OK jerk, what did it cost?

Hullo - I have been back from Japan for about 3 months now, and just getting around to sharing this post so sorry for the wait.

So, what did it cost to go to Japan? Is it as expensive as everyone says it is? Of course it depends on what you are interested in and where you want to splurge. I found this other person's blog about her experience which was good to hear before I left, so I thought it would be helpful to give my full breakdown. 

NOTE: I went with one other person, so we split costs on everything. 

Our itinerary was:

Day 0 - stay overnight in Chicago

Day 1 - leave car in Chicago, fly to Tokyo, Japan (Narita Airport)

- Take train to Shinjuku in Tokyo

- Check into Hotel in Shinjuku (Kabukicho) (click here to see a video tour)

Day 2 - Tokyo

Day 3 - Tokyo

Day 4 - Train to Nartia Airport

Fly to Hokkaido

Rental car - drive to Sapporo

Check into hotel in Sapporo

(Because of the deal we got for the package of hotel+flight in Tokyo, it was cheaper to keep the hotel in Shinjuku as opposed to checking out for two days and checking back in - go figure! Plus, we could leave most of our stuff there.) 

Day 5 - Drive to Ski Hill

Rent snowboard and get lift tickets

Back to Sapporo hotel at night

Day 6 - Check out of hotel

Drive to airport - return car

Fly to Haneda airport

Train to Shinjuku

Day 7 - Tokyo

Day 8 - Tokyo

Day 9 - Check out of hotel

Train to Narita

Fly back to Chicago

Pick up car

Drive home!

We took our trip in March of 2019.

High level = 

Chicago portion (overnight+parking*) = $203.36

Expedia Tokyo portion (flight+hotel, 2ppl.) = $3675.01

Expedia Sapporo portion (flight+hotel)- $659.30+ $130.62(car) = $789.92

TOT. = $4,668.29 ($2,334.15 per person)

*Parking alone would have cost $90-153 and the timing would have sucked so doing the park and stay and fly thing was perfect. 

Since we had been planning for this trip for a number of years (5-10 depending on how you look at it), we were able to bank miles on two different credit cards. We used Visa miles on the Sapporo portion, so we ended up just paying for the car. We used Discover card miles on the Tokyo portion so it ended up reducing down to $2747. 

(I just checked Expedia and the hotel right now (July) is booking for $79 / night for 2 ppl. ANA flight is $1477 per person.)                

N'EX (high speed rail from Narita to Shinjuku) $40 per person round trip – totally worth it. Portal wi-fi for the whole trip = $116. Again - completely worth it.  

I estimate total, for souvenirs, food, and other train rides, we probably spent less than $2000 total. Granted, we mostly ate out of 7-11s and we walked most places (very easy and safe), and we shopped at the 100 yen store, but it didn’t detract from our overall experience, at least not on this first trip (I could have spent the whole time visiting shrines which costs next to nothing). The ski hill we went to in Sapporo was only like $70 for the both of us. 

Grand total per person works out to $2700. Without our credit card discounts, it would have been closer to $3500.

I can't wait to go back!