022 - 1:12:26, 18.26

[00:00:00] Ever dream of going to Japan, not just once, but every year. Me too. I'm John. And that dream became my mission, which is why I started rewarding routes. A podcast about making Japan travel possible. Year after year, I learned how to leverage credit cards to earn points of miles turning everyday spending into flights and hotel stays across Japan.

Each episode I'll share what I've learned from booking award travel to building meaningful itineraries and deep diving into regions, traditions, and experiences that make this country so special. Let's build your rewarding route one trip at a time. How much do you need to save for a trip to Japan? This is a question that I've gotten asked a few times and I see so often on Facebook groups or Reddit posts that I, uh, read and kind of skim through.

But the truth is, there is no magic number for how much a trip to [00:01:00] Japan will cost you. Because you know, my trip, or your trip or everybody else's trip is unique to their own liking, right? And you know, there's different timelines. And normally the average time of trips that I see are about two weeks. So in this podcast, I'm gonna be going over.

Just all the baseline expenses that you can expect and kind of give you a rough ballpark of how much it might cost you for a trip to Japan. And we dive into different areas and categories. And at the end of the podcast, I'm actually going to share. Exactly how much myself and my wife spent on a 17 day trip to Korea and Japan.

So I hope this episode helps you get an idea of maybe how much to save and, and maybe areas that you weren't expecting to spend on or, or things you didn't think of, and figure out what kind of trip you want because you want to build an [00:02:00] itinerary that excites you. Either that's just a trip. Revolved around food or cities you wanna see or activities and experience you want to have.

My number one thing, um, when planning a trip and saving up for a trip is to don't skip on the things that you already know you really care about and you, you really want to do and excites you. I would actually just kind of start my trip off from those ideas. You might have a big activity you want to do or a place you wanna visit, and it means so much to you, and it might be a bigger part of your budget, but don't skip on those things if that they mean so much to you.

Just build your trip around those things, and if it means maybe having the cutout on a few other things and maybe spend a little less on others. Then that's what it'll take to just balance things out for your type of trip. Uh, as long as you do the things that you've been wanting to do for maybe even [00:03:00] years, and you're finally getting the chance to go to Japan, or you've already been and you missed out on your previous trips.

Try not to skimp out on those things and you know, just build an itinerary in your budget based off of those things you know you really wanna do. So let's get into it. And remember, everything I'm saying is like a baseline reference. These prices and such are not set to stone well. Some of 'em are actually the prices that are on the websites, but I'll make sure to mention that.

And I'll be referencing Yen and USD. 'cause basically everybody that listens to this podcast is here in the United States. And then I'll kind of. Explain like the yen difference and so you can kind of get an idea of like the yen and the US dollar, um, comparison for some of these prices.

So at the moment, Japan's pretty affordable, and this is because of the weak yen. Currently, the US dollar one, US dollar is [00:04:00] 158. Yen. So at the moment, this means you can stretch your dollar a little bit further. When you travel to Japan , this can allow you to spend a little bit more on either food or activities or shopping.

So that's a plus right now. And you know, I don't always think it's going to be this way. I think the yen will slowly recover, but it's right now, as of January, 2026, it's a good time to travel to Japan because. You can take advantage of the moment that we're in and stretch your dollar even further for the unique trip that you want to take.

So, you know, the food quality in Japan is so good and it's priced really well, and just know that, you know, there is no tipping in Japan. And you have public transportation that's efficient, it's affordable. There's so much, and your, your dollar can go so far to allow you to have such an amazing trip to Japan.

So let's get into it. Let's talk [00:05:00] about the big. Costs first, and that, of course those two costs are flights and hotels, and hopefully you're able to use your points and miles to cover these two major expenses because this makes your trip even more affordable. You can just put that money that you saved on these flights and hotels and either save that money or you can put it into this trip and do a little bit more.

Of course when you're booking flights with points of miles and say you're booking economy, you can look at paying taxes around maybe just a few bucks to around a hundred dollars. And if you're booking business class now you're looking at probably over a hundred dollars. Definitely. You can even see maybe prices up to about $400 in taxes and fees with hotels and using award stays at hotels.

I know certainly with Hyatt you don't pay taxes and fees. Hilton, I don't believe you do. Marriott [00:06:00] might charge you some taxes. I am not too certain on the different hotel brands because I'm mainly a Hyatt person and that's normally that all my stays. I believe we stayed at IHG properties in Tokyo during our first day.

We didn't pay any taxes during that time, so just make sure you research and, and the more I get into these brands, because I haven't really dived deep into Hilton or Marriott. Um, I haven't gone too deep on those, so I, I don't know too much about those. But the time will come when I get into those because maybe I'm low on Hyatt points and I need to find some other cards and other, uh, ways of accommodation.

And then I'll move over to Hilton and Marriott and, and learn about those as I get to that step, uh, on my points in Miles journey. 'cause I'm still, like I said before, I'm still so new to this hobby. Yeah, I've done a few trips. And I've been doing it and learning about it here and there for [00:07:00] a few years.

But I still like, there's just so much to learn in this hobby and with new cards coming out and new rules always changing, and cards coming out. Yeah, it's just a lot. It's a, it's a lot to take in, so you just gotta find your, your small little corners that make sense to you. You learn those, you move on, and you keep learning as you go.

So let's start talking about the prices of things and everything once you land. So once you land, one of the first things you probably want to do is get some kind of connection for your phone. And I've done two ways already. I've done the portable wifi and I've done the eim. So on the first trip was with the portable wifi for two weeks.

I, it came out to around $86. Um, but with other portable wifis, there's a range. You, you could see it from ranging from $70 to a hundred dollars. So that's about 11,000 yen to 16,000 yen. [00:08:00] So it's not bad. The portable wifi just has to make, you have to make sure it stays charged. They normally give you, or they gave us a, um, portable charger with the portable wifi so that.

You can keep it charged. And the good thing about it is, you know, it can connect to multiple people If you're in a group, the only thing is if you get separated, then you lose that connection. Even though Japan has a lot of wifi throughout. So normally when you're in major cities, you're pretty good when you're in those cities because you'll find areas where there'll be wifi.

But my personal recommendation, especially after this last trip, was an eim. Eims are just so easy. We went with alo, um, not sponsored, but uh, I do see a lot of people being sponsored by alo, but. For good reason because it worked really well for us. It alo can range between $5 and [00:09:00] $25, and this is for five gigabytes up to 20 gigabytes, so that's about 700 to 8,000 yen.

The process of setting up an e sim is really simple and alo basically walks you through it. Um, so I highly recommend it. It was way easier. We both had connection the whole time. Never had a problem with it. And you can kind of mess around with how much gigabytes.

So I went with 20 gigabytes. I had my wife go for I believe, 10 gigabytes, and I found myself having to up another five gigabytes. So I got 25 gigabytes in total for 17 days. And my wife was good with just her 10 gigabyte. I think she had like. The Rego Bites left on our phone. Um, and that's because you can find wifi throughout Japan, so you're not always using the service 24 7.

You, you can, you know, at your hotel you have it wherever you eat. We'll probably have it, [00:10:00] um, if you're like at some kind of activity inside a building or something, they'll probably have wifi. So yeah, don't worry about it, but highly recommend eim. Next, we have luggage forwarding services.

This is Tacu Beam Serviced by Yato Transport, like the little black cat logo that you'll see. Normally, the, the prices for forwarding luggage is around $12 to $20 per bag. This is 2000 to 3000 yen. This is a, a game changer, really. , You don't want to be carrying your large suitcases on. Public trains when, especially during rush hour when it gets really packed.

Japan has, especially like the major cities, they have a lot of steps and having to like, bring your, your suitcases up these steps, it can be a hassle. So I, I see a lot of people struggling with it. , I've used the luggage forwarding services both trips. It's just like [00:11:00] such a weight off your shoulders, like especially when you're going from one major city like Tokyo over to Osaka or Kyoto.

You can have it forward from one hotel to the next. Go on machine. Eat your Bento box, have a nice enjoyable trip, and not have to worry about fighting for a spot to put your luggage on the train or bring it up. Steps in. Sweat a lot and stuff. So yeah, I would highly recommend, um, forwarding your luggages when you go to Japan because it just makes life easy and it's not that much money, honestly.

So it's really well worth the service if you decide to go with it and see if it's within your budget. If it is, then hey, this is a service that can really come in handy and create less stress for your amazing trip. Next we have food, and this is such an amazing part of Japan, and really creating a trip based off of [00:12:00] food is not a bad idea.

I'd say definitely experience as many meals as you can if you can before your trip. Plan out meals that you would like to have and have it organized because I know, I know how overwhelming it can be. When you get to a place like Tokyo and there are thousands of restaurants surrounding you, and your mind is just like overwhelmed and like, what do I eat?

What do I have? What am I in the mood for? Um, so yeah, before you go have a set of meals, you really want to try. So meals in Japan can be a wide range of costs, but it's normally very affordable. And I, I have a few tiers here and I'm gonna talk about the lower tier. And this is more of a budget option if you're trying to go to Japan on a real budget.

This is the type of foods that you'd probably look at getting, and this is the most famous coi, the convenience stores. They [00:13:00] have a, a wide range of meals actually and, and some really surprising dishes that would really surprise a lot of people I believe in, and that's why it has the hype that it has, especially on social media.

So I, I definitely recommend everybody try the, the comis. You have your family mart, your Lawsons, your seven 11. Um, but another tier would be like fast food. Fast food's another budget option. Um, I wouldn't recommend doing like your whole trip on these foods, but if you were just trying to go to Japan and you, you just have a budget and food is one of those categories that.

You just can't afford to just spend too much on then you know, you have these options. You have the kini, you have the fast foods, and you can expect these meals to be between like three to $7 us, which is around 500 to a thousand, uh, yen, I have to say the Kini are really fun. You can try [00:14:00] their like ides, uh, the tuna mayo, or the amigo sando, which is the egg sandwiches.

And you know, seven 11 has actually one of my favorite meals in the morning. It's not a meal, it's a smoothie. So seven 11 has these, a variety of smoothies that you can have. And that was normally my breakfast, first thing in the morning with a banana. Um, but yeah, you, you can, you can make some pretty creative meals at c beanies and and such and, and save quite a bit of money by doing that.

But like I said, I mean, I wouldn't personally just live off of c beanies and fast food, but this is the budget option if that's the type of trip you want to take now. For us, we were more of just the standard meals and this is the next tier of the list. And these standard meals are just like the dining options at like local restaurants and mom and pop shops and such.

And you can find meals, you know, [00:15:00] around $8 to $16, sometimes a little bit cheaper. Uh, that ranges around 1200 to 2,500 yen. I mean, for this price, you can have some incredible food, and we've had some incredible meals at this price range. You know, even just under $10. And I mean, that's why it's really affordable, that you can have really great high quality meals for this price.

I mean, a bowl of ramen you can find easily for $8 in Japan. But like here in the US you're, you're finding a bowl of ramen for nearly $20, 18, maybe 17, but. Yeah, you can really experience food and great quality food for really reasonable pricing. And remember, tipping is not a thing in Japan. Don't do it because they will not accept it.

I've heard stories of, you know, the waiters just running after you if you leave a tip and giving you your money [00:16:00] back. So. Yeah, tipping culture is just not in Japan, so this just makes eating out in Japan just so much more affordable. Now our next, tier, or it's not really a tier.

This one's like its own little thing, but I thought I'd include it because the price ranges are in between these next two. So it's themed cafes and it's something that we've done. And I know a lot of people are interested and there's a lot of different themes in Japan. Um, you know, examples are like the Kirby Cafe over at the, uh, Tokyo Sky Tree.

You have the Pokemon Cafe. You have. I believe there was like a Final Fantasy cafe. I'm not sure if that's around anymore, but there's a lot. There's a, a, a, a large variety of theme cafes. You're paying a lot for the experience and just to, to be around the, uh, the theme of the cafe. But the, I find prices to be between $10 and $20, uh, per person.

This is, you know, roughly around [00:17:00] 1500 to 3000 yen. So yeah, it's a little bit more than your standard, standard meals, but you're paying more for the experience. Um, I found the food to be, especially at the Pokemon, uh, cafe to be oh. Well, all right. It wasn't my favorite and it was a little bit pricey. You know, we bought food, drinks and stuff, and I think it came out to roughly around a $50 range.

So yeah, definitely on the pricier side, um, for the type of food, but. Remember, you're, you're enjoying the experience and, and you're sharing it with other people who have similar interests. So it's really cool to experience those things. And I really want to try the Kirby Cafe because the food looks a little bit better at the Kirby Cafe.

And I really like Kirby and I think the games are awesome. And I just played the last one on the switch, but yeah. V theme cafes. They can be a bit pricier, but you're also paying for the experience. Now let's move on to the [00:18:00] fine dining. This is more of like you're looking at maybe getting some Michelin star experience and, and just high-end fine dining restaurants.

Now you're looking around $60. This is a wide range, by the way. You're looking at $60 to maybe about $300 per person. Um, it really depends on the type of meal and place that you're going to. So this is 10,000 to about 47,000 yen. We haven't experienced a Michelin Star restaurant before, at least in Japan.

I think we've done in the states once, but. I don't know. I felt like the standard, like the, the local restaurants, the, the, the places that we were finding were just amazing. They, they were blowing our minds. Like we had so many great meals, uh, out there. So I don't know. I felt like. We, we just were able to save some money to maybe focus on activities that we, we had planned already that were a little bit [00:19:00] more expensive than we normally would spend.

But, and I'll get to those. But yeah, if, I mean, if you really want to try one of these high-end restaurants and Michelin Star Place, definitely go for it. I mean. These are experiences and these are, you know, if that's what makes you extremely happy, it's something you really want to do, go for it. Put it in your trip.

Eventually, we will love to try some kind of like Michelin star or maybe I, I'm forgetting the word, but it's normally like a chef's selection. I'd love to try that in Japan one day. So. You know, this is something on my, on my list to do eventually. But yeah, if it's on your list, put it in and then you can budget around that throughout the rest of your trip.

Alright, that kind of rounds out the food and the pricing that you can see and vary. But I also added a little section here 'cause I love coffee, so I just give you a little rundown for the coffee real quick. Uh, at Kini you can [00:20:00] expect to pay around 70 cents to about a dollar 90 cents for. A cup of coffee.

Uh, this is about 110 to 300 yen. Um, they have like the canned ones, e either the ones you get at vending machines or at the comi. Or you can get a coffee from, like the coffee machine that grinds the beans for you. That's normally what I did. I like ice, ice coffee. So you would just grab an ice cup from the freezer, you know, pay for it and go to the coffee machine, put in ice coffee.

Boom. It was a really good cup of coffee. It is really not bad, but if you're going to like local coffee shops, you can expect to pay around $3 80 cents to about $5 to about 600 to 700 yen. Um, really affordable, really good. Had to put it in the list. So next we'll be talking about activities. So there are paid activities like your team labs, which is 25 per person.

This is about 3,800 yen. You have activities like Shibuya [00:21:00] Sky, which is like $20 per person. This is 3000 yen. You have the theme parks, Disneyland, Disney Sea Universal. You can find, find those on K Kook for $55. That's 8,500 yen. Or if you're. Looking to do activities that are on a low budget or free. There are plenty of ways to do this.

You can go to shrines and temples, you can go to public parks, you can go to Castles. Now, all of these are gonna be free. But if there is a charge, it's normally under 500 yen, which is like $3 or so. So it's really not that expensive. And you're seeing these amazing places, these temples, these parks, uh, these castles in Japan.

So, you know, there's, there are ways to just do free things in Japan. You can walk around and explore neighborhoods if you want. Museums are relatively affordable too. [00:22:00] Maybe, uh, less than $10. So that's something you can also do as an activity. So yeah, there you can get creative. You can see sites or places that, you know, maybe you've seen on an anime or a movie.

So there are free things that you can do and you can come up with to make it more of a budget trip. If you wanted to focus more on food or if you wanted to focus more on the next category, we're getting into. And this one I don't have a price for because this is really up to you and it's shopping.

'cause we all know we're all shopping when we get to Japan. The amount of control that you have, it's up to you. , Enjoy it! Now let's get into unexpected expenses because there's always something maybe random you weren't thinking about for your budget. This is. Some things that I wrote down, laundry. You'll find laundry mats throughout the city. If you're staying in a city or wherever.

In Japan, you'll usually find some kind of laundry mat. If someone gets [00:23:00] sick, you'll have to do pharmacy runs, so you'll have to buy medication and such. If weather changes, if you get heavy rain, you might have to buy umbrellas. Maybe you get a rain jacket. Some kind of, maybe your shoes are soaked, you have to get another pair of shoes.

I, I don't know, there's different scenarios that happen that are random, that you just have to roll with the punches, and I just would bring a little bit of extra cash in case these things happen. Because you never know when just unexpected expenses happen. They just kind of show up. So I somehow missed this entire category of transportation.

It should have been talked about right after food, but I completely skipped it for some reason. So let's get into transportation because this is major. You're gonna want to get a sweeter card. Swer card is basically going to be your public transportation card, your card for vending machines.

Your card for Comis. The Almighty card, the sweeter card. [00:24:00] Also get the sweeter card if you can, if you're traveling in 2026 because the little penguin on it, that's the mascot, and he's retiring in early 2027. So that penguin will no longer be on that card. I think it'll just be a cool little souvenir to have.

So if you can try to get the physical Sweer card. Because Japan loves their mascots and I love them too. So let's get into it. Um, I would start off by adding around $60 to my sweeter card once I get to Japan. This is about 10,000 yen. Uh, your sweeter card's gonna be good for trains. Train rides are usually 200 to 500 yen.

This is about a dollar 30 to $3 20 per person. If you want to take taxis in Japan. They are more expensive, but they can also offer convenience for maybe families that are traveling or you have several luggages that just are a little bit harder [00:25:00] to manage and you didn't wanna do the luggage service. So taxis can be helpful and they can be a convenient thing to use, but just know the prices are going to be higher than just using the public transportation.

I remember waking up late. For the morning we were going to Universal. So instead of taking the train, we just took a taxi to get there. It wasn't that far of a trip. I mean, maybe it was like 15 minute ride or, or 20, and it was like 60 something dollars. So just a heads up, you know, I mean, you can just maybe spend like $3 on a train to get.

From like the distance I was getting to Universal. But yeah, we took the taxi and we were like, whoa. So just so you know, learn from my mistakes, but if it is convenient for you, makes complete sense. And if it's within your budget, definitely go for it. So the next part we'll be talking about the Sheen consent.

One way you're looking at about $90 per person. [00:26:00] This is 14,000 yen. It's a really good experience. It's great for getting just across Japan, and I would just definitely add this to your trip if you're going from, you know, Tokyo over to any major city. Definitely take the sheen content or you can look into flights, but it is just easier to just show up to a train station and just hop on the train and you're off to your city, like you don't have to deal with getting to the airport and then checking in your luggage and then waiting, going through security, and then waiting at the gate like I don't know the train experience.

The SH consent experience is so worth it. And it's really, it's pretty affordable. $90 is pretty good to get across Japan, so yeah, definitely look and add this into your trip budget. Alright, so now we're at the budget framework. This is something I made per person for a two week average trip. I made three categories, the first one's being a budget, [00:27:00] uh, like a major budget trip.

Then the next one will be like an average like standard trip for most people. And then the third is more of like a high end like treat yourself kind of trip. So let's go over what a budget trip would look like per person for two weeks. So for a budget trip, you're looking around 500 to a thousand dollars for two weeks.

This is about 80,000 to 160,000 yen. The daily range for this trip would be about 36 to $71 per day. This is, I mean, this is a very budget trip. Like you're mainly sticking to maybe one city. So like maybe you're just staying in Tokyo for the trip, so you're avoiding maybe taking the she consent and you know, saving on that expense to stay more local.

Um, you're doing minimal shopping. If you can control yourself, you can get like free souvenirs. I think a great souvenir in Japan is [00:28:00] collecting stamps. It's a great way to just remember your trip. You can buy a stamp book at like a Dao or. Um, you can find 'em at like, book source actually is a better place to find 'em.

I found mine at Loft. Uh, it's like a sketchbook, but I use it as a stamp book. It's a great souvenir, you know, simple things like that. You don't have to buy like really expensive souvenirs, but if you wanted it to, you can go that route. Um. If you're looking to buy like secondhand stuff, there's great stores for that.

There's like hard off and book off where you can, you know, buy second secondhand stuff. If you want video game stuff, you can go there and get some secondhand video games. Great place, you know, you'd have to keep things very minimal. Minimal you, you probably have to eat a lot of ethical beanies. You're looking at not really doing many activities, but exploring just different neighborhoods and walking around parks, visiting shrines, and there's nothing wrong with this kind of trip.

If this is, if this works for you, [00:29:00] then that's great. So yeah, the budget for this trip would be around 500, two $1,000 for two weeks. Also, let me remind that this isn't including flights or hotels. I didn't include them because. I want, I, I'm hopeful that you'll use points and miles to cover your flights and hotels for this day, but if you're just using it maybe for flights or maybe just for hotels, then you can add that extra cost into this budget.

But I should have mentioned at the beginning, but this budget part that I'm talking about isn't including flights or hotels. So just keep that in mind. If you're not using any points of miles for these trips and you're just, you're booking those two, then add that into this budget. Now for more of a standard trip budget for two weeks for per person, you're looking around 1000 to about.

$1,700 and the daily range for this is about 71 to $125 per day. And I do think this is a very [00:30:00] good, like a good spot. This is, uh, I think we're pretty close to this. I'll share our trip at the very end of this podcast, but I think this is a comfortable spot because you can. You can mix up like what you eat, like you can eat at a lot of local restaurants.

Basically the whole trip. You can like sprinkle in a few cini stops. You know, if you want a snack throughout the day or you want to get that seven 11 smoothie that I love so much, you can do attractions, you can do paid attractions, you can do the team labs, you can do the museums. You can do. Um, coffee shops.

You can go shopping, um, you can do secondhand shopping at like great neighborhoods like, uh, Shi Awa. Um, I thought that was a great Thrifty neighborhood to go to. Um, it's a very comfortable trip. You're going to multiple cities on this budget. You're able to take the Sheen Khan send. So I think this is a very sweet spot for a lot of [00:31:00] people and it's very enjoyable.

So I don't, I don't think you'd stress too much with this type of budget, but just keep in mind how much you spend on shopping because that that really does kind of, you know, sway the way your budget goes quite a bit. And now we'll move over to the high end. Treat yourself kind of trip. Where it's still really good, like a reasonable price.

Um, you're looking for about two weeks for per person, um, 1,800 to 2,500. And this is a really like comfortable trip like you're doing. You're mixing in a lot of, uh, like you're mixing in quite a few nice meals. Like, um, you could do a few Michelin star places. You can stay at a Rio Con. Which is, you know, per night for a Rio Con.

It's a traditional end. You can look at around $300 or so. Uh, we stayed in one on Mima Island. It had a onsen, it was about $330 per night. We [00:32:00] stayed one night, but it was definitely, definitely worth it, especially with the onsen. It is just, uh, it was, it was so good. Definitely recommend that. But, um, you can do more experiences, on this past trip.

We had done like a photo shoot together. Uh, me and my wife, we did a baking class. We did at class. So we, we were able to sprinkle in, um, not only like other activities that we had planned, but we also, uh. I added like experiences that, you know, we got to meet other people and talk to the locals and ask them for their recommendations.

So we got to eat where they like to eat. And you know, I thought this was a really, this was something new for us. We hadn't done too many experiences like that. And I think we'll be doing that from now on. But I think it's definitely worth like paying up a little bit more to have these type of experiences, um, with this budget.

I mean, you can do, you can do some shopping [00:33:00] without really having to worry. I mean, you're doing multi trip, visits. I mean, you're taking a sheen, you're enjoying all the meals of all the different types and varieties. You're just having a really fantastic time and. Yeah, you're very comfortable with this type of trip and you're looking at the price of being like $129 to $179 per day, per person, uh, with this like more high end trip.

So that kind of like wraps up all the different tiers. And remember, this is just a baseline, like it really is unique to like your type of trip you can. Do it the way you want to, and you, you have your own budget and you can, I'm just giving you a baseline of how things, how much things cost and, and like what to expect.

It's more of like a what to expect kind of thing. And these numbers, you shouldn't, you know, they're not set to stone. You can really like, play around with them and, and just create your own [00:34:00] unique trip. So let me get into our actual. Breakdown. I wish I broke it down. I wish I separated all the different categories and, , I, organized it better for you for this podcast, but I just wrote down all the expenses and I just like matched it into just one big expense.

I didn't separate like food and shopping and activities and transportation. So for our 17 day trip to South Korea and Japan. Here's our breakdown. We spent $4,178 and 67 cents, and I just kind of matched it all in together. This is, yeah, I don't have the different categories. I wish I did, but um, this is for two people for 17 days and you know, per person, the total would be 2089.

So it was a little bit more of the higher end budget for us, but it was 17 days, so it was a little bit more than two weeks. Uh, and that comes out to about $123 per day. [00:35:00] And yeah. And, uh, flights in hotels were covered with points and miles. I did include the taxes I paid for the flights in this price. Um, I have all those prices listed out on my Instagram.

You can go under a highlight where it says redemptions and you can see like how much I paid for those different fees. But it was a really good trip. You, you know, like I talked about, we spent a lot more on activities and experiences. We went to a baseball game out there. We had like. Like those, um, baking and tea class and photo shoot.

The photo shoot was like one of the more expensive things that we did the whole trip. But we did some shopping too. You know, we bought a lot of like skincare stuff in South Korea and of course we went shopping. I normally go like clothes shopping in Japan now. I don't really buy clothes here. One reason is, you know, it's tax free when you spend over 5,000 yen.

And I just like shopping for clothes in Japan. It's fun. So I, I enjoy that and we, you [00:36:00] know, we bought some other stuff while we're out there and, you know, we, we had a very good trip and it, it felt very comfortable and, you know. We weren't really pressed for, for much with, um, with our budget. So that's how much we spend for 17 days.

I hope this episode kind of helps you get more clarity of like, okay, maybe I can start planning and, and seeing like I can start saving this much and then, you know, I could spend on, spend bigger on the things that I love. And then maybe, budget out maybe a little bit more on the other categories that maybe just don't mean as much to me during this trip.

But remember with points in Miles, this trip doesn't have to be, once you can take these trips over and over again in time, you know, that's the beauty of points in Miles and it allows you to lift those two major expenses of flights and hotels. And focus more on the trip itself. So [00:37:00] yeah, I hope you got some great value from this episode.

I hope you learned a lot. If you can, you know, I haven't really asked this, but if you could leave a review on the podcast, on Apple Podcast on Spotify, I had really appreciate. I'd love to hear your feedback and if you can leave a five star, that would just help me out, uh, quite a bit. And, you know, as I'm growing this podcast and, and getting more comfortable doing it.

But definitely if you have any questions, reach out and if you have any trips coming up and you're planning it, I'd love to hear about it. And if you want to share it with me, that would be great and we can, we can talk it over. So, you know, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram at itch. John Diaz. , I changed my handle , a little bit more simple, a little bit more me, so you can find me at it's John Diaz and you can email me at Rewarding Routes podcast@gmail.com. I appreciate your time, and I'll see you on the next one. See [00:38:00] ya.