In an effort to pay back the fantastic guidance from this thread, I'm jotting down some tips from our recent two week trip. Mostly they are practical rather than location specific, because there's so much location guidance available on these boards and elsewhere. Some of the best memories are from things we didn't plan but just happened upon (traditional tea and sweets in a small tea house in a Tokyo park, a wedding party at the shrine in Miyajama, an awesome hole in the wall homemade noodle shop in Kyoto) Just for context, though, we are a family of three (middle aged mom and dad and 16 year old daughter), we travelled in June 2016, flying DC-Tokyo-DC on nonstops (ANA out, United back), and our itinerary was: Tokyo-Kyoto-Koya San-Hiroshima-Tokyo.

So, for what it's worth, some tips:

1. We rented a wireless router for two weeks. This meant we had wifi access everywhere, which was incredibly useful for looking up addresses and maps, checking emails, web surfing on long train rides etc. Our hotels had free wifi, but elsewhere it was a lot less available, and even when advertised as available, you would have had to sign up for a lot of junk email before you got there. Anyway, this was a great investment, and worked really well (can connect up to 10 devices on the one we got) everywhere except in Koya San. We used PuPuRu (pupuru.com) and they delivered right to our first hotel and had a prepaid envelope to mail it back. Really convenient and easy to use. You need to book it in advance.

2. We used our Japan Rail tickets to get to and from Narita - we had originally planned to use a taxi, but got talked out of it by several people on these boards. It was really easy to use the train and then a taxi from our train station to hotel, but it does take a bit of time to exchange the vouchers for the tickets at the airport, and you need to fill in forms which include passport numbers. If you are planning to do this at all, then maybe jot down passport numbers on a piece of paper for ease of reference so you're not juggling all the passports while trying to fill in the forms. Also, check which Tokyo train station is closer to your hotel. Tokyo Station, the main station, is very large and undergoing renovation, so you'll have to cart your luggage a ways before you get to the taxis. Our hotel turned out to be nearer a better station for navigating, so that was lucky (again, thanks flytalk!). The Narita Express stops at several stations, depending on the train you take, and when you get your passes, you should tell them exactly what station you want and they will book you tickets for the next available train and in the right car (some of the trains split cars at Tokyo Station and go in different directions). The taxis will fit all three of us and our luggage (two large bags and assorted small bags) with a little squeezing.

3. And speaking of luggage, the absolutely best logistical part of our trip was using the luggage forwarding service which is readily available in all the hotels. It cost under $20 per bag, and it takes about 24 hours to arrive at your next destination, but it meant that we basically travelled luggage free the entire trip. It helped that we spent a few nights in Tokyo at the beginning and at the end of our trip, so we left one case there (half laundry and half clean clothes) and forwarded the other. We carried one set of overnight stuff with us between cities to accommodate the 24 hours delivery took. It was great not to have to haul cases on and off trains. Especially great for the trip to Koya San, which involved three trains, a cable car and a bus! I really felt for the people dragging around large cases.

4. We ate really well, and there are so many choices. I took recommendations with me, but it really didn't always make sense when we wanted to eat nearby where we were at any given moment. Found some amazing little places for sushi or fresh udon noodles and the like, tried out some more upscale places for treats, ate a lot of "street" food and just basically enjoyed it all. We did go more for western breakfasts either at the hotel or buy bringing in some breads and fruit the night before, and we made one pricey "mistake" by treating ourselves to dinner at NOBU the last night which was very pricey and, while good, not amazing. In any event, I am certain you will eat well. The only recommendation I will make, if you are planning to be in Hiroshima, is a place called Guttsuri-an which is a 10 minute taxi ride from the center, but the best meal we had in Japan, and one of the more reasonably priced. Check out the reviews on Trip Advisor, but it is the one place I would definitely go back to.

5. Just a quick note on the time difference - we managed it all ok, and for us, the early morning starts turned into a big advantage to beat crowds and heat in places like Arashiyama. But, especially the first few days, we were up at 3 or 4 in the morning with nothing at all to do. We got into the habit of buying something at the 7-11 or a local bakery the night before so we could just have a picnic breakfast in the hotel while we planned our day until the sun came up and we could get going. The 7-11 in Japan, unlike the US, has a reliable selection of fresh baked goods (our go-to favorite was the melon-pan), yogurts, sandwiches and other sundries.

6. Another 7-11 benefit is that it has one of the few ATM set ups which accommodate US bank cards. A small tip there - the maximum withdrawal was 50,000 yen, and it got disbursed in 10,000 yen notes. I quickly understood it best to take out 49,000 so as to get at least some 1000 yen notes for smaller purchases. There were some 7-11 atms in other places like some train stations, but not reliably. I read post offices also work with US bank cards, but since 7-11s were everywhere, I never looked for post offices. Cash is king, so we mostly transacted in cash, and it took an embarrassing number of trips to the 7-11 ATM during our two weeks to finance our habits (mostly food, but also souvenirs!) I also hoarded coins for ubiquitous vending machines (see below).

7. Don't bother packing water bottles - there are vending machines everywhere with lovely ice cold drinks available for a dollar or two. Water and coke were always available, but you can try lots of different (and sometimes very odd) drinks, which was a fun way to stay hydrated!

8. We had guides for some of our trips, but mostly doing it on our own was fine. I was sorry though, not to have had a chance to book some of the tours offered by the tourist office in Tokyo since they required advance booking - you might want to look into that to see if you wanted to join any of them. Don't both with the open air bus in Tokyo, by the way - it was a pretty expensive waste of time, and we usually enjoy them in other cities as a good first day introduction so it wasn't us being picky. One nice feature, though, was that they gave us rain ponchos as the sky was clouding up.

Overall, we had an amazing trip - the advanced planning with the help from flyertalker experts was really instrumental in making sure logistics ran smoothly, but otherwise we found that navigating our way around was really easy everywhere we went. I envy anyone in planning stages as you have a great adventure ahead of you!

Thank you for your post! I have always been trying to find an actual review for the wireless wifi from PupuRu. I can't wait until our trip!

Glad to hear you had a good time and successful visit.

Thanks for the write up, but what/where is the "awesome hole in the wall homemade noodle shop in Kyoto"?

Ha! I don't remember the name, and we just happened upon it while wandering - it's on a very large main street at the edge of the pedestrian network, and a few doors down from an ice cream parlor which has a windowful of plastic ice cream sundae creations (including ones with fried chicken, French fries or pork chops!) Maybe our Japan experts could pinpoint it by that description? For all I know it's the most famous noodle shop anywhere Honestly, though, most of the best meals we had were the ones we happened on rather than sought out, and there were many of them! Best sushi was on a little side street somewhere in Asakusa ... couldn't tell you where

Is this the cafe?
https://goo.gl/maps/VE8SeDfBbDB2
The ice creams look vile.

That could pretty much be on every other street in the city. Such places are literally all over. I never go looking for a specific place and rarely even know the names of restaurants I use in Kyoto. I walk around until I get hungry and then start looking. It rarely takes longer than 10 minutes or so to find a great little neighborhood place with great food.

Thank you very much for posting about your trip, glad you enjoyed the trip to Japan.

One thing I can comment about this, which is not specific to Japan and can be said about anywhere, �TV Celebrity Chef.�

Same here. The best meals were ones where we just popped into a little hole in the wall with the husband cooking and the wife doing everything else. In Kyoto, we stopped at a tiny place with only counter seating on my way home from doing laundry. Awesome, awesome food and the most fun time, especially after two girls showed up who proceeded to eat and drink more than any man and were killing themselves laughing at my pathetic attempts at speaking Japanese. Can't wait to go back next year.

I highly recommend pocket wifi as well. It's great you can have it waiting for you at the airport or shipped to your hotel. We used global advanced comm last time we were in Tokyo (http://www.globaladvancedcomm.com/).

Having googlemaps and google translate was extremely helpful for us.