Accommodations in Japan

In this post I want to talk about cheap places to stay in Japan. I did the normal searching and found hotels.com has some great deals, but wanted a place for myself. That is when I cam across an an amazing site called Airbnb.com . 

Airbnb is a site that people sublet their houses, apartments, condos, tree houses, really anything that has a place for you to sleep. The site is really easy to navigate and make reservations, and you can choose either to have your own place or share a place or even share a room. I decided that my own apartment would be the best. 

The apartment that I got is right next to a JR train station and its costing me only $60 a night. Now there are cheaper options but to have your own apartment in Japan as if you were living there is an experience. One of the other great things of this apartment is free wifi hotspot. Now I can throw the hotspot in my backpack and have free wifi everywhere I go. This will help out with when I need to check on train travel times, translations, and even uploading pictures and videos. Now I know this blog seems like an advertisement for Airbnb but I truly cant recommend enough this site.

Savings breakdown:

Hotels.com $61 a night with just one double bed =  $912.26 w/tax

Hotels.com $88 a night with two twin beds = $1327.25 w/tax

Airbnb.com $67 a night studio apartment = $911 w/airbnb service charge

Next post: Getting around Japan

 

TG

Flights from US to Japan

When I was looking for flights from Tucson to Japan I did the normal search engines, www.Kayak.com, www.travelocity.com, www.orbitz.com, www.expedia.com and so on. So most of the flights were around $1800 round trip. This cost was high to me. I started thinking what about from larger cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Phoenix.

I was able to find flights out of LAX were only $800-1100 depending on the flight and airline.
At the same time I searched for flights from Tucson to LAX. Round trip flight was only $180. Now one more dilemma a hotel for LAX for the 2 legs of my trip. A quick search on www.hotels.com showed that it would be possible. Hotel room for $62 with free airport transportation and bam booked.
Another good thing about flying out of LAX is the number of flights and airlines. This makes such a big difference, with the number of options you now have, flight times, plane selection. I also used www.seatguru.com to help me select the best seats available.

Cost of getting to Japan and back:

Flight to LAX and back: $180
Flight to and back Japan: $910
Hotel: $124
Total: $1214 instead of $1800
Savings $586

So if the option is available to you be sure to look at costs of flying to a larger city staying there a night then taking a flight out of the big city. Sometime you can save a lot of money.

TG

First Blog Post Ever!

I am a normal 30+ year old guy that works in technology, has a family and that enjoys life. In my new blog I will be showing you travel, sports, food, night life that happen around me. I will also be giving tips on places to go, what to eat, how to get there and how to do these things on the cheep.

My blog posts will be filled with pictures, videos, and maybe some audio clips.

In 54 days I will be traveling to the land of the rising sun, Japan. I will be doing a series of posts leading up to my trip that will explain how and what I will be doing on my trip as well how I was able to save some money along the way.

I hope you will follow me on my travels and experiences.

TG