The Cost Breakdown of a 2-Week Trip through Japan

Two years ago for Christmas, I gifted Ian a round-trip flight to anywhere in the world. I had enough points saved up thanks to work travel. When I was laid off from my previous job in October, we quickly realized that my newfound time gave us the opportunity to do what we had been eager to do for a while; take an extended trip abroad.

This trip was, hands down, the most expensive trip I have ever taken in my life. Despite not having a job, finances were the last thing on my mind during this trip. We did our best to keep costs low while planning the trip, but stopped worrying once we were on the ground.

Total Cost for Two People for 14 Nights: $5,248.58

I don’t consider Japan to be a cheap place to travel, but $187 per person, per day, is a lot anywhere. I’m not including the points that I used to book the flights, but if I valued them at a cent per point, then our total trip cost was $6,648.58, or $237 per person, per day. Here’s the spending breakdown by category:

Yes, we ate a lot. We stopped at as many ramen bars as we could stomach, snacked between meals, and generally never avoided eating when the option was presented. It. Was. Glorious.

Hotels was one area I wish we could’ve kept costs lower, but the first week of Japan is an extremely expensive time to go. We landed on New Year’s Eve, and our first hotel was a shoebox for $150/night. Ian and I are used to small spaces, and this was small. The only way we could’ve gotten anything cheaper (AirBnb was just as pricey) was if we had opted for separate gender dorm sleeping. That wasn’t an option for us.

Thankfully, prices dropped as we left Tokyo and New Year’s behind. We did spend one very expensive night in Sapporo at an onsen, which cost $762 but included a gourmet buffet dinner and breakfast. It was exorbitant and wonderful in every way, primarily because that’s where Ian proposed.

The Extra Spending that Made the Trip Memorable

While eating, sleeping, and traveling of course made up the vast majority of our trip expenses, the memorable parts are what else we squeezed in.

My biggest purchase the entire trip was on a leather bag in Sendai. Walking around our Hotel, we came across a shop called Herz. It’s a leather goods workshop with a handful of locations around Japan, and Ian and I immediately fell in love with their products. I purchased a $30 coin purse our first trip there. On our last day in Sendai, we returned, because Ian really wanted to buy a wallet.

I managed to convince him not to (he really didn’t need one), but I walked out with a backpack that had caught my eye the first time we were in the store. After realizing that buying the backpack online would be $100 more than the price in-store, I couldn’t resist. 🙈

We also picked up a few household items. Wooden bowls, ornate chopsticks, and patterned hand towels all made it back to NYC in my carry-on. They’re a constant reminder of our amazing trip. If anything, I wish I had purchased more hand towels. They’re everywhere in Japan, and in more prints than you can imagine.

We Kept Our Itinerary Simple

Deciding where to go was probably the hardest part of this trip. Japan is Ian’s favorite country, and his first reaction was to hit as many stops as possible. The second half of 2018 was filled with non-stop traveling for me, so I wanted something slow-paced. A vacation instead of a trip, if you will. For 14 days, I capped our planning to three cities, although a day trip or two wasn’t out of the question.

It didn’t take long for us to settle on Sapporo/Hokkaido. Neither of us had done Japan in winter, and Ian is a sucker for snow and mountains. After that, Sendai was an easy enough decision. We looked at the map and picked a moderate-sized city between Tokyo and Sapporo. Voilà, a basic itinerary was created!

We stayed in three separate hotels in Sapporo and also flew back to Tokyo two days before we headed home. Three cities, six different hotels. This pace ended up being the right amount for us to feel relaxed but not bored.

There are many options for traveling between cities in Japan. We took the train north but flew south. Flying was significantly cheaper than train tickers – our flight from Sapporo to Tokyo was under $100 per person. However, the train was a great experience. Watching the scenery change from city to fields to mountains of snow was magical.

The Final Cost Difference

Not surprisingly, I did a little more shopping than Ian – the leather backpack I purchased definitely skewed spending in my direction. However, Ian also paid for our one-day snowboarding trip, and I of course covered our flights to/from Japan.

His final trip cost: $2,494.83
My final trip cost: $2,753.76 & 140K United points
OR $4,153.76 valuing each point as $0.01

It’s unlikely that Ian and I will be able to take a trip like this again in the near future. As much as I enjoyed traveling, what allowed me to do so (not having a regular job/income) isn’t an experience I want to repeat. If I could redo this whole trip, yes, there are a few places I would want to cut costs, but overall I’m really happy with how things turned out.