Tokyo, Kyoto and beyond: trains and IC cards, cash culture, etiquette, the best seasons, curated traveler tips, and mobile data via eSIM.
Secure, effective and private eSIMs across the globe
Japan is the rare destination that exceeds its hype. Tokyo alone spans neon canyons, tranquil shrines and the world's best food city; Kyoto keeps a thousand years of temples and gardens; and the shinkansen makes it all absurdly easy to link together.
What surprises first-timers most is the contrast: a hyper-modern country where cash is still king, quiet is a public virtue, and convenience stores sell meals you will genuinely miss when you leave.
The food will rearrange your standards. A 1,000-yen ramen counter, a department-store basement (depachika) full of perfect fruit, a conveyor-belt sushi run, and a night in a tiny izakaya where nobody speaks English can all outdo the fancy reservation you stressed about. Follow the queue. It is usually right.
Tokyo plus Kyoto is the classic first arc; add Osaka for appetite or Hakone / the Alps for air. Ride the shinkansen with a day bag, forward the suitcase, and leave room in the plan for getting happily lost on a side street that smells like charcoal and cedar.
Essentials
Traveler tips
Real advice from people who have been to Japan, curated by our team with links to the original sources.
Suica or Pasmo in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet handles every train, subway, bus, vending machine and konbini purchase with a tap. Top up from the phone and skip ticket machines entirely.
7-Eleven, Lawson and FamilyMart sell legitimately good meals, have reliable ATMs that accept foreign cards, and are everywhere. Onigiri and egg sandwiches will become a food group.
Takkyubin luggage forwarding sends your suitcase hotel-to-hotel overnight for a modest fee, so you ride the shinkansen with just a day bag. Most stations and lodgings have very limited big-luggage space.
Depachika food halls in Tokyo and Osaka are a full meal plan: bento, wagyu skewers, perfect strawberries and a thousand things you will photograph. Go hungry at 6pm when the marked-down boxes appear.
Phone calls on trains, loud speakerphone videos and eating while walking through a crowded station will mark you faster than any fashion mistake. Keep the volume down, eat at the spot, and you will feel the country exhale around you.
Rick Steves Travel Forum
Welcome Suica on a physical card still works when Apple Wallet is not an option. US Android phones generally cannot load Suica the casual way. Buy the plastic card at the airport machine, then top it up with cash — foreign credit cards fail on most station loaders. Konbini ATMs are where the yen for that top-up comes from.
View sourceRick Steves Travel Forum
The tourist Welcome Suica has no deposit and no refund of leftover yen. Load enough for a few days of local trains and konbini, not a vacation float. If you use the phone Suica instead, you can reload on the spot when a gate beeps empty — the plastic card needs a machine and notes.
View sourceTripAdvisor Forums
Castles, ryokan rooms and some Kyoto temples expect outdoor shoes to stop at the step. Slippers stay off the tatami; toilet slippers stay in the toilet.
View sourceTripAdvisor Forums
One IC card per person works across Tokyo and Kyoto, but many tiny restaurants are cash-only. Convenience-store ATMs are how travellers keep yen on them.
View sourceFAQ
For most travelers, yes. Pocket Wi-Fi means picking up and returning a device, keeping it charged and carrying it everywhere; an eSIM lives inside your phone with nothing to rent or return. Pocket Wi-Fi only wins if a group of people needs to share one connection all day.
Yes — Japan's networks are among the world's best, with coverage along shinkansen lines, in mountain towns and even in many subway tunnels. Signal only drops briefly on remote hiking routes. Download offline maps for those days anyway.
Japan is one of the most data-heavy destinations: constant train routing, translation apps and photo backups push many travelers past 2 GB per day. For two weeks, 20 GB is a sensible floor and unlimited plans are popular here for a reason.
Less than you would expect. Cafes rarely share passwords, street Wi-Fi is sparse, and hotel Wi-Fi does not help you mid-journey on a train platform. Mobile data is close to essential for a smooth Japan trip.
Most travel eSIMs are data-only, which in practice is rarely a problem: LINE, WhatsApp and FaceTime calls all run on data, and restaurants increasingly take online reservations. If you need a real Japanese number for local bookings, that is the one thing a data eSIM does not provide.
eSIM plans
With no open Wi-Fi culture and everything from train routes to restaurant queues living in apps, Japan without data is hard mode. An eSIM connects you the moment you land at Narita or Haneda - no airport SIM counter queues, no pocket Wi-Fi rental to return.
Google Translate's camera, Yahoo! Transit and every restaurant's table QR code assume a live connection. Pocket Wi-Fi is a brick on a lanyard. An eSIM is just your phone, working, from the moment the wheels hit Narita.