Japan

Japan is the destination our most travelled clients rank first, and the reasons compound daily once you land: trains that apologise for thirty-second delays, convenience-store meals better than most restaurants, temples where the gravel is raked into art. It is the most expensive itinerary on this site and simultaneously the hardest to overpay for — the value is simply delivered at a higher altitude.

The shape of the trip

The golden route (8 nights): Tokyo (4 nights) — Shibuya and Shinjuku's electric canyons, Asakusa's old town, the Ghibli Museum for the initiated, day trip to Hakone for Mount Fuji across the lake. Bullet train to Kyoto (3 nights) — Fushimi Inari at dawn, the Arashiyama bamboo grove, Gion at dusk — with Nara's bowing deer as the essential half-day. Osaka (1 night) supplies the street-food finale in Dotonbori before the flight home.

The money

One yen is roughly 0.58 rupees. Business hotels — compact, immaculate — run ₹6,000–10,000 a double; ramen or a rice bowl that constitutes a proper meal, ₹500–800; the Tokyo–Kyoto bullet train, about ₹8,500. Price the rail pass against your actual route before buying — since its 2023 price rise it no longer pays for itself on the simple golden route. Cash still matters at shrines and small restaurants; 7-Eleven ATMs accept Indian cards reliably.

Worth knowing

Book cherry-blossom season four to six months out or pay double. An IC card (Suica/Pasmo, now on phones) handles every train, bus and vending machine. Tipping is not done — it genuinely confuses people. And build slack into the itinerary: Japan's best hours are the unplanned ones.