Hey guys, it's Kim Dao here. Welcome back to my channel.
Two weeks ago, I made a video on what I missed about Japan
and I mentioned that I stopped making Japan travel videos
for a while just because I thought it wasn't the right time
to do it with everything going on.
So a lot of you guys recently
have asked me to do some again.
And whilst I cannot travel to Japan right now,
I can still talk about my experiences.
I really miss doing chilled out videos like this
where I just sit down and talk to you guys.
And I think it got to the point
where I was constantly trying
to push out all these crazy big Japan videos
that would take me months to edit,
and I kinda stress myself out too much.
So I really want to maybe make this a weekly thing
where I just pick a topic that is perhaps Japan related
or anything really.
I made a post on my Instagram story
and asked you guys to send me questions
that are Japan travel related,
and I've got some really good ones.
There was one that I picked out,
which I thought would be really interesting to talk about.
Can you travel to Japan on a low budget?
The answer?
Absolutely.
And I'm going to tell you guys how I did that today.
So 10 years ago, I went to Japan for the very first time.
Man, I feel old.
I was 20 years old back then and I didn't have much money.
I was still a full-time student working part-time jobs
in fast food, retail,
the usual part time jobs to save money.
Going to Japan was a dream for me back then.
And I always wanted to go
ever since I was like 14 years old.
If you want to find out how I saved money
to travel to Japan,
you can watch my "How I Saved Money" video
I made like two years ago.
But in today's video,
I'm going to focus on budget trips.
Now keep in mind,
times have changed and are always changing,
so what I experienced back then, might not be the case now.
And also even though I make a lot of videos about Japan
and have been there many times,
I don't know everything about Japan.
So if you're planning a trip or are planning to move there,
sure you can listen to some of the tips I will give you,
but it's also very important
to do your own research as well.
So I'm going to give you guys like approximate numbers
on what I spent when I traveled on these trips
to give you guys a better idea
on how much you want to budget for your trip.
My very first trip was in 2010
and it was a six-week trip to Japan.
Overall for everything, I spent about $5,000.
Flights, food, accommodation, transport,
shopping, everything.
First off, flights.
You can find cheap flights to Japan.
And as years went on, flights actually got cheaper
because of all the competition with different airlines.
Of course right now,
it's not the right time to be looking at flights
but when we can, these are my tips.
So subscribe to emails from airlines,
they will notify you when there is a sale.
I usually like using Google Flights.
That way you can see a whole different range
of airlines, different routes,
how much more it will cost if I took a certain route
or if I wanted to visit multiple countries,
it's a really good way to get variety of different options.
From there, I will play around with dates.
It will tell you when the prices are most expensive.
There are always times that are more expensive than others,
such as Easter, Christmas or school holidays.
I've had times where I paid only maybe 600 to $800
for a flight to Japan on Singapore Airlines,
which is pretty good, that's return from Australia.
And there are even cheaper flights
if you choose to fly with Jetstar or Air Asia.
I haven't flown with them before to Japan
but I've seen deals where you pay for any one flight
and you get another flight for free.
So you can take someone with you
and you each can pay half the price of a ticket.
I've seen some where you only pay for a flight one-way
and get the return free.
Deals like that come up all the time,
so you just have to keep an eye on them
and also read terms and conditions.
Next is accommodation.
So for accommodation,
yeah, there are ways where you can save a lot.
My first trip to Japan, I was being so cheap.
I remember that I didn't want
to spend more than $25 a night on accommodation.
And of course, the only way to get a price that cheap
is to stay in youth hostels.
We were traveling in a group of five people at the time,
and usually if you book in a group,
you get better discounts
as you would share a room with bunk beds.
The hostels we stayed in, some were really good,
some were just terrible,
so you get what you pay for I guess.
One of the hostels I remember,
we had to share a bathroom with like 10 people.
We would be fighting for the showers every day
with another group.
And also I remember the hot water wouldn't work sometimes
and this was in the middle of winter
so we took like cold showers.
We all shared one room five of us
and we had two bunk beds and one single bed.
The place was a little bit dirty,
though I think we paid like $22 a person a night there,
which is really cheap.
And that was in Tokyo.
In Osaka, I remember that we stayed in a hostel
that unfortunately has closed down now,
but it was run by a family.
I remember paying around $22 a night for that place as well.
Same deal, we shared a bedroom
but they had a lot of bathrooms available.
Very clean and the family that owned the place was amazing.
You just have to do a lot of research,
read reviews on multiple websites if you're picky,
but back then, there wasn't much information
because this was like 10 years ago.
So these days there is a lot more out there.
Now back then, Airbnb wasn't really a thing
but that is something to consider,
especially if you are traveling in a group.
I used Airbnb in Tokyo like two years ago
when we were traveling in a group of four.
I can't remember exactly how much it costs
but I think it was like maybe 40 to $50 a night.
So more expensive,
but it was a lot more spacious, private and convenient.
You can also get cheaper budget hotels as well.
I've stayed in some
where you only pay like 50 to 75 a night.
And it depends on the area you want to stay in obviously.
If you want to stay in the middle of Shibuya or Shinjuku,
it's going to be harder to find something under $100 a night
but you just have to research.
I can maybe go on into more detail
on how to pick accommodation for Japan in another video.
Yeah, there's a lot of information,
but you can definitely cut costs with hotels as well.
You just have to think of what you value more,
convenience, luxury or price.
When I first traveled to Japan,
the only thing I cared about was price,
so obviously I sacrifice convenience and luxury.
I was just a student traveling
and I had all the time in the world.
Nowadays, I care much more about time,
so I would rather stay in a place that is convenient
and that is somewhat decent.
Like I don't need a five-star hotel,
but I do need it to be comfortable enough for me.
So since I'm sacrificing price,
I would probably be paying like 150 to $200 a night
for a room, which actually isn't that bad.
Next is food.
Now I know some people are gonna get so mad at me for this
because yeah, I understand,
when you go to a different country,
you want to experience
as much of the food and culture as possible.
Now I wanted to save money so bad.
And also because I was so scared of running out of money,
I would try and limit myself to only spend $10 per meal.
And of course because the budget is quite low,
I would stick to buying convenience store food,
which I mean at the time was great,
it was cheap, it filled me up.
I still managed to enjoy some authentic Japanese food
on my first trip
but I remember I didn't go to any fancy restaurants.
Well, let's be honest, I'm not really a foodie,
I have very simple tastes.
So yeah, when I was budgeting on food,
I think I probably only spent 20 to $30 a day on it.
I also ate a lot of Japanese fast food chains
like Matsuya, Sukiya, Yoshinoya.
I think I could get a full meal for just like $5 there.
Now when you go to Japan,
I don't recommend you living off convenience store food
because it's not the healthiest
and there is so much more better food options out there.
But if you got a budget, you got a budget.
The great thing about Japan is that a lot of restaurants,
outside of it, they usually have the plastic food samples
so you can see what you'll be getting
when you order your meal.
If you are conscious about how much you're spending on food,
just check the menus before you go into a restaurant
or even look it up online,
sometimes they upload the menu as well.
Next, transport.
There is a lot I can say about this,
but I'll try and keep it short.
So trains in Japan, yes are convenient, but it's not cheap.
There have been times where I was so cheap
that I didn't want to pay for the train so I just walked.
It's free and you get exercise.
Of course, if you're in Japan on like a one-week trip
and you have limited time, you want to use your time wisely.
So yeah, you probably should take the train
if you want to see lots of places.
Some ways you can save money on trains
is by buying a one-day pass.
I know the metro does this
where you pay like $5 for a ticket
and you can use it as many times as you want all day
as long as you're only using the metro.
So plan your trip around that
so you are only using the metro line.
Something I quickly wanna say
is that if you are changing train companies,
it actually cost quite a bit of money.
So for example,
if you are taking the JR train to one station
and then you have to transfer to a metro,
you have to pay the minimum amount for each company,
which is I think like maybe 200 yen, so around $2 each,
so it might cost you like $4.
But if you decide to stick to just JR for example,
and maybe it drops you off
at a train station a little bit more further out,
it might cost you like half the price.
So just use Google Maps seriously,
it tells you like how much it's going to cost.
It's going to tell you
how far you have to walk, it's amazing.
Something else I want to talk about quickly is,
what if you want to go between different cities,
for example, Tokyo to Osaka.
So by bullet train, it's about two and a half hours
and it's around $140 one-way.
A return trip is $280, ouch.
That is the most convenient way and fastest way.
Another way you can go is by flying over.
You can actually get some pretty cheap flights
and I remember I paid around $100 for a return flight
between Tokyo and Osaka.
But keep in mind, if you're flying,
you have to get to the airport.
Most budget flights leave from Narita Airport,
so going from Tokyo to Narita Airport
is going to cost you like 20 to $30 on the train.
Plus you have to get there earlier to check in
so there's a bit of stress there.
When you land in Osaka,
most flights land at Kansai International Airport,
which is about an hour away from Osaka city.
It costs about $30 to get into the city by train,
so that's like $60 you spent on trains.
And then the return trip is the same
so that's like $120 on just trains if you're flying.
Add that to the flight ticket and that's like $220.
Still cheaper than the bullet train,
but you're using up so much more time.
So once again, it's up to you.
You can ask yourself, do you prefer to save money or time?
I've flown between Tokyo and Osaka multiple times
when I was trying to save money and yeah,
it definitely did help because it adds up.
Now another way to travel between Tokyo or Osaka is by bus.
This is the cheapest way.
I took the night bus from Shinjuku Station to Osaka once
and I'm never doing it again.
It was around $50 one-way, takes about eight hours,
you leave at nighttime,
and you arrive at Osaka station
at like five to 6 a.m. in the morning.
Such a painful trip because they stop like every hour
in case people need to go to the toilet.
And every time they do, they make an announcement,
waking up everyone on the bus.
If you can handle that, great, I definitely couldn't.
Though I also took the bus from Osaka to Hiroshima once
and I believe that only cost me like $30.
That bus actually wasn't too bad
because they had like one of those head covers
so you can block out light and people.
I think that was called the Willa Express bus.
So look up the bus companies,
there are quite a lot of them out there.
Now if you are planning on going
to lots of cities in one week, get the JR pass.
And this question I get asked all the time.
Should I get a JR pass?
And my answer is always,
I don't know, where do you plan to go?
Do your research.
I know people who just bought a JR pass
and only went from Tokyo to Osaka on the bullet train
and I'm like, why?
For a bullet train to go from Tokyo to Osaka, it's $140.
A JR pass is $300.
Why would you pay $300 when the train ticket's only $140?
It doesn't make sense.
I also get asked, I plan to stay in Tokyo all the time,
should I Get a JR pass?
Why?
Look at the train ticket prices.
Are you going to spend $300 in a week in Tokyo?
Most likely not.
Just write down a list of places
where you plan to visit in Japan,
then look up the prices to see how much it would cost
to get to each place.
And then yeah, figure it out from there
if you want a JR pass or not.
And let me tell, you most of the time is not worth it.
I have been to Japan so many times
and I have only gotten a JR pass twice in 10 years.
The last thing I wanna talk about is shopping.
So all right, you wanna shop in Japan,
that really depends on how much money you want to spend.
I don't really have many tips on shopping in Japan
besides obvious look for sales.
You can get tax free which is pretty cool.
In most stores, if you spend over a certain amount,
usually it's like 50 to $100, you can get tax free
if you present your passport with your tourist visa inside.
You get 10% off your purchase,
you actually get the money back on the spot
which is awesome.
So my trips when I went to Japan earlier on,
the first trip like I said,
it was six weeks and I spent about $5,000 Australian.
My second and third trip to Japan,
I remember I spent about a month in Japan
and for everything together,
I think I spent around two and a half to $3,000.
You can definitely go to Japan
and experience it, have fun on a budget.
There are many things you can do for free as well.
So if you guys want me to make a video about that,
maybe I can.
But yeah, those are pretty much all the tips I have
for budgeting on a trip.
So thank you so much guys for watching.
Just before I end this video,
I just want to quickly address something.
So you guys might be a bit confused
on what's happened on my channel a few days ago
with a huge amount of new subscribers coming in,
so I thought I owe everyone an explanation.
With my YouTube, a lot of my videos get re-uploaded
by other channels without my permission.
Now videos take a long time to make
and the video that gets re-uploaded the most on my channel
is "100 Things To Do in Tokyo."
It took me like four years to film, one year to edit.
I had to color grade the footage, which took a long time.
It cost a lot of money to make that as well
because I had to pay for everything in that video.
So whenever YouTube detects
that a channel has used my video without permission,
I take it down.
And you can do it quite easily
because you can do it all in one go.
As you can see, I have had to take down over 500 videos
and it happens really often.
Sometimes I will receive an angry response
from the channel owner saying,
how dare I take down the video,
when literally they just re-uploaded my whole entire video
on their channel claiming it as their own.
But recently, one channel, Top De Impacto, emailed me
and he was being so nice.
Actually, he was the first person
who was really nice about this,
that's why it caught my attention.
He used parts of my "100 Things To Do in Tokyo" video
and he apologized for his mistake,
he was being very sincere about it.
So of course as human beings, we all make mistakes.
And he owned up to it, he said sorry, and I forgave him.
He was like a really nice guy and was really respectful
and I love that.
He received one strike so he asked if I could retract it
and said he could recommend my channel to his audience
and I was like, sure okay.
I sent off an email to YouTube to retract the claim,
and he encouraged his audience to subscribe.
So that's why there's a huge influx
of viewers coming from his channel,
which I'm so grateful for.
So thank you so much, Gabriel,
I did not expect you to do that.
Like I actually thought
that you were just going to do a quick mention
at the end of the video and I was totally okay with that.
He even said if he visits Japan or Australia,
he can bring some gifts from Mexico,
which I thought was so sweet.
I've always wanted to visit Mexico too.
So maybe one day I can also bring you gifts
from Australia and Japan.
But yeah, that's all I wanted to say today.
Thank you so much everyone for watching.
I really hope you all enjoyed it.
Please thumbs up if you did enjoy.
Subscribe to my channel if you haven't done so yet.
Follow me on my blogging channel
if you wanna see what I get up to in my everyday life.
I also have a gaming channel
where I make Animal Crossing videos
if you're interested in that.
Follow me on all my social media
which will be linked down below.
And if you guys have any questions relating to Japan travel,
moving to Japan or, I know, just life advice in general,
then let me know in the comment box down below
and I will try and film these videos weekly for you.
Anyway, thank you once again for watching
and I'll see you guys in the next video.
Bye guys.