Tokyo<\/strong> – 8D7N<\/p>\n Nikko<\/strong> – 3D2N<\/p>\n Nagano<\/strong> – 5D4N<\/p>\n Back to Tokyo<\/strong> – 2D1N day<\/p>\n Four changes of accommodation over 18 days: not much of an improvement over a key consideration we had in dropping Kyushu as the target vacation region in the earlier planning!<\/p>\n The various segments of the 18-day travel decided, we next looked for suitable accommodations. The kids are older but still not at a point yet where the wife can trust them to be in their own separate hotel room away from us. So, we had to look for either a large enough hotel room for the four of us, or a place with interconnecting rooms. But unlike our December 2022 trip where we quickly and easily found suitable places in Kyoto, Kanazawa and Takayama [Nagoya somewhat less so], finding suitable accommodations within our budget was a lot more challenging this time round, and for all four cities. Our 2019 trip included a 5-day stay in Tokyo, and one resolution we had was to try to stay closer to central Tokyo in order to reduce the amount of time we’d spend on connecting trains to the central train interchanges. However, such accommodation options that would also be under SGD300\/night were really hard to find. Either the room was too small – I have no idea how 4 people squeeze into a 12sqm room – or a little too far from the neighbouring train station, or too far from central Tokyo, or out of our price range.<\/p>\n Still, just so that we don’t find ourselves without places to stay, we’d placed refundable reservations at these properties for segments of our vacation while we continue to look for other potentials:<\/p>\n Kawaguchiko<\/strong>: Hotel Regina Kawaguchiko<\/p>\n Tokyo<\/strong>: Toggle Hotel Suidobashi and APA Hotel Keisei Ueno Ekimae<\/p>\n Nikko<\/strong>: Stay Nikko Guesthouse<\/p>\n Nagano<\/strong>: Tabino Hotel Lit Matsumoto (initially a hotel in Yudanaka Onsen)<\/p>\n We settled the cities’ accommodation places fairly quickly in the month of July. Of note was our Nagano stay: our preference in July was to find a place to stay near Nagano Station itself, but we couldn’t find anything suitable, so settled for a property in Yudanaka, about an hour away from Nagano Station. But last week, when reviewing the detailed plan for Nagano, we realized that staying in Yudanaka would substantially add movement time and costs to the Nagano segment of the itinerary. So, we decided not to stay in Nagano City itself but in Matsumoto – where we’d initially also planned to visit to see the castle there. For that, we managed to find a family room for the four of us that’s right beside Matsumoto Station too.<\/p>\n Another point of consideration was whether we’d want to get JR Passes. In what looks like an eternity ago, JR Passes were routinely an economical way to travel between cities. However, the recent and substantial increase in prices of JR Passes has made picking up these passes in lieu of just buying tickets on demand a more weighted decision: basically, the savings are no longer significant, if any. The JR Pass that would have been suitable for this trip was the JR East Nagano Niigata Area Pass: the pass lasts five days, and would have covered our travel between the cities of Tokyo, Kawagoe, Odawara, Nikko and Nagano. But with the revised JR pass prices, it simply would not have been worth it:<\/p>\n Next post: our current day-to-day itinerary!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our flights into and out of Narita in December, for a span of 18 days of travel, were booked several months ago. So, since July, we’d been researching and putting together the exact day-by-day plan – and it’s been pretty<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/blog-2023-japan-movement.jpg\")
<\/a><\/a>