Aw, thanks! I hope you have a great time too!
I'm female, so not worried about random cute girls. Yes, I have all my lodging booked- I deliberately picked a place in Tokyo that I could ditch if I found DL lodging. I like hostels and found a kyoto one that looks pretty great. Life long west coast kid so we do not think about natural disasters. Mount Rainier is adorable and harmless and tsunamis are just excited waves and there is no such thing as a fault line. That shaking? Oh that must be the house settling. Yup. Yup. Denial is the only way to stay sane.
How many days do you recommend for a first timer? I arrive at 5am on the 10th- I don't sleep all that well on planes, but I usually try to stay awake and I've gotten the general idea that Japanese don't allow early checkin any way because it's a "rule". So I was considering buying a 4 day ticket rather than a three day ticket and just getting some extra park time in. Wouldn't normally do it, but it sounds better than exploring Tokyo sleep deprived. Also TDL is much cheaper than the American parks. Do hotels generally store luggage? Or are there lockers at Maihama station?
Also wondered about pocket wifi. Have you used that before? If so, where did you pick it up?
Ooops, sorry for making the assumption you might be male. Yeah for solo women travelers! I was a solo female traveler most of my trips to Japan. Heck, even one time my husband joined me, I spent the first week solo. Seriously, of all the places you can go, I think Japan is one of the best for solo women. They even have women only floors at many business hotels and even some hostels.
I've been in Japan for some quakes. The largest was this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Chūetsu_earthquake
I still remember it very clearly because I didn't realize what was happening at first and because I saw the ground literally rolling. I do worry about seismic activity in Japan, not volcanoes so much, since they usually give decent warning and I'm not climbing to the top of any mountains this trip.
My first trip I did 10. I was young, shy, knew no Japanese and had really only done limited things for myself. By the next trip I was doing 2 weeks. I did 10 days my first trip with my daughter last year and by the end I was regretting we were not doing 2 weeks. I am sure at the end of this 2 week trip, I am going to regret not doing 3 weeks lol There is a lot you can see and do. I do like solo travel but sometimes I do get lonely.
I don't know about coming from the West Coast, but from the East, I have learned the hard way, make sure you spend as much time as possible (preferably to at least 9:00 pm!) awake and don't skip meals. My first few trips I would arrive in Tokyo around 5-6 pass out and wake up at 2:00 am famished with nothing open. I forgot that rule last trip and even worse my daughter woke up at 2:00 am. It made our first full day of touring miserable. I am hoping that doing TDR first will help with that and keep her awake. I am going to do 3 days of tickets, even though we are arriving late our first day. I am also doing park hopper because I am worried about how interesting Sea will be for her. Are you flying into Haneda or Narita? I always seem stuck with flights arriving in Narita at 2-4 in the afternoon. ~.~
Most hotels will store luggage the day of arrival and the day of departure. "Fancier" places will store longer, though usually they are storing because you sent your suitcases by takyuubin. So I am leaving Kyoto on a Wednesday and sending my big bags via takyuubin to my hotel in Tokyo for when I arrive on Friday. I am not worried about the hotel holding my bags until I arrive because that is pretty normal. Hostels might have different rules. I have never stayed in one. The closest I have ever done is the the "Welcome Inn" "ryokan" in Kyoto and the classic Kimi "ryokan" in Tokyo. The Kimi use to be the big budget place to stay in Tokyo. It's quite pleasant, I just prefer private bathrooms. I'm a lot older than during my first trip to Japan now.
For your hostel in Kyoto, just make sure if you need to get there by bus that you don't have a suitcase or bag bigger than a medium sized backpack. Kyoto City buses are incredibly crowded and incredibly narrow. After that first trip, I stopped staying places only accessible by bus. It's my one big rule. Personally, if I was you, I would just see how much more it was for a business hotel vs the hostel. I would also look on a few sites. Again, I can't imagine a hotel refusing a Rakuten reservation. Sometimes you can get better rates on TriVaGo or Agoda or Booking, but sometimes the rates on Rakuten and Japanican are the best. You just have to compare. I use to love the APA Horikawa Eki dori (short walk to Kyoto station and had a public bath and the APA Kyoto ekimae (literally across the street from Kyoto Station) I use to book them for 5000-7000 yen a night. I've seen some mediocre reviews for them, but most seem to be people who had unrealistic expectations on room size. I think one problem is technically the semi-double rooms for 2 people are the same size as single rooms, they just have a bigger bed. These are the sort of places I wouldn't recommend for a family, but I would recommend for a single on their own. I kept getting $100-$120 at the Mitsuis when I was booking this trip, and I'm paying for two people, they might also have some good deals as a single. I think the Mitsuis and the Royal Park are mostly non-smoking.the Ms. might be as well. I might have stayed there at one point. I've stayed in a lot of different places in Tokyo and Kyoto.
For Hakone, if you arrive before 1, you can pay to same day send your bags to many hotels/ryokan. It depends on where you are staying. That is another place I would not want to take a larger bag on a bus.
I've never done pocket WiFi. I use to rent a Japanese cell phone because it was easy. Now I... use my cell phone. I'm on a pay as you go phone service and my phone worked (mostly) last June in Japan. My bill for the month was only about $40-50 total and that included calling my husband and mother ( we were planning a trip to WDW for Sept) several times, and downloading some apps onto my cell and using GPS a few times for help walking around Kyoto. The only problem I had was I would text some of my Japanese friends and I would think they received the texts, but they had not. I could call them no problem, it was just texts and I could text people in the US just fine. I am more than likely just using my phone again like that, since it worked so well before.
@Flossbolna, I hope you enjoy your trip as well! I can't believe how soon all of our trips are!
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