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All the Logistical Info You Need to Travel to Tokyo

Here’s everything I’ve learned in my three months here

Martin Vidal
Japonica Publication
9 min readFeb 14, 2025

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Photo by Aleksandr Pasaric on Pexels

The first four items are good for everyone, but most of the list is really only applicable to travelers who will be staying for more than a couple weeks.

Public Transportation

I made a mistake from the moment I landed in Tokyo. I had a hotel booked for the first three days (didn’t want to commit to longer to keep my itinerary flexible), and I loved how inexpensive the hotel was, especially considering the quality. However, I spent more money getting from the airport to my hotel than I did on my actual stay there!

A lot of times when people fly into “Tokyo”, they’re not flying into Tokyo at all. The two main airports here are Haneda and Narita. Narita airport shows up as if it’s in Tokyo, but it’s actually about a two-hour train ride away.

If you’re like me and you’re coming from far away and can’t sleep on a plane, then when you arrive in Japan after a roughly thirteen-hour flight you’re only half-conscious. Trying to figure out the trains for the first time in that condition was a near impossibility, which is how I ended up taking a taxi that cost $200.

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Japonica Publication
Japonica Publication

Published in Japonica Publication

Japonica: the publication for everything Japan: culture, life, business, language, travel, food, and everything else.

Martin Vidal
Martin Vidal

Written by Martin Vidal

I put the “me” in Medium. Like books? Check mine out at martinvidal.co

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