Closet Fashionista

We've finally made it to my last Japan recap! On our last full day we spent the morning with some adorable bowing deer in Nara and visiting Todai-ji Temple. If this were the beginning of the trip we would have made more of an effort to visit other areas of Nara, but as we were on day 13 (our last full day) we didn't have it in us to walk too much.

Posts for each city:

On our second day in Kyoto we spent the first couple hours of the day getting to and exploring Fushimi Inari Shrine, then we hopped back on the train to Osaka. We got on the train at Fushimi Inari Station and arrived at our first stop in Osaka at 11:03am!

Christian and I aren't into nightlife so we were there for the food, shopping and sights! I was on the hunt for my designer bag treat and Christian wanted to buy a bunch of vintage games. He also had a very specific snack in mind for our visit to Dotonbori Street. We walked 9.4 miles this day, phew!

Our last major stop was in Kyoto! We decided to stay here for 2 nights and do a half day in Osaka rather than staying in both spots. We had a day and a half to see the highlights of Kyoto and I think we did a pretty good job for being super tired at the tail end of the trip. I wish we had more time but there were so many places we wanted to try and see that sacrifices had to be made. If (when, if Christian has his way) we get back I'm sure we'll spend some more time in Kyoto before checking out other new spots.

Posts for each city:

Our next stop in Japan was Kanazawa. It's known for well-preserved Edo-era districts, Samurai and the fish market - Omicho Market. It's gaining more popularity amongst tourists but a lot of people pass it by for the major spots. We decided to spend 2 nights here in a traditional machiya house so we had time to take in the sights leisurely.

There was a nice mix of sightseeing and shopping during our 2 days of exploring, but we did way more walking than we planned, read on to find out why, ha ha. On our last night I did a face mask that we got from another hotel we stayed at and turned in early at 8:30pm. We were out of the house by 6:30 the next morning to take the train to Kyoto!

In Kanazawa, we broke our rule of staying near the train station to spend a couple of nights in a traditional Machiya House. The house was located in the central Hikoso-machi area, a former samurai neighborhood. It was a 17-minute walk by the most direct route, but Google Maps kept rerouting us through side streets, making it take longer. While we loved the house (and would still go back,) the walk with all our luggage was a bit of a pain, especially since we were starting to feel the effects of all the walking we’d been doing.

Posts for each city:

Let's begin the recap!

Something I was most excited to do in Japan was stay at a traditional ryokan. We decided the time to stay at one was in Nagano, more specifically Shibu Onsen. Shibu Onsen is a traditional hot spring town in the mountains. We chose this spot because of the beauty and it's proximity to Jigokudani Monkey Park. That was one of the first things Christian had on his must-do list. It was a bit of a trek coming out here from Tokyo but in the end it was worth it because we stopped in Kanazawa on our way to Kyoto. Plus we got to see what a smaller more rural area was like. It was fun seeing the scenery change while we were on the train.

This was another planned "break" in the middle of our trip. We knew our evening at the onsen would be relaxing and spent in a hot spring, relaxing in our room and eating a delicious Japanese meal. Two out of 3 were great, ha ha! The following day we would be hiking up to visit the bathing snow monkeys but the rest of the day would be traveling to our next location.

Posts for each city:

As mentioned in my Tokyo recap, I will be going through each day of the trip sharing where we went, what we ate and where we stayed! Our third location was Lake Kawaguchiko and Fujikawaguchiko. We wanted to see Mt. Fuji but didn't feel the need to get super close or climb any portion of it this trip. You can only hike when the trails are open in the Summer anyway. After some research we decided that viewing from Kawaguchiko was our best option.

Posts for each city:

Another month of 2025 has come and gone with no clothes shopping. The past couple years it has gotten a lot easier for me to not shop, I have plenty in my closet for anything I might need so there's no real reason to shop. I do still window shop and add things to my cart and always talk myself out of it. If something is really special (or a great deal) I'm sure I'll break my streak, but going strong for now!

THE (modified) RULES

Be mindful of purchases
Quality over quantity
Basics are best

MY PROGRESS

Clothes:

Nothing yet

Basics:

Nothing yet

Shoes:

None

Handbags:

Loewe Mini Puzzle Bag in Pomodoro red classic calfskin ($895 in Japan, retail $2650)

Accessories:

None

Activewear/Swimwear:

None

Gifted from Brands:

None

Spent in March: $0

Spent in 2025: $895

Spent in 2025 - counting ad money: $895

Time for destination two on our Japan trip, Tokyo Disney Resort! Tokyo Disney is known by many as one of the best Disney parks in the world and after having finally been there myself, I agree! (I have been to 4 of the 6 parks around the world.) We spent 3 days (plus an evening) and 3 nights at the resort so we could pack as much in as possible. It still wasn't enough to see and do everything but we got to experience all of our must-dos. Be sure to check out my Tokyo Disney Resort trip planning guide if you haven't already!

As mentioned in my Tokyo recap, I will be going through each day of the trip sharing where we went, what we ate and where we stayed! This post will be slightly different because technically we were at Disney the whole time, ha ha. This is going to be a long post, so buckle up! Or just scroll down and look at the photos, ha ha.

Posts for each city:

Time to deep dive into the cities we explored while in Japan! Tokyo was our home base on the first half of the trip so instead of having full days there we ended up with half and three quarter days to explore. In total we had a little over 3 days.

I think for these posts I'm going to go day by day and recap where we went, where we ate and where we stayed. The numbers will look a little funny because I'm going based on the whole trip itinerary dates. Probably a weird way to do it, but that's what I'm going with!

Posts for each city:

Before diving into the details of our Japan trip I wanted to share a quicker rundown—what we did, where we stayed, and how it all came together. I'll post recaps for each city soon and update this with links when they’re live. This isn’t a "how-to" guide—just a look at how we planned and experienced everything with a few tips thrown in. Let me know if you have any questions on how to plan your own trip to Japan!

Posts for each city:

Planning & Timing

Christian only gets 10 vacation days a year, so that was our limit for weekday travel. We flew out on the morning of Saturday, January 11th, and landed in Japan the afternoon of January 12th. Our return flight left Tokyo in the evening on Saturday, January 25th, and we got back to New York the same day—time zones are wild! Altogether, we were gone for 15 days, but only about 12.5 were actual exploring days.

We’d been saving up for this trip for years and had a dedicated "Japan" travel fund ready to pull from as we booked everything. Originally, we planned for October or November 2024, but when my brother and sister-in-law wanted to join, we shifted to January 2025. They had to back out later, but we stuck with the dates since Christian’s 2024 vacation days were already spoken for by then. Luckily, we’d budgeted as if it were just us, so not splitting hotel costs wasn’t a big deal.

Travel is important to us so we save for a bunch of different trips at once and always have a Miscellaneous, Disney and Missouri fund (to visit Christian's family)

Booking Flights

We decided to fly in and out of Tokyo instead of booking separate arrival and departure cities. We booked a nonstop flight with American Airlines (operated by JAL) from JFK to Haneda Airport. I’d been keeping an eye on prices for over a year with Google Flight alerts and manual checks, but booking always feels like a gamble no matter how much research you do. I kept seeing advice like "book your flights 6 months out!" or "50–100 days before departure," so it was tough to know what to trust. In the end, I just went with my gut.

We bought our tickets on November 4th, 2024—68 days before departure—for $926 each. Not bad for a 7,000-mile (almost) journey, but I’m still kicking myself because I could’ve saved $300 by booking a week earlier. Unfortunately, I was on a memorial trip for my best friend and wanted to wait until I was home to book. Luckily we did buy before the huge increase a couple days later so our timing was still okay.

Our flight left New York at 10:00 AM and landed in Tokyo at 2:35 PM. I originally wanted a 12:45 AM departure with a 5:00 AM arrival to maximize our time, but that flight was more expensive. The later flight was a blessing—all we wanted to do was eat and crash when we arrived. For the return, we picked a 5:10 PM flight so we’d have one last morning in Tokyo for shopping and one last bowl of ramen. We landed back in New York at 4:30 PM the same day we left.

Itinerary Overview

We’d been collecting Japan travel tips and locations for years, and both had lists of must-see spots. With only 12.5 days, we had to cut a few things—Hokkaido was the biggest one since it’s so far out. We’ll save that for next time. 😉

There are a couple of main routes tourists usually follow for visiting the most popular spots. The classic "Golden Route" takes you from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji, then to Kyoto, and finally Osaka. The "New Golden Route" also starts in Tokyo but heads north to Nagano, Takayama, and Kanazawa before following the coast down to Kyoto.

Since the cities on our wish list aligned more with the New Golden Route, we decided to keep Tokyo as our home base for the first half of the trip. After that, we followed the New Golden Route to Kyoto before looping back to Tokyo for our flight home. Here’s a quick overview of our itinerary:

Day 1: Land in Tokyo at 3pm
Day 2: Tokyo morning, Tokyo Disneyland afternoon
Days 3-5: Tokyo Disneyland (my trip planning guide)
Day 6: Tokyo morning, Mt. Fuji afternoon
Day 7: Mt. Fuji morning, back to Tokyo afternoon
Day 8: Tokyo morning, travel to Nagano afternoon
Day 9: Snow Monkey Park morning, travel to Kanazawa
Day 10: Kanazawa
Day 11: Travel to Kyoto, visit the Nintendo Museum
Day 12: Kyoto morning, Osaka afternoon/evening, back to Kyoto
Day 13: Nara Deer Park morning, Kyoto afternoon, back to Tokyo early evening
Day 14: Tokyo morning, flight home at 5pm

We spent a lot of time at Tokyo Disney—more than most people would—but it was a huge priority for me. Next time, we will scale that back (even if I won’t want to!) We also ended up skipping Shirakawa-go while in Kanazawa because we were just too exhausted to deal with tight train and bus schedules.

My crazy itinerary spreadsheet

Once we had our locations down I started saving locations of interest on a Google Map. This included things like shrines, stores to shop at, restaurants, basically anything we might want to do. The plan was to see the big stuff and as we had time for more activities we could look on the map to see what was nearby. Sadly we only got to go to a couple of the restaurants on my list because almost every time we walked up to a place there was a line. We even tried to beat everyone by going to get ramen at 9:30-ish AM and still had to wait 45 minutes to sit down! (But it was the best ramen we had on the trip.) That and Happy Pancake were the only real lines we waited in for food. Otherwise we tried to find places that we could just walk in, so that meant most of the places I had saved were out.

Accommodations

We stayed in a lot of different hotels with all the city-hopping. We wanted to stay at at least one traditional hotel (ryokan) and the rest could be whatever fit into the budget. Our goal was to stay under $200 per night on average for the "normal" hotels, and we landed around $165. I picked places close to the major train stations we'd be using to make things easier with luggage.

Left: Dome with view of Mt. Fuji; Right: Traditional Ryokan at Shibu Onsen

Tokyo Hotels: We bounced between a few spots and Tokyo the first half of the trip but I'll list all the hotels together.

Night 1: Keio Presso Inn Tokyo Station Yaesu (5 minutes from Tokyo Station)
Nights 5-7: Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku (5 minutes from Shinjuku Station)
Night 13: Hotel Monte Hermana Tokyo (5 minutes from Tokyo Station)

Now for the fun accommodations! I couldn't go to Tokyo Disney and NOT stay at one of their gorgeous hotels. Our first night was spent just outside Tokyo Disneyland park, then we moved next to Tokyo DisneySea.

Night 2: Tokyo Disneyland Hotel - Beauty & the Beast Room (5 minute walk from Maihama Station, or take Monorail)
Night 3 & 4: Tokyo DisneySea Fantasy Springs Hotel - Fantasy Chateau (Monorail to Maihama Station)

We originally planned a day trip to Mt. Fuji from Tokyo, but then Christian suggested, "Why not find a glamping spot with views?" and I was all in! We booked a 3-night hotel in Tokyo for the surrounding nights, so we only needed backpacks for our glamping adventure. It was totally worth not lugging our bags for just one night, since we’d be spending most of the time staring at the mountain and exploring the area. (Though, we didn’t do much exploring, but I’ll share more on that in my Mt. Fuji post.) We paid $300 for the stay, and it was absolutely worth it—we’d do it again in a heartbeat!

Night 6: Retreat Camp Mahoroba Dome Tent (they offered a free shuttle to and from Kawaguchiko station)

Next, we headed to Shibu Onsen to stay in a traditional Ryokan. We booked a room with a private open-air bath outside to enjoy the hot springs without strangers. Our stay included train station pickup, drop-off at the Snow Monkey Park the next morning, and both a traditional Japanese (or Western) dinner and breakfast, all for $465. It was our most expensive accommodation, but worth it for everything we got.

Night 8: Shibu Onsen Kokuya - Sakura Room with onsen (hotel offered free shuttle from Yudanaka Station and we took a cab back, but there are also buses)

In Kanazawa, we broke our rule of staying near the train station to spend a couple of nights in a traditional Machiya House. It was a 17-minute walk by the most direct route, but Google Maps kept rerouting us through side streets, making it take longer. While we loved the house (and would still go back,) the walk with all our luggage was a bit of a pain, especially since we were starting to feel the effects of all the walking we’d been doing.

Nights 9 & 10: Kurohoro Machiya Holiday House (20 minutes from Kanazawa Station)

Our last major stop was in Kyoto. We used that as our base to also visit Nara and Osaka (as well as the newly opened Nintendo Museum!) This hotel had indoor hot springs but we didn't use them. We did take advantage of the buffet breakfast though!

Nights 11 & 12: Onyado Nono Kyotoshichijo Natural Hot Springs (6 mins from Kyoto Station)

Train Travel

The train was empty so we staged a silly photo

Getting around by train is the way to go in Japan. Their JR Rail Pass used to be a great option for tourists, but they have since changed the pricing and it is no longer a guaranteed best option for train travel. After using this calculator, I found the 14-day pass (¥80,000) cost way more than our estimated ¥51,000 for major trips. Even considering shorter trips on the subway we knew we would not reach ¥80,000 in value.

We used Suica cards set up in our Apple Wallets for local travel and loaded about ¥13,000 ($96) overall. For Shinkansen (bullet train) rides, we bought tickets directly at the station machines—it was easier than using booking apps for us. There are employees there to help if you get confused.

The Suica cards came in handy right at the airport because you can take a monorail and train directly into Tokyo. No rideshare or shuttle bus needed and way cheaper!

One tip: If your luggage is oversized, you’ll need special tickets or could face limited storage. These tickets also need to be booked a little further in advance because there are not many (which you can still do at the station.) We kept our luggage light until the end when we bought a bigger suitcase for all our souvenirs.

Japan also has many specially themed trains. For our trip back to Kyoto from Nara we booked ourselves on the Aoniyoshi sightseeing limited express. It goes from Kyoto to Osaka but we only went half the route. It is a small low-capacity train that makes you feel like you're in an old movie. They even had purple themed snacks available to match the train. I recommend seeing if there are any special trains on the routes you will be traveling.

Stay tuned for recaps for each city we visited!