£800 spending money for 2 weeks in Japan?
 

So, i'll be going with a friend to Japan for 2 weeks on April 12th. The essentials are pre-paid (14 day JR pass, return flight, accomodation: 2 weeks at the Shinjuku Washington hotel and museum tickets). Absolute musts: Visit Yakushima island, climb Mt. Fuji, tour Hokkaido, Kyoto, Cherry Blossom Festival and check out some clubs in Tokyo. Question is, will I be able to cover all of this with as little as £800? I intend on spending as little as possible on food (preferably inexpensive but nutritional foods), and apparently Shinjuku is a great place to eat on a budget, which is of course very useful. My greatest concerns are the cost of ferries and having to potentially stay in youth hostels (although we'll make every attempt to sleep for "free"). Have to admit i've done little in the way of route planning and learning the language, and with a week left the pressure is on!

Luggage: 70 Litre Rucksack, sleeping bag, digital camera with 10gb memory and plenty of batteries, laptop, UK to Japanese plug converter, a compass, Lonely Planet phrasebook, mobile phone, hiking boots and a hold-all filled with various clothing.

Any advice at all would be sincerely appreciated! :vsign:

I don't know how much all of your plans will cost but I just got back from 2 and a half weeks staying in Nagoya.

I didn't travel too much, and when I did I was navigating in the car with a friend.

I ate out a few times but the majority of the time I got food from the supermarket.

I used Manga cafes for the internet quite a lot too.

I took £500 worth of yen over with me and I can safely say that if I didn't take the shinkansen to Tokyo and if I didn't take a taxi to the airport (I woke up late and missed the train) I could have easily survived on £500 and had money left over.

One thing I noticed is that you say you have a mobile phone in your luggage.

Is this a rental phone or Japanese phone that you have bought in the past?

I ask because your mobile phone won't work over there.
If you need a mobile you may need to rent one.

As I said I don't know how much this extra stuff you want to do will cost you, but maybe you can get an idea by knowing that I had more than enough money for 2 and a half weeks in Nagoya with £500 worth of yen.

I'm sure somebody will come in with a better answer soon though lol :)

You should be fine. I stayed in Shinjuku last year and yes there are TONS and TONS of places to eat. Your lunch sets run 800 - 900 Yen pretty much regardless of the place. Dinner sets are little more pricey. I mainly used lunch as my main meal.

Compass can't hurt but you'll have more then enough visual landmarks to help you get around and find your way.

There are signs with maps on them around which can help orient yourself. Just becareful as you can find ones that are reversed.

Thank you very much for the immediate response :)

It's interesting to know you managed to survive on £500 during your stay. I've been pressuring myself to get at least £1000 spending money and didn't realise it would be possible to survive on less. The ferry from Kagoshima to Yakushima should cost around 14.000 yen total, so i'm mostly concerned about the prices of other ferries we may need to take. The planes are just way too expensive. Regarding the phone - yeah unfortunately it's a Vodafone contract, I doubted it would work in Japan lol. Apparently renting one is a bit pricey, although I think we'll be alright without one.

How much was the taxi to the airport?

Once again, many thanks :)

Some great info there! Thank you :)

800-900 yen for lunch seems excellent. I'd gladly sacrifice those expensive restaurant meals to get by on simpler foods, and it seems stocking up on food for hiking isn't too pricey. Thanks for the tip about maps, i'll have to bare that in mind. Much appreciated :vsign:

I'm kind of confused that you say that you have paid for 2 weeks at the Shinjuku Washington hotel but are going to Hokkaido, Kyoto and Yakushima during your two week trip- how does that work? Hokkaido and Yakushima can't be done as day trips...

As far as I know, the ferry from Kagoshima to Yakushima is not covered by the JR pass, so unless you have paid for it already, I think that 800 pounds is not going to be enough. That would be a bare minimum for a 2 week trip without including Yakushima really. If you could bring 1000-1200 pounds you would have a lot more leeway.

Incidentally, you can get a big bowl of noodles for closer to 400-500 yen.

The main reason I was saying that someone would have a better answer is because I had no idea how much it would cost you to travel to all of these places you want to go.

Although you didn't ask about the shinkansen, taking that from Nagoya to Tokyo costs about 10,000 yen one way.
Then my taxi to the airport cost about 12,500 yen (I'll never wake up late again)

So all in all I could have survived quite well on just roughly £250 with the things I was doing (Assuming i took cheaper transport to Tokyo and didn't have to get a taxi to the airport), but I didn't really travel as much as you plan to, and like you said, you want to take the ferry etc.

As for phones, I have been looking into rental phones for my next trip because it was so difficult to stay in good contact with friends while I was over there without a phone.

One site which I found which I heard good things about was https://www.rentafonejapan.com/index.html
But I haven't used them and won't try to use them until my next trip.

If you say you won't really need a phone though you should be ok.
The only reason I should have got one was to arrange things with friends.

I can see how that would confuse you! The hotel was included within the package deal, although we don't intend on staying there EVERY night. We'll use it as kind of a "base camp". The intenton, particularly with regard to Yakushima and Hokkaido was to stay in youth hostels for a night or 2 at the very most, and take advantage of free accomodation where possible (mountain huts etc.). I'm pleased to say i've mustered up £1200 spending money, so as you said, we'll have a lot more leeway :)

I've done the route planning for Yakushima, and you're absolutely right - the JR pass doesn't cover the ferry. I'm expecting to pay around 14.000 yen return for a hydrofoil.

The JR pass covers the entire train journey:

Tokyo - Okoyama or Shin-Osaka - Hakata = 6 - 7 hours

Hakata - Shin-Yatsushiro roughly 100 minutes

Shin-Yatsushiro - Kagoshima: roughly 45 minutes

Ferry to Yakushima - 2 - 4 hours

We'll find a youth hostel upon arrival at Kagoshima, explore, sleep, explore some more, ferry to Yakushima, find a youth hostel in Yakushima, explore, ferry back to Kagoshima and a long train journey back to Shinjuku.

Still finalising Hokkaido..

Thanks for the tip about the noodles!

Thanks for the link! I'll most likely go through them if we decide to get phones. Isn't the Nagoya - Tokyo trip covered by the JR pass?

Hmm. Accommodation is limited in Yakushima, especially in the budget range, and getting around without a car is not easy, so I strongly recommend booking the youth hostel in advance. You would be in a bad situation if you arrived and found the youth hostel was full, and that kind of thing happens often in Japan. April is a popular time to visit Yakushima as well.

The Tokyo-Nagoya leg is definitely covered by the JR pass.