We may be changing our date to October to build up more PTO and take a few days extra (and be able to use a few over holidays, etc.) Thanks for the tip about Mt. Fuji!
2024 is solid, unless something major happens.
Like the upcoming impending Zombie Apocalypse?
1 Like
I went to Sapporo in the fall. Highly recommended -
1 Like
Second mention of Sapporo. Maybe we’ll end up trying to spend 1-2 overnights in that area. Thanks!
Bump. We are starting to get serious about planning, intending to go in early to mid November! Any recommendations are still very appreciated, I will be doing more research by this weekend.
1 Like
Oooh, November! You could go to the sumo tournament!
https://www.sumo.or.jp/EnTicket/year_schedule/
It’s in Fukuoka in November, Nov 10-24
2 Likes
Subscribed - we’re hoping to go in 2025.
1 Like
What is your trip duration?
I’m planning on taking the family this winter to Japan! We just received passports, so it’s getting close to be official. I will have kids with me, so I’m guessing my trip will look a lot different from yours.
One fun thing that we’ve found is that there’s a cup noodle museum where you can have your own custom cup noodle made: My CUPNOODLES Factory | CUPNOODLES MUSEUM OSAKA IKEDA Kids thought that looked like a great time.
We’re thinking about 10 nights, so tack on most of a day to travel each way and probably 2 PTO days to recover, looking at around 14 days total.
I keep varying on that. Originally we were going to do 7 nights. Now 10 is feeling too short, perhaps 12 if we’re going all that way is more reasonable.
We definitely want to go all-out, this may be our biggest vacation at least until future kiddo is grown enough to appreciate such things. I’m sure we’ll do Disney and perhaps Washington, D.C. and such, but we’re not taking a 6-year-old to Japan.
How long is the flight for you? Which seat class are you considering?
We’re going to South Africa this fall and it’s about the same flight duration for as a flight to Japan. We booked one step down from first class for the SA trip (Delta Premium Select) for a 15 hour flight. We’re willing to pay for first class (Delta One) to Japan, but hoping the DPS seats will be okay. The SA trip is the test case.
Haven’t decided yet. The price differential is so great that I prefer to just deal with perhaps Premium Economy, but spouse is interested in Business for a significant jump in cost. We could afford it, but I’d much rather deal with it for a short while.
Flights are looking in the area of 13 hours direct, up to 17 or so with 1 layover. I plan to drive a few hours to whatever regional hub we choose and fly out of there, rather than connect from our little airport.
I forget roughly where you’re located, but FYI, a few months ago when I was looking at business-class fares for a trip from the Hartford area to Tokyo, I found that it was MUCH, MUCH cheaper to fly from Montréal than from BOS/BDL/JFK/EWR.
I also seem to recall another common hack is to fly to some other east Asian airport, and then book a separate ticket from that airport into Tokyo.
I’m not sure whether there’s also savings to be had by flying into Osaka or some other Japanese airport.
Knowing my partner, they would prefer a direct flight or maybe 1 layover, but dependent on the savings and seeming reliability of a method like this, I’m not against it.
I’m not going to take another 8 hours of travel to save $600x2, but if I can take a 3-hour layover to save $1,500x2 I probably would.
1 Like
Understood. I want to say that I compared YUL-NRT to (BOS/BDL/JFK/EWR)-ICN and then ICN-(HND/NRT). With my wife, who has a disability, the longer drive to Montréal for a cheaper business class nonstop would be the easy call to make.
However, someone with different priorities might have found the routing through Seoul preferable, especially if an economy seat were acceptable for the Seoul-Tokyo leg (but still going for something comfortable for the long transpacific flight).
However both options were still sufficiently less expensive as to be far superior to booking (BOS/BDL/JFK/EWR)-(NRT/HND)
You picked a good time (end of 2024) to go because the Yen has now materially depreciated against the $$$.
Over 15% now (and 30% vs 2022)
I heard that on NPR, they gave a similar figure 
Just booked our first thing in Japan for November. The Ghibli Museum is only something like $10, but tickets are extremely limited and only drop at something like 3 AM on the 10th of each month for only the following month. Very possible we’d book everything and not be able to get tickets.
This tour company is linked on their website and says it guarantees access to the museum for $160, plus access to another museum and lunch. This was something that we knew might not happen, but was a top reason we wanted to go, so it’s worth an extra $300 for the two of us.
We’re starting to throw specific things at each other and write down actual plans. Planning to start for about 3-4 days in Tokyo, then might be spending a night in Nagoya to see the Ghibli Park (https://www.sunrise-tours.jp/en/plan/detail/230SUETJ001CG029S/).
Then likely over to Osaka, with a day trip to Nara. Things are still cooking, more details to come.
3 Likes
Mmm, Japanese food… It’ so good.
1 Like
maybe this is useful?