Should you visit Japan now in 2024? 🇯🇵🤔

Should you visit Japan now in 2024 or wait until next year or even later…? Let’s discuss in this video 🤧

I came up with a few reasons why I think you SHOULD and SHOULDN’T visit Japan this year or in the upcoming future. It’s impossible to give a hard yes or no without knowing someone personally of course, and even then it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but overall I would say that this year is a huge year for tourism in Japan…in both a good and bad way!

What do you think? Are you thinking of visiting soon? Let me know your reasons why or why not down below in the comments 🤗

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Should you visit Japan now in 2024?

the yin is Monopoly money and tourists are everywhere in March of 2024 Japan welcomed 3,816 for visitors in just that month surpassing the previous records set in 2019 before Co so a lot of people are asking me Allison is now the best time to visit Japan if you don’t know I live in Tokyo and I’ve lived in Japan for about 6 years now and personally I’ll just go ahead and tell you I think for a large portion of people watching this video now is a great time to visit Japan but it’s also really bad I know those are contradictory statements so let’s talk about why I think you should and shouldn’t visit Japan it’s more complicated than just a yes or no so we’re not going to organize this into sections of like good reasons and bad reasons we’re just going to talk about it all at once because a lot of the reasons are double-sided so there’s good and there’s bad so let’s begin by addressing something my longest talking point of the video and perhaps one of the biggest turnoff turn-offs is that the appropriate word uh to visit Japan right now Japan is super hot and I don’t just mean in summer which it is miserably so and I don’t recommend see one of my previous videos for more information on that but it’s really really popular so looking at this data from the Japan National tourism organization you can see that tourism has been skyrocketing don’t need a statistics degree to figure this out Millions more people have been coming each year since like like 2013 and there was a break there was a little dip during Co but uh we’re back from that and I think 2024 is on track to be the most crowded the most popular with the highest number of Tours visiting ever in recorded history I I’m really I feel really strongly I’m right and I think that this is for a lot of reasons so let’s go through a few of them so first Japan is very popular in the west right now with people like under 40 I’d say especially you know the Pokémon Generation we’re all growing up and we have real adult money except for me cuz I make Japanese Yen more on that later ha but yeah there’s the Western tourist but actually the highest number the majority of tourists come from East Asia by far China South Korea Hong Kong Etc they send millions millions millions of people and tourists from these countries are coming for a wide variety of reasons a lot are very similar to the West Japan’s popular they like anime but they also like shopping there’s other reasons but end of the day the number is going up and then of course there’s the reason that Co delayed a lot of people’s trips so a lot of people are making like Revenge trips to Japan this year and Japan’s Prestige as a tourism destination just seems to grow every year it does not seem to be stopping every year more and more websites are listing Japan in like the top of their world tourism rankings like in 2023 I don’t know why but the New York Times ranked moroka as its second top world class destination or something which is very interesting like don’t get me wrong I’ve been to moroka it’s like nice I guess but it’s wow and I have seen ads from moroka actually in the station where they’re like advertising that it’s kind of funny but um anyways it’s great don’t get me wrong it’s great for Japan as a country and for moroka ETC but that means there’s crowds so all this was to say basically the number one reason why I think you may not want to come right now is it is crowded there’s a lot of tourists more so than ever so if you came in 2015 expect twice as many tourists now not even 10 years later if you came like 20 years ago then this is like a totally different tourism scene now so what this means is that like top destinations like Asaka the big shrines in Kyoto all these places where tourists usually go to are just going to be packed to the brim with people it also means hotel reservations are going to be harder to get and they’re going to be more expensive and you’re going to be competing with more people to go to Sky Tree or whatever team lab but I would like to say that most of these tourists who are like clogging up a sux and stuff they usually stay on what we call the golden route of Tourism here in Japan so this is like Tokyo Kyoto Nara Osaka so if you’re going to be venturing off of this golden route that most tourists take then I think you’re actually going to be pretty okay like don’t get me wrong there’s still tourists at like these other tourist destinations but it’s not going to be anywhere near the number of like a Saka nothing like that I mean it depends when and where you’re going but and I personally think you’re going to definitely enjoy your trip more when you’re visiting these more off the beaten path locations or whatever I mean don’t get me wrong you can still enjoy your trip if you are planning on going you know Tokyo Kyo just expect a lot of people the pictures you see on Instagram where there’s no one in the street they’re photoshopped or they woke up at like 5:00 a.m. to take the photo so all this has led to basically over tourism in a lot of these prime location like Kyoto but I would say this increase in crowds is really really good for these more off the beaten path locations cuz the tourism infrastructure has been forced to develop which makes it easier for you to enjoy places like kazawa sapuro whatever as a tourist so I know what you’re thinking Allison what if I wait a year or two maybe the people will get bored and leave I don’t know I don’t know I think you may be waiting a very long time like more than you’d want to wait if you want to go to Japan I think you should just do it so yeah like I said a lot of in Japan are suffering from over tourism especially kotto it is like a nightmare on the weekends honestly like in the tourist central locations and the problem is these places just cannot handle the amount of tourists that are coming in with their current infrastructure I mean you would think the city of kotto could have foreseen it and done something about it but that’s for another video so basically if this is like a repeat trip for you you visited Japan 10 years ago you want to come back the kotto you see today it’s going to be very very very very different from the kotto 10 years ago and this is why I highly encourage you to please go out of the way check out these more out of the way locations I don’t even mean just like tourist cities like kazawa like go rural go to G onen where I used to live because these places they really want you Cotto you know they’re kind of like the residents are kind of tired of the tourist I’m not saying they’re going to be mean to you or anything I that probably won’t happen but if you go to these more out of thee way locations people are going to go like out of their way to be kind to you I feel like you’re just overall going to feel more welcome and it’s probably going to be closer to the like idea of what you want to experience cuz they want you these rural places they’re desperate for tourists they just have a hard time appying people away from the clutches of Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto okay so that was a long talking point but there’s more bear with me watch to the end we’re not done and with that let’s go to the number one reason why I think you would want to come to Japan very soon but it’s also of the reasons I think why there’s so many tourists here this year too and that is that the yin is Monopoly money it’s garbage which is really bad for me cuz I live here and I work here and I make my salary in Yen but for you it’s probably amazing depends where you’re from but in general the yen is weak across the board and it is just going to be much cheaper for you to travel here now than it was 10 years ago even 5 years ago so the USD for example as of today this recording is 156 Yen to the dollar in 2019 it was about 110 so that’s great I am poor but you are rich and prices have not really changed that much here since pre-co like things are going up a little bit but overall it’s definitely going to be cheaper for you than it was then like now you can eat like a pretty nice restaurant for maybe 15 20 USD I’m serious so yeah me saying this is probably just going to bring in more people but you know the bank of Japan should do something about it I don’t know capitalize it while you can guys cuz you can really save a lot of money if you want to go shopping in Japan especially it’s amazing you have got to take advantage of the Monopoly money especially cuz in Japan we have these like tax free counters for tourists at the big stores it’s not every store be careful but like big unic cloves and Donkey Hotes things like that if you spend like over 5,000 yen I think usually you get taxfree and the tax rate here is 10% % so stons okay now for a universal positive kind of so do you guys remember the Olympics that kind of happened here in Tokyo so if you don’t uh they were supposed to be in 2020 Co happened they were delayed a year and the country was still closed but uh Japan was banking on a ton of tourists to come during that obviously that did not happen but prep pration for the Olympics starts like 10 15 years in advance so all the infrastructure is in place what I mean by this is now Tokyo is much more tourist friendly well Tokyo especially but like all of Japan I guess so like compared to 10 years ago there’s a lot more English signage basically everything has a sign in English now at train stations there’s a lot more tourism centers there’s just more staff everywhere that speak English or at least like enough cuz I think there was like some big push for like service workers to learn English for the Olympics and then there’s the taxfree thing so yay we can benefit from the Olympics that kind of happened kind of sad about the Olympics but so next I guess one of the negatives I just kind of want to address cuz it’s like a Hot Topic online right now is the like tourist tax which is like uh saying that a lot of stores in Japan a lot of places in Japan have started having like a special tourist price compared to locals so taist will be charged more so say they may charge like 2,000 Yen for a of ramen to Taurus but a th000 yen to locals I’m not saying it doesn’t exist I’m just saying I’ve never seen it then again I’m not going to like aaka usually but like okay I’m sure maybe some places that are doing this do exist but I think it’s a very small percentage and it’s probably only going to be in these tourist centers uh basically I just wouldn’t worry about it that much and so what if you end up paying a bit more for some Ramen once I don’t know but maybe in a similar vein what you do need to note is that hotel prizes have gone through the roof especially in Tokyo like a business hotel in shibba that would have cost maybe 10,000 Yen per night back in 2019 uh I’ve seen the price reach like 40,000 on the weekends I’m not kidding uh but usually it’s like around 20,000 so at least double so yeah this sucks for you but honestly it sucks more for locals cuz we’re still making the garbage Yin rate of money but it’s harder for people who live here to get hotels cuz there’s so many more tourists and they’re charging all this money and yeah but this is mostly just affecting like Tokyo and Central Kyoto Osaka but honestly it’s still probably going to be cheaper for you than it was in 2019 because of the yin rate even with the price increases so so yeah okay I feel like what I said in this video a lot of it sounds very negative but please remember that the goal of this video I am focusing on what is different now compared to back then and why you may want to visit Japan now or in the foreseeable future near future so things that have always been here are still here like Japanese Hospitality which is amazing the clean streets the public transportation that is always on time all of this is still here it is all the same it is all waiting for you but that’s for a different video I just want to talk about the things that may impact your decision to come with this timing so in summary yes Japan is more crowded than ever but honestly if the yin is still this garbage money I think you should come why should you not capitalize on it I would be if I lived in America still I’d be on the first plane over here are you kidding and if you are looking to travel to more out of the way places not on the golden route then absolutely yes this is a perfect time to come to Japan so if you learned something new or this helped you make a decision at all please let me know Down Below in the comments and like the video and if you’re looking for more information about traveling to Japan or maybe you just want to watch some some girl live her life here uh subscribe to my channel for more com content about traveling in Japan my life here I post every weekish I work a full-time job so bear with me and thank you for watching and I’ll see you guys back here again soon bye [Music]