When offering advice, I try really hard to actually give advice that’s suited for the person I’m giving it to. I make an extra effort to do this, because I know that I have a tendency to think that my way is the best way for everyone, and to just advocate my way of doing things. But that effort to tailor advice goes out the window when I’m giving suggestions on where to travel to. My answer is almost always Japan.
I was thinking about this a couple days ago, as I found myself recommending Japan for the billionth time, and I realized that there are some interesting properties of Japan that make it a really ideal place to travel to, especially for people who want something more than a typical vacation, but don’t know where to go.
1. It’s Extraordinarily Interesting
Of all the places I’ve been, Japan is one of the most interesting. What makes Japan so interesting is that it’s very different from anywhere else, mostly because it’s so resistant to direct outside influence. If some external trend or business makes it to Japan, it doesn’t arrive unscathed; it’s first transformed into a thoroughly Japanese experience.
Most of what I like about traveling is exposure to different cultures, ideas, and perspectives. Japan has that all in spades. Japanese culture is a strange blend of old tradition and cutting edge trends that are fused in a way that only the Japanese could accomplish. In a day you can easily see an old temple occupied by women in kimonos, and then for dinner have sushi served to you by robots. Yeah, robot sushi.
2. It’s Easier to Get Around Than You Think
Japan intimidates a lot of people because the language is so foreign. While you shouldn’t expect to be able to read or understand any Japanese, unlike Spanish, where you could maybe cobble a few things together, Japan is still very easy to cope with. In Tokyo there’s enough English on all of the signs, particularly the all-important subway signs, that you will have an easy time. Many people speak English, or at least bits of English, making it possible to communicate at any hotel or restaurant.
But the ace in the hole for accessibility is the insane level of hospitality that most Japanese people show. If someone detects that you may possibly need help, there’s an excellent chance that they will take it upon themselves to figure out exactly how to resolve your situation. The first night I was in Tokyo, a woman noticed that we were looking for something, and then proceeded to sprint around the train station, clicking away in her high heels, trying to find the right office for us. When we found it was closed, she bowed, apologized, and wrote down information for us to come back the following day.
3. It’s Safer Than… Anywhere
As far as I can tell, Japan has roughly zero violent crime. It’s one of very few cities where I would happily encourage my sister to walk around at night by herself, knowing that no matter where she went, she wouldn’t have any trouble. You could have a thousand dollars hanging halfway out of your pocket, and no one would try to steal it. You could leave your laptop in a corner of a train station and it would almost certainly still be there hours later.
All of this means that you can get lost, wander around, and not worry about anything at all. It’s pretty amazing.
4. It can be very cheap
Tokyo has the reputation of being a really expensive city. There is certainly truth to that, too– if you want to spend thousands of dollars per day on your trip, you could do that with ease. But you can just as easily spend next to nothing. A good meal can be had for under ten dollars. A subsistence level meal can be had for a third of that. There’s a huge range of places you can stay, including capsule hotels for $30-40 or Manga Cafes for $20. Those places will be small, but they’ll also be comfortable, clean, and fun.
This huge range in cost allows you to spend money on things that matter to you, and save when it comes to other things. There are also some incredible values, like a fantastic sushi place where $20 will pretty much fill you up with very high quality sushi from the local fish market.
5. It has the Almighty Train Pass
The subways in Japan are around the same price as subways anywhere, but the inter-city trains, especially the bullet trains, can be very expensive. Going back and forth between Tokyo and Kyoto, a manageable day trip, costs around three hundred dollars.
But… if you’re a foreigner, and you buy it in advance, you can get a train pass for less than three hundred dollars that grants you unlimited use of pretty much all of the trains in the entire country. You can go all the way up to Sapporo, all the way down to Kagoshima, and everywhere in between. On average I use $1500 to $2000 worth of tickets every time I get this pass (which is every time I go to Japan).
If you go outside of the major cities (or to Osaka, for some reason), you’ll find English in shorter supply than in Tokyo. However, given how safe Japan is and how helpful everyone is, you should still be able to manage pretty easily.
I try to go to a lot of new places (I’m in Bucharest right now!), but Japan is the one place I keep going back to, almost every single year since 2007. The things on this list, plus many others, make it my favorite place to go, and my favorite place to show to other people. If you’re looking for a place to go, even if Japan holds no special appeal to you, consider it!
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Photo is an old one from my second or third trip of Ginza Station’s sign. See all the English?
I was really psyched to see so many people get into the Bitcoin thing from last post. I almost didn’t post it because I thought it might be too far from usual topics to be of wide interest. Glad I was wrong. Also, thanks to the people who sent me bitcoin!
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