Yes, Japan is one of the easiest countries in Asia to backpack on your own, because trains run to the minute and station signs, ticket machines and announcements are in English in every major city.
Budget travelers manage on ¥7,000 to 11,000 (US$45 to 75) a day: hostel dorms cost ¥3,000 to 5,000, and a convenience store or noodle-shop meal runs ¥500 to 1,000. A rechargeable IC card such as Suica or ICOCA covers local trains, buses and even vending machines. English thins out in rural areas like the Kiso Valley or Shirakawa-go, so a translation app helps with menus, but staff are patient and solo travelers face very little hassle.
Two weeks is the ideal length for a first trip to Japan, enough for Tokyo, Kyoto and a mountain stop without rushing.
With 7 days, stay in Kansai: 4 nights in
Kyoto with a Nara day trip, then 2 nights in
Osaka with a side trip to Himeji. With 14 days, start with 4 nights in
Tokyo and add Hakone, Takayama and Kanazawa on the way to Kyoto; Tokyo to Kyoto is 2 hours and 15 minutes by shinkansen. Three weeks lets you continue west to
Hiroshima, Naoshima and Fukuoka. Hokkaido and Okinawa each need their own 5 to 7 days plus a flight.
You can travel nearly all of Japan without a car, since bullet trains, limited expresses and buses reach every city and most mountain towns.
Tokyo to Kyoto takes 2 hours and 15 minutes on the Nozomi shinkansen for about ¥14,000 (US$95), while overnight highway buses do the same run in about 8 hours for ¥4,000 to 10,000. A 7-day JR Pass costs ¥50,000 (about US$330) and only pays off if you cover Tokyo to Hiroshima and back within that week. Kyoto to Nara is 45 minutes by local train for under ¥1,000. A rental car only makes sense in rural Hokkaido, such as Shiretoko, or on Okinawa’s main island.
The essential stops in Japan are
Tokyo and
Kyoto, followed by Hiroshima with Miyajima, Nara and the Mount Fuji area.
Give Tokyo 3 to 4 days for Senso-ji, Meiji Jingu and its neighborhoods, and Kyoto 3 to 4 days for
Fushimi Inari Taisha, Kiyomizu-dera and Kinkaku-ji.
Nara works as a day trip, 45 minutes from Kyoto.
Himeji-jo, the best surviving original castle, is about 1 hour from Osaka by train.
Hiroshima needs 2 days, one for the Peace Memorial Museum (¥200) and one for the floating torii on Miyajima, a 10-minute ferry ride. For Fuji views, stay 1 to 2 nights in Hakone or Fujiyoshida.
If your time in Japan is short, skip the theme parks first: Tokyo DisneySea and Universal Studios Japan each eat a full day and ¥8,000 to 11,000 (US$55 to 75) per ticket.
Pass on paid observation decks like
Tokyo Skytree as well; the free 45th-floor observatory at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku gives a similar view.
Okinawa and
Sapporo both require a flight from Tokyo (about 1.5 hours to Sapporo, 2.5 hours to Okinawa), so leave them for a second trip unless beaches or snow are the reason you came. Osaka needs only 1 to 2 nights, since Kyoto is 15 to 30 minutes away, and Nara fits into a single day trip rather than an overnight stay.
Yes, our itinerary-planner does exactly that. Set your trip length in days, give your interests and travel style, optionally give start- and end location and/or some mandatory stops you would like to include and the itinerary planner creates your personalized routes for Japan in seconds. Try it out!
Try the itinerary plannerv2.webp){kind=logo}
Best Backpacking
