The first time I went to Japan, I knew immediately go back in the future. This was my second trip, but like the first, I was there and already want to come back. On both trips there were things I would have changed and things that I would have liked to have done. In this post, I am going to go over how we planned the trip and a couple things about the trip.
This Japan trip was a fairly large group trip with a total of nine people going. People originated from the west coast, the midwest, and from Texas. The grouping was four couples and then dumbass me. This is how planning the trip all came together.
Deciding to Go
The origins of the decision to go really started with myself and one other person. While visiting her and her husband, I had had conversations with them and they had a bunch of questions about Japan after finding out that I had been. Her perticularly. She commented on how much she wanted to go, so I offered to go with and help plan a trip. The conversation moved onto other things or we got ready to go do something, but the talk of going to Japan stopped and the trip was seeded.
A few months later, I saw them again and followed up on going to Japan. I got the impression that they thought I was joking, but pressing them a bit, we agreed to make it happen. We started talking about logistics at a high level. Things like when could we go, how much do we think it would cost, how long would be a good trip, and where all could we go.
We sort of settled on these things:
- We would go for two weeks or so.
- We would try to hit a few cities.
- Anyone who wanted to go was welcome and their dates were their own.
- We would try to aim for September or October to go.
- We would try to get tickets when they were cheap.
Early Planning
We started a pretty early conversation about going with a large group of friends. I sort of threw out that in a year, we were going to Japan for two weeks and that anyone in the group was invited. This was to ensure that everyone who wanted to go could start saving now or planning paid time off for the year. Also, anyone who wanted to crash course Japanese could do so from that point. The trip got a lot of attention from people and we started off with interest from about fifteen or sixteen people. We kicked off a group chat for those interested and laid out the things we had settled on.
My friend had a lot of questions about my previous trip. She did the lion’s share of planning and gained a ton of information and knowledge about going to Japan from Tik Tok, YouTube, and varying sites. I largely was content to be a second opinion to things and happy to share what I knew or what I experienced previously. So, she gets the credit for piloting the trip and being an amazing planner for the lot of us. Like all of it.
Getting Tickets
We all met up at various times around May and started looking in earnest at tickets. There was a sale on tickets to Japan that went out on Going and we jumped into a chat to figure out what would work best for us. We settled on dates in late September to early October and that we would fly in and out of Tokyo. This gave us a good likelihood for decent weather, worked with our timing constraints, and were within the deal’s date for the on sale.
From there, were started posting in the group chat that we had scored tickets. A few people dropped out of potentially going and a few started to look at potentially going for a shorter time period during the planned dates. A couple of people immediately bought tickets as well and chose matching flights. Others started comparing tickets and cost in cash versus miles.
I got a pair on Japan Airlines (JAL) for around $600 but pushed the price up a bit by picking seats I liked. As we did, a few others bought tickets or started keying in on buying tickets. JAL had a schedule change and I was eligible for a ticket reimbursement, so I looked into the potentail for that. I had just hit a credit card deal from Chase for a United credit card to get a pile of United Miles, so it made sense to cash in the tickets and to buy new ones on United with miles. This was an easy process for reimbursement and I got the cash back in a couple of days after making the request.
Once tickets were settled, the trip started to become real and excitement started to grow.
Decesion Making
After a couple of months, we had the nine people who would wind up going with tickets in hand. We put together a Google Sheet that everyone got added to. This allowed us to keep track of who wanted to do what and to see if there was overlap. Once everyone chimed in, we started to prioritize doing things on certain days of the trip. Things like Team Lab: Borderless, a New Japan Pro Wrestling show, seeing certain shrines and temples, doing a walking tour, and neighborhoods we wanted to go check out.
We put together an intial timeline with our rotation of cities we were going to hit. There, we also started tracking costs and payments for things. This included Air BnB payments, costs for tickets to events or sites, the cost for guided tours, and train line expenses. This made knowing who you owed and what their payment info was easy to find.
It was also super handy to use the Sheet to put information people may need up as well. This included directions on getting a Suica card in Japan or installing on an iPhone and loading it before the trip.
Rotation of Cities
My friend put together a rotation of going into Tokyo, spending a few days there, and then spending a night in Hakone. From Hakone, we went to Osaka for a couple of nights before moving onto to Kyoto. We took a detour on the route to Kyoto to spend a day in Nara, using coin lockers or luggage services for our bags as we moved cities. After Kyoto, we spent a night in YAMAMAAMMAMAMAMAM and moved back to Tokyo.
Most of the trip was done by booking a big Air BnB for the group in each of the cities. This was done by my friend or I looking at a pool of places that fit our group size and then reviewing the list to weed out anything we may have overlooked. Mostly. we edited out things like having a lot of beds but minimal bathrooms or being pretty far from anything we had listed as wanting to do while there. Our criteria was sleeps nine, has three or more bathrooms, and was walkable to things we were wanting to do. Pretty normal stuff.
Once we had a pool of choices, we shared with the group to consensus build on which place was going to be chosen. From there, we booked each place and rotated between people to book the place. This allowed us to spread the cost a bit and for people to get a chance to dump some miles or points or whatever on their credit cards.
In YAMMMMMMMMM, we all stayed in a hotel, HOTEL NAME, which I cannot recommend enough. We wanted to do this in order to use their POOOOOOOOOOL and access to the town’s public baths. I’ll get to more about HOTEL NAME in a moment. In second leg of Tokyo, our group split up some. A couple people went to Disney for two days, another couple wanted to explore on their own, and the rest of us all got seperate hotel rooms at an APA Hotel in Asakusa.
Ok, so about HOTEL NAME. Top rating for me. Five out of five, ten out ten, all the stars, or whatever you got, they get them. Someone left a wallet and it was found right after we boarded their shuttle to the train station. The hotel manager drove out to the station to return it in person before we got on our train. It was tremendous of them to have done so. My dumb ass left a battery pack charging and in the wall plug and they worked with me to send to me via a parcel service before I left Japan. So again, cannot recommend them enough.
Only Changes
There are not many things I think I would change for future trips like this. There are a couple, but nothing too major.
I think an Air BnB for nine is a lot and probably would have invested more time in trying to find a better mix of places with western-style beds. I do not think many people were into the beds for more than a night or two. I had not thought to put that in the criteria for places. I also would have got a bigger place in Osaka. It wasn’t a bad place by any means, but everyone was sort of on top of each other when at the place. I always like the theory of places you’re staying are really just for sleeping and cleaning up.
I may have skipped out on the day trip to Kobe we took while in Kyoto. It was pretty fun, but it put another day of travel into the mix in order to go catch a NJPW show in Kobe. We walked around Kobe some and saw the show, but I never really felt like I got to see much of Kobe and know that there was not a lot of time in Kyoto and we missed out on a lot of neat things there.
Like I said, there isn’t much I’d change. Everyone on the trip was fun to be around. My friend had great ideas for planning that I will absolutely steal for use in the future.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, this was a trip I would take again. I will post more details about what we did in each place in future posts. I really wanted to go over the how did we get there aspect of this trip.
My friend did a stellar job on the planning. It was cool to see the excitement for going in her questions or when she needed to explain something to me. Happy to copilot any trip in the future she wants to go on with her again.
