easy
to use in recent years though Japan's
also seen a steady stream of low-cost
airline carriers popping up for example
to fly from Sendai to Osaka cost as
little as five thousand yen with peach
Airlines far cheaper than by train and
even by bus and if you still want to
know if the Japan Rail Pass is worth it
or not you can use the Japan Rail Pass
calculator on Japan guides website where
you can input the length of time you're
staying and your itinerary to get a
rough idea of whether or not it's worth
it and if you want to save even more
money there's an even cheaper way than
by traveling by bus you can travel by
skateboard
no seriously I'm not even trolling you I
know it going who traveled all the way
from sapper all to Hiroshima on a
skateboard
it took him 33 days and he saved at
least 5,000 yen which is the cost of
traveling by plane the only question
that remains is how budget are you
willing together yeah I would have I
would have just flown it the cheapest
style of restaurant eats out in Japan
are the fast food restaurants the three
main ones a skier Yoshinoya and Matt Xia
which can be found on most C streets
across the country and all of which sell
the same style of rice bowl dish is
covered in toppings the most popular big
dude on which is thinly sliced beef so
he got rice beef and three kinds of
cheese all for 490 m and without the
cheese is 350 which is disturbingly
cheap it's not something you're gonna
write home to your family at all
probably but it is very filling after
you've had this the next six hours
you saw him also comes with Tabasco a
seasoned product placements not just
randomly there they give it to you with
the bowl to give it some flavor or they
be careful because you do get to bask
over your hands and it doesn't look like
I've committed murder fast filling and
without the same sense of guilt that
comes from eating a western-style fast
food restaurant it's the ideal place to
drop into for any budget traveler or
just people like me who are lazy and
can't be bothered to cook at home
slightly healthier than Western fast
food although if you're like me and you
smother your food in three kinds of
cheese you are going to lose those
groundbreaking health benefits another
good cheap fast food option are the
standing restaurants dotted around train
stations where you can order a bowl of
sober or udon from the vending machines
for as little as four hundred years and
if I'm in a hurry around lunchtime I'll
quickly dive in and grab a bowl of
mushroom sabor tastes surprisingly good
as well but then again even if you're a
budget traveler you probably didn't come
all the way to Japan just to eat a bowl
of rice with three kinds of cheese for
two weeks or maybe you did but
fortunately there's a really easy way of
saving money for going out for the
there are a few Japanese words you
really need to know before you visit and
one of those words is Norma hold on
which means all-you-can-drink it's the
holy grail of a cheap night owl where
for around as little as 1,200 yen you
can drink as much as you can from an
extensive drink menu for up to two hours
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all the alcohol you can drink and all
the meat you can eat oh my god it's less
of a barbecue more just a jet the
general fire some types of restaurants
also have tabi hauled away
all-you-can-eat particularly at yakiniku
grilled meat restaurants such as this
one just be careful who you leave in
charge of the barbecue
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yes yeah if you do some research online
finding bars and restaurants but not a
whole diagram it's pretty easy to do if
you're not a big drink if it's still
fancy a beer though the cheapest place
to buy alcohol is at the supermarket or
convenience store one really good thing
about Japan is you can actually drink
alcohol out in public but you can't do
in the UK so you can come in here you
can grab your your water your one cup
socket which is basically just a kind of
a jam jar filled with cheap socket and
they go off down the path have a bit of
fun that said it's not that great to say
probably avoid that unless it's your
first time drinking sake because then
you won't know you won't have anything
to compare it to it's also a great place
to pick up breakfast or lunch such as
onigiri rice balls or cheap ready meals
soba noodles 340 m and it's pretty cheap
the perfect things like a picnic or a
light snack
finally to give you a rough idea of the
price of certain popular dishes here's a
full price breakdown with meals such as
sushi and yakitori unsurprisingly being
amongst the most expensive and Wagyu
beef being so expensive I didn't even
bother putting it on the list so they
have it traveling Japan on a budget this
video was made in collaboration with the
Japan national tourism office London if
you're looking for ideas and advice on
traveling to Japan you can check out
their glamorous website at seizure panko
dot uk' which is one of the best
resources for planning your trip to
Japan and if you're not a native English
speaker the jnt' a website comes in 15
languages which you can find at J and T
ok JP I've also put a link to their
Facebook page in the description box if
you're looking for more ideas for your
trip but for now many thanks for
watching guys and if you are watching
this in preparation for an upcoming trip
to Japan just want to wish you an
awesome trip have a good one
oh I really shouldn't wink like that at
the end it just just looks a bit creepy
and awkward maybe I'll give a friendly
smile
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