Japan is understandably a hot travel destination in general, but I've seen it come up here on Tildes several times, with many people sharing their stories. This is and isn't that.

I traveled to Japan (and Korea) over a year ago, and I've been rotating this post in my head nearly the whole time. If you want to skip my word vomit: tl:dr it was kind of mid, there are parts I would return for, but many that are very off-putting (especially as of this moment with Japan's politics).

I'm a millennial, and by most accounts, a weeb. I was first was exposed to anime/manga via Slayers, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo and other early Anime that played occasionally on network television, around the late 1990s, which evolved as it did for most of us with Toonami, Adult Swim, and renting movies like Akira and Ghost in the Shell at Blockbuster. I've been regularly consuming Otaku culture essentially my entire life, and my wife was exactly the same as me, we both read Manga and watch Anime as a regular pass time. I was also completely aware that Otaku culture is generally looked down upon by genpop, probably moreso a decade or more ago till now, but I wasn't under the impression that Manga/Anime was how Japan actually was.This isn't to say we had some idealized view of Japan or Tokyo (where we spent our vacation), we've done a lot of domestic and international travel up to that point, so I believe we had realistic expectations going in of how our vacation would go. To be clear, it's not that those expectations weren't necessarily met, but there's some things that I started to realize I may have overlooked, tidbits of Japanese culture that you will get glimpses of in their media, and specifically, the types of media I related to, the series I found most interesting to me with characters that aligned with my own values, or something like that.

You will hear many testimonials of how great visiting Tokyo can be, and I want to caveat with the single complication that made things unreasonably difficult and why I would exercise caution if you are in the same position, but being perfectly frank, it was only one component: We traveled with myself, my wife, and our 2 year old daughter. To clarify, I do not have a difficult child, in fact by almost all metrics she's extremely well behaved and easy to travel with, if she wasn't I would never have considered a 14+hr flight, so take everything I say that I have a near saint of a toddler, she wasn't the problem at all.

Tokyo is not toddler friendly, Tokyo is toddler hostile, weird things you would overlook or not even think about as adult travelers will consistently cause problems. Tokyo is great for walkability if you are able bodied, it is a far cry from being ADA compliant as we're used to stateside, expect to carry a stroller as I did up stairs many, many times. Over our trip there, you notice things: not a single native Japanese takes a toddler outside, like at all, let's ignore birth rates for a moment, because kids were present, but not a single kid under 3 was anywhere to be seen. Not in restaurants, not at parks, not in malls. The possible sole exception is Odaiba, which is designed to be a family friendly area. This begins to cause friction almost everywhere else though. Kids menus are few and far between, rarely will you find high chairs, and frustratingly: many restaurants will not give you a to go box, that's just not a thing there, so expect to simply waste food or money if you order a main for a toddler (because there is no kids meal) etc. There is also nearly nothing catered to toddlers....basically anywhere, again this is pretty in line with our expectations, but when we went out of our way to find solutions, and they still didn't seem possible (or were inexplicably closed....they will actually CLOSE parks if there is a light drizzle) it begins to wear on you. Similarly shopping! One of the biggest draws of being in Tokyo, will be rather limited, both in things that would fit a 1-4yo and in physical dimensions of stores, which may or may not accommodate you pushing a stroller. The busy tourist areas are also quite challenging to navigate, and especially in places like Shibuya, a lot of the joint restaurant areas will have exceptionally small tables or standing room only, as will most Ramen or Tempura restaurants. "Family restaurant" is a category in Japan because taking a family elsewhere is difficult.

I can handle almost all of this, but it's coupled with, and again, I am a parent, I understand that children can be taxing, but there's a low level of animosity ever present almost anywhere you go, of course there's background radiation of, you're a tourist and not a local, but couple that with now you're being a difficult tourist, and you can start to tell people do not want you there. This isn't to say we didn't have good experiences, many native Japanese were very accommodating to us, helped us out, were happy to see a cute kid etc. I don't want to paint it as the experience was entirely negative, it wasn't, but it was SO MUCH WORSE than literally anywhere else I have traveled re: having a toddler or child with you, and it's not really conveyed because well, most people traveling to Tokyo do not have kids in tow (and I have heard that for example Osaka and other cities are better about this, so I don't want to paint a broad brush.) There were also plenty of tourists traveling with kids, and even when we didn't share a language, we exchanged knowing glances of how tired of the whole situation we were.

Also the food is seriously overrated, give me hate if you want, but the US has better food, especially LA/NYC. You can get better sushi, cheaper, in LA than Tokyo. It's the truth. The hamburg steak at Tsubame Kitchen in Shinogawa was an exception, that was delicious.

There's a manga I love: Moyashimon, it's about a college student who can see microbes (including the eponymous Yeast), that's entirely unimportant to what I want to talk about. The characters are extremely relatable, I believe I was also in university when I first read it, and many parts resonated with me, and I found the morals of the characters fairly normal. Almost all of these characters are outcasts or pariahs by Japanese standards. Conformity is still very much the norm in Japan, and especially the majority of Tokyo outside the kind of touristy (or counterculture) areas like Shibuya, Akihabara, Kabukicho etc. As we were heavily jetlagged, the majority of our days would start around 5am, the sea of salarymen is absolutely nuts. Thousands of workers in suits, every day, bright and early, and returning at rush hour. Moyashimon deals a lot with the difficulties the characters will face when they leave college and are forced to conform, they will have to be clean shaven, they must stop dying their hair, they must conform to the gender presentation they were assigned at birth. The story, and many other media in the same vein from similar authors, is critical of the culture of conformity. The current Japan, in current year, is still xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic. In relating to these media, whether it's moyashimon, or the works of Nagata Kabi, or even something like HoriMiya (which tragically kills almost all the social commentary of the original work in both the redraw manga as well as the anime), I was relating to being critical of Japan's culture, of being critical of those things.

I don't really know where else to go with this, sorry for the word vomit. I had thought that I knew what to expect when traveling to Japan, I did my research, I knew how to not be rude, not to be intrusive, how to generally be my version of a "good tourist", and it wasn't that my expectations were wrong, I simply found out I liked Tokyo less than I thought I would.

Some serious positives though: meeting my friends who live in Tokyo was great, and we absolutely had a blast, I'd have not had half as much fun if I didn't have people who lived there that knew the places to go and what to see. The climbing gyms and bouldering scene is WORLD CLASS. B pump Ogikubo is famous for a reason, and the national training center in Odaiba was also a highlight.

Maybe this will give some added balance, I'm not sure. This is just the experience I had, there were highlights and lowlights, but overall, I just did not jive with Tokyo in particular, and I would like other people to at least consider that they might not, too.

Planning a trip to Japan fall 2027 or spring 2028. Japan seems to be a place I can spend my entire life savings in, fill three warehouses, and still come away with want. So here's a different question than the usual: if I don't care about Instagram sightseeing or the latest fashion trends or Michelin star restaurants, what are some crazy cheap things to do or places to stay?

Old fahsioned and dingy is fine, anything above "downright dangerous" is completely okay. We could do one fancy pants Ryokan and one cheap one if the cultural difference in expenses are worthwhile, otherwise cheap cheap cheap please.

I am most interested in hands on traditional crafts making workshops or experiences, like touring wagashi kitchens, basket weaving, leather workers, fibre and paper arts, wood crafting, kintsugi pottery repairs etc.

Kaga Traditional Craft Village Yunokuni no Mori, Komatsu -- Ishikawa Prefecture : this has been recommended to me, would love reviews and other recommendations. Kyoto has a lot of English workshops: are there cheaper ones outside?

BOOK OFF chains and Mega Donki for cheap, used consumer goods? Osaka for used kimono? Where do people get rid of their unwanted traditional arts and art supplies? Kyoto has a bunch of flea markets: still good spot or tourist junk I can get for much less elsewhere?

Any arcades that take an entry fee and then it's all you can play? (Asking because I super suck at games but I love them, and Japan has the whackiest arcade games)

I'd be perfectly happy to eat konbini & ramen & gyudon & cheap foods for the entire time. What other kinds of food are cheap? (I'd also do one or two seafood meals for sure but spending money = easy to find reviews)

I want to hear all the cheap things about Japan :) my goal will be to (1) avoid the over tourism spots and be less of a nuisance for locals (2) experience things (3) save all the money for the end of the trip to see Akihabara, spend it all on gunpla, anime and gaming goods.....

Maybe worth mentioning I am trying to learn as much Japanese as possible in a year, with background in Chinese language and college first year level Japanese. Language tips also welcome.

Edit: other Japan tourism threads by gpl, rosco ,AugustusFerdinand and shared -- also excellent

I have to travel internationally soon, and I’ve been making a list of things I simply cannot get here (by which I mean Brazil): right now it’s benadryl and maple syrup. Last time peanut butter was on the list, but it’s since become a gym-bro food and is much more accessible. But the thought occurred to me others must have their own lists.

So what’s something you can only buy when in another country that you make sure to pick up?

I've been slowly convincing myself that I want to go to Africa, mostly because I haven't done a solo trip in a while, but also because I haven't been to Africa at all yet! Some of my team members are in Ghana and they sent me pictures of it, and it looked amazing. I definitely would love to go! I'm thinking of going during the week of Christmas only because it's probably my only time I'm available for the rest of the year. Any tips or places that I should be looking at?

(I also have some Scandinavian countries, Prague, or Scotland/Ireland on my docket, but I've been to Europe so much these last couple of years and I figure I'd need something new)

My girlfriend and I will be visiting Toronto for around 48 hours next weekend. We get in late Friday and leave Sunday around 5 to head to visit friends in Montreal. I've been to Toronto a few times as a kid, but long enough ago I don't remember much besides the CN Tower, and she's never been. Does anyone have recommendations on things to do and especially on places to eat? The only real thing we have planned so far is the HHoF, which I definitely want to see again.

So the Mrs. and I are planning on a trip to Japan for June of this year. I received a tip to take a look at the deals found on said travel agency and I was impressed. I made a cursory research on the legitimacy of the service and found that it does deliver. I took the dive and got myself booked--with an additional fee to cancel and have my deposit fully refunded. Since then I've been looking more and more into their services and find that way too many reviews are overwhelmingly negative. The corresponding Reddit board screams "don't do it!" (though most of the posts there are a bit dated, admittedly)
And now that I'm finally a member of this fine community at Tildes, I figured that I'd ask you kind people for your feedback and discussion. What do you all say? Is there any consensus on any particular travel agency? Or is it best that I engage in the grunt work to book all the hotels ahead of time? We're looking to hit Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto at the very least. My total cost so far is less than $5000 for 9 days, FYI. And travelling from USA, if that makes any difference.
This is my first post on Tildes prompting discussion, btw. Glad to be here! 🤞

Hello! I’m finally going on an international trip! I live in the US and have always wanted to go to Europe. In June, I’ll be spending two weeks there in Norway, Amsterdam, and Germany!

My plane tickets are purchased and I’m starting to form my itinerary and am willing to take advice on travel tips or if people have any specific recommendations for things to do!

I’m a woman traveling solo. When I travel, I tend to plan one or two specific things a day and then just figure out the rest, I’m pretty flexible. I am high energy when I travel, though, so even if I only plan one thing a day in the months prior, I can easily spend 10 hours a day exploring. I also like to see a few typical tourist things, but I also want to experience what actual local culture is, I don’t want to only spend my time in the places that only tourists go to. I want to talk to locals and even though I know I’ll stick out like a sore thumb, I want to get some sampling of what life is like in the places I travel to.

I usually travel light, just a backpack, but may need another carry on bag for this trip. If I spend a couple nights in on hostel, do they usually have secure storage or anything? My worry about an extra bag is it being inconvenient since I don’t want to bring it around cities with me. I guess even if I’m in a hotel, I have the window between check out times and getting to my next destination… I guess that’s why I normally like just having a backpack, but let me know if that’s a bad idea and you think I should have a second bag.

The things I’d be looking for advice on are things like hostels vs hotels, should I book hostels/hotels ahead of time or fly by the seat of my pants, how easy is doing laundry, what little things have I forgotten (like making sure my phone plan works internationally, which it does), etc, as well as any recommendations for specific attractions, museums, or restaurants to visit!

The loose plan is that I land in Oslo, spend a few days there, take the train to Trondheim and spend a day or two there. I think then I’ll rent a car so that I can get to Stenkjer (small town, but it’s where my family emigrated from, so I want to see it) and then travel down the west coast, stopping at cool nature spots, and ending up in Bergen or Stavanger for a couple days. I’m planning about a week in Norway.

I then plan on flying to Amsterdam and spending 2-3 days there. I really don’t know that much about the city besides what touristy things friends and family have done. I will be visiting De Poezenboot, but am otherwise all ears.

I will then be renting a car and traveling to the Nürburgring so that I can race a car around it. Then I’ll have 3.5 days to road trip east across Germany, see some castles, and fly back home from Berlin.

I am extremely into cars and motorsports, so I imagine there’s no shortage of museums I can visit in Germany, but I also want to see a few castles as well, so I’m unsure if I’ll have one or two full days in Berlin, yet. I’ll be flying out of Berlin at 9:30am on my departure day.

I've done some basic research, bought a guide book, read travel blogs. Still this will be a first time visit to a massive metropolis. If anyone is willing to share, I'm looking for advice.

What should I know re transportation? Does anyone have advice for reasonably priced delicious food? I've heard Oaxacan cuisine is good. I'll be traveling with a pescatarian. I know we're going to the Anthropology Museum and setting up a tour to the floating farms. That still leaves a couple of days. What are your don't miss experiences? What have you really enjoyed? Are there good websites for finding concert tickets? What about safety?

I recently visited Albuquerque and spent almost a full day at their botanical gardens. It was awesome and made realize how much I love bioparks.
Of all the attractions a city may have, they always delight and never leave me conflicted like I feel at zoos and aquariums.

So I ask the people of Tides: where are the best bio parks and what makes them great?

Hi all,
We are headed to Stow, MA for a week from the midwest, and have two kids in tow. 5 and 1 year olds. We will have a rental car available to us, and are looking for things to do while we aren't visiting with family. Right now on the radar is the Maynard Discovery Museum, the Worcester EcoTarium, and the Franklin Children's Museum.

Mostly interested in burning some energy, but I'm highly motivated to avoid children's museums that are basically cavernous-but-otherwise-empty dumping grounds for school field trips. I find that in my area it is the smaller museums that are generally more interesting.

Thanks in advance!

I'm very excited to be taking a trip to Thailand with my wife for our honeymoon.

I'm going to do some clothes shopping this week and keen to take advice from those who live in or have travelled to SEA or specifically Thailand before.

I'm going for a minimal approach, so I'll be taking as few clothes as possible and having them laundered whilst I'm there.

For underwear, I'm settled on stocking up on Uniqlo's airism boxers as they're already the most comfortable I've ever owned and I'm certain they'll hold up well to the tropics.

In that vein, I'm not sure if I should also go for the airism t-shirts, or if there's an obviously better choice. I hear lots of mixed opinions on cotton vs merino vs synthetics. I sweat too much for cotton, and have never got on that well with merino (outside of jumpers/sweaters). Given I'll only be there for a couple of weaks, I'm feeling that synthetics are the way to go. But I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

For footwear I'm going to wear my Altra Escalantes. I'm currently training for a marathon and will have to do at least a few runs while I'm out there, so these will serve as my running shoes and for anywhere I might appreciate plain black shoes (or something more supportive than sandals). Otherwise, I'll be living in my Birkenstock arizonas.

I'll be packing two linen shirts, one linen trousers and then a couple of very lightweight shorts. Again, I'm avoiding cotton with the shorts. I have some ABC WovenAir pull-on shorts from Lululemon that I think will be very comfortable, but I'd be keen for recommendation for another pair or two. I've been told the pacebreakers from Lululemon are great, but not sure if an order from there will arrive on time.

I'm based in the UK, so any recommendations would ideally before for shops we have here, or international brands like Decathlon, Uniqlo, H&M etc.

I understand this is all very personal, but I like hearing different preferences.

I occasionally watch some travel videos and lately I've been getting a lot of videos of middle east countries on YouTube, I'm just curious why. I know there have been some new developments like the shebara resort and Ain Dubai. but is that the only reason?

This one's a two parter-

I'm traveling to Portland for the week so I have a bit of a plane ride ahead of me. Recommend me some deep dive hour + YouTube videos I can download for the flight! I tend to drift towards science, technology, psychology, and some hank green esque talking heads about whatever.

Also if you have anything in particular you think I should check out in Portland let me know! Particularly interested in the niche spots. Still a bit tentative stuff but mostly plan to do the Tillamook factory, a tea room, PSU Farmers market, and ten falls hike.

A new entry to go with my previous two posts in the same vein NYC and Denver, but this time in...

TOKYO!

The "Going on a trip and have zero idea what to do as a non-tourist..." isn't entirely true like it was in my post about NYC as anyone that has seen me talk about sumo can imagine, but everyone was extremely helpful and threw out suggestions I wouldn't have even thought about looking for in previous posts. So here I am again to bug you wonderful people for Tildes Travel Guide III: Tokyo Trilogy Part Minus One

The overarching details:

• 7 days in Tokyo from Friday, January 9th to Friday, January 16th.
• Except for Jan 9, I am completely solo for the entire trip.
• There are two specific events I will be attending, one is Friday the 9th, the other is TBD but can be nearly any day during the trip.
• I don't know where I'm staying yet. Where is kinda dependent on what I decide to do/be regularly near, am open for accommodation recommendations. I would prefer to stay in one place the entire trip, not real interested in packing up all of my things to move to another part of Tokyo (or another city) unless I can be convinced to do so.
• I'm not the sightseeing tourist-y type so there's little interest in the things that are on every "Tokyo Top 10" list.

And so I beseech you fellow Tilderinos, as someone that doesn't care about being a tourist and doesn't have a social media presence to feed I'm-here-and-you're-not selfies to, what should someone with nearly a week entirely alone with nothing but free time in Tokyo actually do?

Hello Tildes travelers,

I'm sure questions like this get asked often, but I'm having a hard time cutting through the SEO spam and AI BS about travel and feeling a bit overwhelmed at the options.

I digress, as the title states, my wife and I are heading to California in early June for a wedding in the bay area. Neither of us have been to California and wanted to make a big trip out of it, roughly eight-ish days with two being dedicated to wedding activities. We both are from the Midwest and really want to see what California has to offer. Ideally we would love some help with making an itinerary of things to do and places to see since its such a big state and with so much to do. A Few things we'd love to try and do: see Palm Springs (wife is an architect), explore LA, drive the coast, explore the bay area and finally see some giant sequoia trees. It sounds like a lot so I'm not sure how that all might shake out, or even if its possible in the given time frame. Which is why I am appealing to you all for some help.

Roughly, and I mean roughly our plan is this:

• Day 1: Fly into California
  • Arrive in Palm Springs (if we can) spend evening and the next day exploring the city
• Day 3: Drive into LA
  • Explore the city for the day and spend the evening in LA
• Day 4: Drive up the coast
  • Spend the day driving up the coast and end the evening staying in a coastal town (Stopping in Santa Barbra and staying Arroyo Grande or some similar town halfway to San Fran)
• Day 5: Arrive in San Fran
  • Spend the morning driving the rest of the coast and arrive in the bay area
  • Spend the early part of the day exploring San Fran then drive to Pleasanton (location of wedding)
  • Spend evening doing wedding things
• Day 6: Day of the wedding
  • Wedding stuff (woo!)
• Day 7: Drive from Fremont to Calaveras Big Trees State Park
  • Spend the day exploring some of the inner portion of California and get our big tree fix
  • Spend the evening driving home
• Day 8: Flyout of San Jose or Oakland

Does this seem doable? Is this stupid? Any thing you would change? Really we don't have anything done yet minus the RSVP and the dates specifically. I'm not looking for anything crazy specific, minute by minute to hour by hour. That is asking a lot for a random internet stranger but any help would be really appreciated.

Hey, I'm headed to San Diego in March after getting selected for a work conference. The last time I was in California was San Francisco more than a decade ago with my dad, so I'm excited to be visiting again.

The first few days will be the conference (which includes a recreational afternoon for networking, I picked the San Diego Zoo). I purposely scheduled my plane flight to be a few days after the conference ends to I can explore the city, but it'll be my first real solo trip; originally, my sister was going to tag along in my hotel room, but she had an injury and needed to drop out.

I fly in on March 18th, check out from the conference is the morning of Saturday the 21st, and I fly back home on the morning of the 24th. That gives me almost all of Saturday, and all of Sunday and Monday to explore the city.

Definitely, one of the things I want to check out is Balboa Park, though I would appreciate advice on specific museums, since I can't imagine it's possible to see even half of them in a day.

Another thing I've considered is a day trip to Tijuana to walk around. It's been a while since I had a good opportunity to practice my Spanish. Worst case scenario I can get a dental cleaning if I can't come up with any other ideas 😂.

Eating out alone isn't really something I've done before either. I think I want to do a nice sushi bar Omakase one night just to treat myself, if people have suggestions on where, and I'd love other suggestions for places to try where it wouldn't be too weird eating solo.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other things to do, places to see? Where I should stay after leaving the Marriott Marquis, since at >$500/night it's a little expensive for me? I won't be renting a car, so ideally, something either in walking distance or easily accessible via transit. I'll probably do a mix of ride shares and public transit for travel.

I'd love to hear ideas, along with what anyone else here has done in San Diego. Worst case scenario, I'm sure I'll figure it all out, but it's nice to poll the crowd sometimes.

Me and my girlfriend will be in Paris for 2 nights soon. Since this is such a short trip, we'll mostly be visiting the most popular "essential" tourist attractions - so we will generally be around the center of the city. However, most advice I found online seems to agree that you probably shouldn't just enter a random restaurant in the center of Paris, because it is very likely to be a tourist trap with very high prices and relatively low quality.

So, if any of you have suggestions on good places to eat for a reasonable price, I would really appreciate that!

Also, the end of our trip happens to fall on valentine's day, and we were thinking about having a nice early dinner (late lunch? around 15:00) before we leave, preferably in a pretty place. I'm fine with spending a bit more (~50€ per person) on that one. So if you know any places that fit, please suggest those as well.

Thanks!

Some background: this trip was originally my 40th birthday present from my now ex-wife. We've since divorced and I'm insistent on going by myself, as something always seems to come up and ruin my overseas travel plans. So, I want to treat this as a sort of growth/healing/looking forward trip.

About me: I've traveled quite a bit but I've never been outside of North America. Europe is completely new to me. I am very fond of football, food, beer, hiking, history, and new experiences. I prefer to stay away from tourist traps and I'd rather find hole in the wall type places that are recommended to me by locals. When I travel somewhere, I want to immerse myself.

I'll be there for ~9 days and I have the first 5 days fully worked out. What I need help with is figuring out what I want to do in London for the last 3 days of the trip before I head back to the airport. Other than going to a Fulham game next Saturday, I'm completely wide open. I would prefer to stay in the greater London area since the first half of the trip already involves quite a bit of travel.

I'd love to hear your recommendations do's/don'ts, or general guidance. I'm open to pretty much anything.