Christian only gets 10 vacation days a year, so that was our limit for weekday travel. We flew out on the morning of Saturday, January 11th, and landed in Japan the afternoon of January 12th. Our return flight left Tokyo in the evening on Saturday, January 25th, and we got back to New York the same day—time zones are wild! Altogether, we were gone for 15 days, but only about 12.5 were actual exploring days.

We’d been saving up for this trip for years and had a dedicated "Japan" travel fund ready to pull from as we booked everything. Originally, we planned for October or November 2024, but when my brother and sister-in-law wanted to join, we shifted to January 2025. They had to back out later, but we stuck with the dates since Christian’s 2024 vacation days were already spoken for by then. Luckily, we’d budgeted as if it were just us, so not splitting hotel costs wasn’t a big deal.

We decided to fly in and out of Tokyo instead of booking separate arrival and departure cities. We booked a nonstop flight with American Airlines (operated by JAL) from JFK to Haneda Airport. I’d been keeping an eye on prices for over a year with Google Flight alerts and manual checks, but booking always feels like a gamble no matter how much research you do. I kept seeing advice like "book your flights 6 months out!" or "50–100 days before departure," so it was tough to know what to trust. In the end, I just went with my gut.

We bought our tickets on November 4th, 2024—68 days before departure—for $926 each. Not bad for a 7,000-mile (almost) journey, but I’m still kicking myself because I could’ve saved $300 by booking a week earlier. Unfortunately, I was on a memorial trip for my best friend and wanted to wait until I was home to book. Luckily we did buy before the huge increase a couple days later so our timing was still okay. 

Our flight left New York at 10:00 AM and landed in Tokyo at 2:35 PM. I originally wanted a 12:45 AM departure with a 5:00 AM arrival to maximize our time, but that flight was more expensive. The later flight was a blessing—all we wanted to do was eat and crash when we arrived. For the return, we picked a 5:10 PM flight so we’d have one last morning in Tokyo for shopping and one last bowl of ramen. We landed back in New York at 4:30 PM the same day we left.

We’d been collecting Japan travel tips and locations for years, and both had lists of must-see spots. With only 12.5 days, we had to cut a few things—Hokkaido was the biggest one since it’s so far out. We’ll save that for next time. 😉

There are a couple of main routes tourists usually follow for visiting the most popular spots. The classic "Golden Route" takes you from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji, then to Kyoto, and finally Osaka. The "New Golden Route" also starts in Tokyo but heads north to Nagano, Takayama, and Kanazawa before following the coast down to Kyoto.

Since the cities on our wish list aligned more with the New Golden Route, we decided to keep Tokyo as our home base for the first half of the trip. After that, we followed the New Golden Route to Kyoto before looping back to Tokyo for our flight home. Here’s a quick overview of our itinerary:

We spent a lot of time at Tokyo Disney—more than most people would—but it was a huge priority for me. Next time, we will scale that back (even if I won’t want to!) We also ended up skipping Shirakawa-go while in Kanazawa because we were just too exhausted to deal with tight train and bus schedules.

Once we had our locations down I started saving locations of interest on a Google Map. This included things like shrines, stores to shop at, restaurants, basically anything we might want to do. The plan was to see the big stuff and as we had time for more activities we could look on the map to see what was nearby. Sadly we only got to go to a couple of the restaurants on my list because almost every time we walked up to a place there was a line. We even tried to beat everyone by going to get ramen at 9:30-ish AM and still had to wait 45 minutes to sit down! (But it was the best ramen we had on the trip.) That and Happy Pancake were the only real lines we waited in for food. Otherwise we tried to find places that we could just walk in, so that meant most of the places I had saved were out.

We stayed in a lot of different hotels with all the city-hopping. We wanted to stay at at least one traditional hotel (ryokan) and the rest could be whatever fit into the budget. Our goal was to stay under $200 per night on average for the "normal" hotels, and we landed around $165. I picked places close to the major train stations we'd be using to make things easier with luggage.

Tokyo Hotels: We bounced between a few spots and Tokyo the first half of the trip but I'll list all the hotels together.

Now for the fun accommodations! I couldn't go to Tokyo Disney and NOT stay at one of their gorgeous hotels. Our first night was spent just outside Tokyo Disneyland park, then we moved next to Tokyo DisneySea.

We originally planned a day trip to Mt. Fuji from Tokyo, but then Christian suggested, "Why not find a glamping spot with views?" and I was all in! We booked a 3-night hotel in Tokyo for the surrounding nights, so we only needed backpacks for our glamping adventure. It was totally worth not lugging our bags for just one night, since we’d be spending most of the time staring at the mountain and exploring the area. (Though, we didn’t do much exploring, but I’ll share more on that in my Mt. Fuji post.) We paid $300 for the stay, and it was absolutely worth it—we’d do it again in a heartbeat!

Next, we headed to Shibu Onsen to stay in a traditional Ryokan. We booked a room with a private open-air bath outside to enjoy the hot springs without strangers. Our stay included train station pickup, drop-off at the Snow Monkey Park the next morning, and both a traditional Japanese (or Western) dinner and breakfast, all for $465. It was our most expensive accommodation, but worth it for everything we got.

In Kanazawa, we broke our rule of staying near the train station to spend a couple of nights in a traditional Machiya House. It was a 17-minute walk by the most direct route, but Google Maps kept rerouting us through side streets, making it take longer. While we loved the house (and would still go back,) the walk with all our luggage was a bit of a pain, especially since we were starting to feel the effects of all the walking we’d been doing.

Our last major stop was in Kyoto. We used that as our base to also visit Nara and Osaka (as well as the newly opened Nintendo Museum!) This hotel had indoor hot springs but we didn't use them. We did take advantage of the buffet breakfast though!

• Nights 11 & 12: Onyado Nono Kyotoshichijo Natural Hot Springs (6 mins from Kyoto Station) 

Getting around by train is the way to go in Japan. Their JR Rail Pass used to be a great option for tourists, but they have since changed the pricing and it is no longer a guaranteed best option for train travel.  After using this calculator, I found the 14-day pass (¥80,000) cost way more than our estimated ¥51,000 for major trips. Even considering shorter trips on the subway we knew we would not reach ¥80,000 in value.

We used Suica cards set up in our Apple Wallets for local travel and loaded about ¥13,000 ($96) overall. For Shinkansen (bullet train) rides, we bought tickets directly at the station machines—it was easier than using booking apps for us. There are employees there to help if you get confused.

The Suica cards came in handy right at the airport because you can take a monorail and train directly into Tokyo. No rideshare or shuttle bus needed and way cheaper! 

One tip: If your luggage is oversized, you’ll need special tickets or could face limited storage. These tickets also need to be booked a little further in advance because there are not many (which you can still do at the station.) We kept our luggage light until the end when we bought a bigger suitcase for all our souvenirs.

Japan also has many specially themed trains. For our trip back to Kyoto from Nara we booked ourselves on the Aoniyoshi sightseeing limited express. It goes from Kyoto to Osaka but we only went half the route. It is a small low-capacity train that makes you feel like you're in an old movie. They even had purple themed snacks available to match the train. I recommend seeing if there are any special trains on the routes you will be traveling.