Japan travel – 18-hour overnight ferry from Tokyo to Hokkaido (under $100!)

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Having spent 2 days exploring the incredible city of Tokyo, our next goal was to make the nearly 1000km journey to Sapporo, on Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido as cheaply as we could. Having heard about the natural beauty of the Northernmost region of Japan, we couldn’t wait to explore what Hokkaido has to offer.

With trains and planes being relatively expensive, we decided to try the lesser-known route: an 18-hour overnight ferry north on the North Pacific Ocean. We bought the cheapest ticket available, meaning we had to sleep in a shared room on rolled-out futons.

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ABOUT ME:
I started solo travelling in 2013 and left Indonesia in 2016 to pursue full-time travelling while at the same time documenting my journey as I explore different cultures as a solo female traveller.

Having initially travelled for 5 months throughout Asia, I moved to China in January 2017 for an English teaching job, which was my first experience living abroad.

Since leaving China in 2018, I have taken the move to become a full-time YouTube creator and traveller. I strive to create unique, culture-driven content and capture authentic interactions as I travel.

Having spent 2 days exploring the incredible  city of Tokyo, our next goal was to make the nearly 1,000 km journey to Sapporo, on Japan’s  northernmost Island, Hokkaido, as cheaply as we could. Having heard about the natural beauty of  the northernmost region of Japan, we couldn’t

Wait to explore what Hokkaido has to offer. With trains and planes being relatively expensive, we decided to try the lesser-known route, an 18-hour overnight ferry north on the North Pacific Ocean. We bought the cheapest ticket  available, meaning we had to sleep in a shared room

On rolled-out futons. Ooo, this is basically where  we’ll be sleeping. We are probably on a pirate ship after all. Having struggled a lot with  seasickness in the past, I was apprehensive as to how we’d cope on the ocean. Would travelling  by ferry actually save us money? Could I handle living on

A ferry for 18 hours without getting seasick? I think we have a woman down over there, unfortunately. Hello, good afternoon from Tokyo. My husband and I are currently in Tokyo Station.   It has been such a hectic afternoon if you can’t tell. We’re huffing and puffing because,  

We’ve been trying to get to this town called  Oarai by taking the train to Mito. It was very   confusing getting the ticket. Turns out you  have to buy two tickets like a basic fare ticket  and a limited express ticket. These are  the tickets that we had to purchase. The first is, I think

This is the base fare ticket and this is  the express ticket. We initially purchased this one particular ticket and they said this is  not enough, you need to purchase also another ticket called Base Fare. I’m like, where in the  world?! It’s so confusing to buy a train ticket in Japan!

The ferry was going to depart from Oarai, a port  town 120 km north of Tokyo. We had to first get to the town of Mito, which was about  75-minute train ride from Tokyo station.   The journey ended up costing about $27 each for  the two-part ticket and would take us within 12km

Of the Oarai ferry port. Hello from limited Express  train toilet! I am currently here to show you what this compact and tiny but clean toilet  looks like. Obviously, you’ve got here sitting toilet. Clean! We’ve got a couple of toilet rolls, a basin, a very small basin although this

Is not a drinkable water. Seat cleaner, wet wipes basically, a seat for your  baby if you’re travelling with one. Also, you can pull this out to change the baby’s diaper. We made it! We’re going out of Mito train station, which is fairly busy. We’re trying to get a taxi to reach the ferry point.

We are taking the stairs down to get to the taxi stand. Having missed our first bus, we were worried  that we would miss the final check-in time so when we arrived at Mito station, we decided to pay  $37 for a 25-minute taxi ride. This unfortunately  

Turned our initial desire to make this a budget  journey, on its head a bit. Finally made it to the taxi. I’ve always wanted to try this  taxi as soon as we arrived in Tokyo.   It feels like we’re in a mafia  movie if that makes sense. It is very cool!

We thankfully check in with time to spare,  and boarded the ferry to look for our shared room, where we would be sleeping for the night. How exciting! It is exciting. Look! Tomakomai, that’s the destination. Can you see the ferry behind me? Over here you’ve got so many cars lining up.

Ooh, this is exciting! So we will be  staying in one of these futon beds. Hello, welcome to the room for the night. We chose the cheapest bed available for tourists and this is basically,

Where we’ll be sleeping. One of these beds will  be laid out like this on the floor. So this is a futon bed which means a Japanese bed. I think  there’s a separation here when you feel like you

Need some privacy. It’s comfortable basically, it’s  a bit cosy if you feel like sharing with 11 other people, is okay for you, this is an experience  that you can get when travelling in Japan. Apart from being cosy you also get some privacy.

As the ferry left in the evening, we  went straight to the restaurant for dinner.  We bought a ticket for dinner and breakfast  buffets together for $20 each and had to pay with cash at the machines. I am currently sitting at the restaurant

Within the ferry and paid 2,900 Yen ($20) for a  set meal, for one dinner and a breakfast. The dinner is actually a buffet and I’ve  chosen all the food there is to it as you can see, I probably have taken too much  for myself. Starting with I think this is pork.

With a bit of Japanese rice there.  It just tastes nicer this Japanese rice. You get kiwi, orange, fresh tomato  all of the food is so fresh-looking!   You get this kind of bao bun kind  of things, which I think you can sort of  

Like fill yourself and make your own dish  out of. I’ve already put a little bit of meat and some veggie in. I’m going to put a  bit more meat in, no idea if I’m doing this right. That meat it’s actually really tender! After dinner, it was already getting late so we settled down

And stored our luggage in the convenient  lockers on the ferry. We wanted to get an early night sleep, so we could see the sunrise  in the morning. We finished our dinner and we were thinking of going to the observation  deck but we weren’t allowed to be outside,

Therefore we don’t know what else to do. We will be  filming again tomorrow and I am going to sleep. Good morning! It is about how about 6:30 am.  I decided to get up because I wanted,

I really wanted to see the sunrise on the ship and it  was actually a very beautiful sunrise. It has just been really peaceful you know, walking around the ship.  There are a few people up and about not too many people.

It’s quite quiet. I think I’ve been  on like a few ferry rides a couple of hours long but I’ve never slept on a ferry before so it was  definitely a weird feeling like lying on the futon,

Just feeling the rocking of the ship. I’m just  really happy that we got the ferry rather than like flying, because it just feels like a much  slower, more local way of doing it. There’s a couple   of foreigners on the ship, but everyone else is locals.

Ohayo Gozaimasu, which means good morning in Japanese. We’ve got two breakfast tickets and lining up to get to the restaurant. It’s 7:30 am and the breakfast only lasts until 9 a.m. We learned from last night to get in there quickly 

And film the experience. It’s such a stunning morning to wake up to, because to see next to us is so stunning! Breakfast starts with a lot of  selections. First, fish if you’re into that. I’ll get a bit of sausage probably. We get cold tofu  and asparagus with some pork. I’ll try that one!

Oh no, that’s a dumpling. It’s so tidy! This is a  bit more Japanese style of breakfast. There’s some seaweed. It’s moving quite fast  and a bit bumpy now. I’m starting to feel a bit seasick. I’m feeling really sick because oh I don’t have the best of luck

When it comes to seasickness. I don’t  even want to eat this food because I just want to lie down. Oh dear! I think we have a woman down over there, unfortunately. I don’t think we’re going to  be able to film much because the boat’s  moving quite a lot and she’s feeling really sick.

Unfortunately, my seasickness got  so bad that I couldn’t eat anything or even stand up for long periods of time.  Having taken motion sickness pills and not feeling any better, I had to lie  down and try to slip through some of it.

I’m in one of the dressing desk or cubicles  in the woman’s toilet, how thoughtful is that, they have   this on a ferry. Yeah I’ve taken three  tablets, motion sickness tablets since last night. I’m trying to feel better really and  yeah just getting ready.

I am feeling slightly better and going to tour around the  ferry but first, we’re going to the observation deck. Let’s go! Wow, this is lovely! You can see the surrounding nature.  You can see some of the mountains over there.

You see what’s interesting, I don’t know  if you’ve watched the One Piece cartoon. That’s like a pirate symbol, we’re probably on a pirate ship  after all. I don’t know if you can tell from the camera,

That as you go up, it gets more windy. It’s a  lot windier than down there. I think what I’ve just realized that could be the Hokkaido Island  coming in, because over there, I don’t know if you can see the Honshu, Japan Northern  Honshu island is called. We’ve got a couple of hours left

Until we’ve arrived at, sorry I’ve eaten my own  hair, arrive at Tomakomai I think that’s the port town. The Sunflower Furano Ferry was very  clean and consisted of three main floors. It was constructed in 2017 and is dedicated to  the Tokyo Hokkaido route. Although there isn’t

Much to do on the ferry there are two floors of  seating, some private cabins, a shop, a games room, vending machines, hot water for noodles or  tea, kids’ area and an outside observation deck. Of course what Japanese ferry tour would be  complete without a tour of the toilet.

Here we have the typical Japanese toilet you’d expect.  You’ve got options to clean the rear and clean the front. You even have music for privacy and you  can control the volume of the music, which I think is pretty hilarious to be honest. It’s a  little bit weird filming yourself in the toilet.

I think we have arrived at Tomakomai. How exciting, look! I think this is the port, over there you can start seeing Hokkaido. How exciting! The ship is repositioning so that we can get off, we can get off from this lovely ferry that we’ve been on.  Our home for the last 18 hours! Yeah

It’s actually gone very quickly. Even though you were sick for half of them. It’s been over really great experience. I’ve really enjoyed it. Me too! So passengers are already queueing up to leave and disembark. We’re just getting our backpacks. The staff are standing, to say goodbye to us.

This is the ferry port. There is an information that we can get a bus from the ferry terminal all the way to Sapporo station and it cost 1450 Yen ($10). The problem is that we don’t have enough cash

We found the bus, well, the only bus probably.  We were wondering if they accept cards rather than cash payments. Oh well. We actually ran out  of cash because we blew the budget out of the water

For the ferry meal set and it turns out that the  bus all the way to Sapporo station costs 1450 Yen per person. We only have got 1,000 Yen left  and there was no ATM at the fair terminal.

The driver was kind enough to suggest that  we should go all the way to Tomakomai station to get an ATM and then we can also get a train to  Sapporo, which comes in handy because the fare only cost

250 Yen per person and we were able to afford it. This is the bus and lots of passengers are disembarking. Travelling mishaps. We have got to Tomakomai station. How exciting! We are in the search for an ATM.

Will there be any ATM? If we don’t get  any ATM, they can accept card payments, can they not? Probably. Yeah! Thankfully the train ticket counter  accepted card payment. so we boarded the next   train to Sapporo to find our hotel for the night.  It wasn’t the smoothest journey with missed transports,

Extra cost, sickness and running out of cash but  we were relieved to finally be in Sapporo after 24 hours of travel. Ladies and gentlemen,  we will arrive at the Sapporo terminal in a few minutes. Well that was a long journey all the way from  Tokyo to Oarai and then Tomokomayami, no Tomakomai.

Tomokomai, and then to Sapporo. We’re in Sapporo! Yay finally. It’s really nice being here because the  weather is already fresh, it’s like crisp,  nice clean air, actually it’s a lot more like England. Since getting off the boat I’ve sort  

Of felt like, I’m still moving it’s like it was  still like rocking like I almost feel more sick   off the boat than I did when I was on the boat.  Oh no, not for me. It was good fun, yeah! 

It was really good fun. That was our very first  experience having an overnight ferry. Let us know what you think in the comment  section below. We worked so hard to get this video right hopefully. Yeah, the next video  will be from Sapporo. See you again next time. Bye!