Tokyo advice?
 

Hello,

I am looking to go to Tokyo for a trip. Wanted all kinds of advice on getting there including:

When is the best time to go?
When is the cheapest time to go?
Does NRT vs HND make much of a difference?
What can I expect to pay in airfare?
What neighborhoods are the best to stay in?
What are my transportation options getting around Tokyo?

I am a Japan novice, any help would be great. Thanks!

It's kind of standard advice, but I'd start by suggesting you getting and reading through a guidebook -- pick the one with the latest publication date, things in Tokyo change quickly (although not prices, there is no price inflation to speak of). The folks in this forum are really at their best when asked specialized questions, things that are not covered in guidebooks.

Thanks for the tip. Just ordered a "Rough Guide" from Amazon. In the meantime, can anyone help out with the basics of:

when is the cheapest time to fly? and what can i expect to pay? thanks!

HND is in Tokyo and NRT is about 90 miles from Tokyo. There are many affordable options to get to and from NRT if you find better fares there. I took the airport limousine bus and was dropped off and picked up at the hotel. http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/

I stayed at the Hotel Metropolitan and enjoyed my tiny room. http://www.metropolitan.jp/e/

The Tokyo Subway is very nice and reliable. http://www.tokyometro.jp/en/index.html

I hear good things about the trains, but did not ride any when I was there.

I'm sure just an oversight by you but its about 90 minutes via road between the two airports.

As to the OP's question. If you want to get a sense of pricing, why not just do a few dummy bookings on some of the airline websites?
I travel for business and have traveled at all times through the year. I haven't paid close attention to pricing but haven't noticed high/shoulder/low season pricing if that's what you are asking.

:confused::confused::confused:

Is OAK a place?
How is anyone supposed to answer this without you having said where you want to fly from?

People here will generally give as much time in writing answers as those asking invest in their questions.

To get you started, yes, there are better times of the year to go to certain parts of Japan than others. Summer can be unendurable for many people, the temperature might not appear to be so terrible but the humidity can be unbearable for those not used to it. I personally avoid Japan at this time of the year even though I usually enjoy hot weather having partly grown up in Spain.

I'll take a wild guess that the OP is from Oakland, California and flies AA.

Grrrr...... ;-)

You know someone from there

And I thought you were just OOAK. Silly me!

Not Gospel Oak then?

That would be GPO TFLPassenger

When is the best time to go?

Spring (last week of March/1st week of April) for cherry blossom season or fall (last 2 weeks of November). worst time to go is in the summer, rainy season and humid, close to 100% almost everyday.

When is the cheapest time to go?
depends, but I sometimes see find cheap fares beginning of march and beginning of october

Does NRT vs HND make much of a difference?

yes. nrt is very far from tokyo but flight times are usually much more convenient. hnd is much closer to tokyo but usually arriving very late and leaving very early. i'm flying into hnd for my next trip bc i get get a business class delta ticket for 120,000 miles while for the same dates to narita it was 120,000 for economy. i have to leave at 655am, but it's worth it to me.

What can I expect to pay in airfare?
800-2000

What neighborhoods are the best to stay in?

depends what you wanna do see/do and your budget. shibuya, shinjuku, ginza, are good places to start.

What are my transportation options getting around Tokyo?

incredible train and subway system should get you just about anywhere you wanna go. also buses, taxis and even some boat rides.

Striving for accuracy is laudable and I appreciate and value the effort made in keeping even jests on the right track.

The problem is that whilst there is indeed an airport in Oakland (I know now and checked)
http://www.flyoakland.com/

AA doesn't fly from there.

So to refine your post further, it would be GPO TRAMLINKPassenger:p

Wow 90 miles to NRT and 100% humidity. Hyperbole?

Let us help you out. The OAK is something known as an airport code. There is a nice resource here on FlyerTalk that allows you to look them up to find out what the code represents.

http://www.flyertalk.com/acl/

I hope this clears up your confusion.

No confusion, thank you. This was cleared up immediately further up thread.

Here's the big clue you missed: It was the part where I linked to the Oakland airport website and pointed out that AA doesn't fly from OAK.

I would be very naive to assume that all posters on FT are based in the same location as their handles. After all, you are obviously an uncouth person based near Dornoch airport. It must be exhausting having to continually clear the confusion seeded by your handle.

A little of course, but not a whole lot. From today until june 11th, at least 5 days are expected to hit at least 90% humidity at some part of the day and 3 days are forecasted to have at least 94% humidity at some part of the day with a high of 96% humidity. Pretty close to 100 no? Of course it's not really everyday all day, but after growing up in the southeast USA, and very sensitive to humidity, my 5+ summers in Japan were def worse!

That's because it's supposed to rain... </facepalm>

Oh, and 90 miles is nearly 150 kilometers. Tokyo-Narita is not even half that -- it's not even 90 kilometers distant.

and summer is the rainy season... so rain most days means humidity most days. i never wrote anything about distance of nrt, that's another issue, but there is no denying that summers in Japan are very very humid, even when it is not raining!

Minor correction: Rainy season happens during the summer but for only a small part at the beginning. In Tokyo it is typically mid-June to 3rd week of July. After that, plenty of summer remains that is not rainy season.

Not sure i would consider 5 weeks a small part, after all if you are traveling to Japan in that time frame it could be 100% of your summer in Japan, but yes, 2/3 or so of summer that isn't the "rainy" season but it's hotter in those months and there is still a lot of rain, it's humid and hot in summers in Tokyo. Looking at the averages, there is usually more rain in August and even September than July.

Is anyone really trying to deny the fact that Tokyo is miserable in the summer in terms of heat and humidity? Especially since AC is used a lot less commonly and usually set at higher temperatures than what what is used in the states... I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that a traveler from the USA, even somebody from the south or Florida, would not find the heat and humidity nice during summers in Tokyo!

I prefer the rainy season over the sauna season. Avoid mid-July to mid-September unless you have a well air conditioned car or you're going to spend time in the mountains.

More rainfall in August and September than July but fewer rainy days.

Once I saw data that showed Tokyo as the most humid major Asian City in the summer. Anybody else seen this.

Most humid city in summer just doesn't sound quite right to me... but Tokyo certainly has a mad confluence of humidity, heat island and relatively formal dress code (although that has relaxed). If you're moving around a lot, that also adds to the discomfort. One of my colleagues from a car-centric city was particularly shocked when we had to navigate four or five flights of stairs on a blistering day - to exit subways, cross streets and so on.

Someone on FlyerTalk is asking that question?
kayak.com
hipmunk.com
bing.com/travel
And a billion others. Please spend at least 5 minutes doing some legwork on the Internet instead of asking everyone else here to do it for you.