Hello, I'm John Diaz and I'm the host of Rewarding Routes. Japan stole my heart, so now I made it my mission to visit all 47 prefectures. The way I'm doing this is using points and miles to get me there because let's be honest, it can be pretty expensive. Think of this as your guide of making that kind of travel realistic. The things we're going to be talking about are credit cards, award bookings, the culture, the places you can visit, the experiences waiting for you on the other side of that flight. Every episode, I share what I'm learning so you can travel smarter, go deeper, and keep coming back. Let's get into it. Today we have a great episode lined up, and it's all about how to start planning your trip to Japan. So this is kind of piggybacking off of the last few episodes of you know, we talked about what spring is like in Japan and the crowds that come with the cherry blossoms, and we also talked about things you need to book in advance for Japan because there are a lot of popular activities that are definitely worth doing, but it's going to require some time and some knowledge about it as well as planning in in advance. But now I wanted to get into more of the initial start of planning a trip to Japan. We're not making an itinerary just yet, we're just saving things that interest us. And I'm going to go over things that I use like tools and and um things that I do to begin this the process of just planning a trip. And this is a really fun process for me personally. Um, just saving the things on a certain maybe route that I have planned, and you can do this definitely before you have a trip booked. Um, you can do it when you have a trip booked. Uh it's whatever you decide to do. But now that we have our trip booked for February of 2027, I have an idea of our timeline, 11 months out basically. And we have an idea of the route we want to take for this trip. Um, but I'm gonna go over some of the things that I do before uh I create an itinerary and I just kind of start just saving a lot of things and just putting everything out there and then filtering them later. So let's get into it. And where I'd like to begin is with Google Maps. Google Maps is such an essential tool for me because I use it for every single trip that we plan, and I'm basically saving everything that I find, every location that I find interesting in Google Maps, and you can create different saved files in Google Maps, so you can have I already have a Japan 2027 uh tab that I saved, so every pin can go into the Japan 2027, but I also have a master plan which is something saved within all 47 prefectures of Japan, and you can create different you know tabs for different things, but Google Maps is so essential for the beginning process, and even when traveling to Japan, it works flawlessly once you're traveling within Japan. So, you know, for me, Google Maps is probably the number one tool that I use for beginning planning and for essential travel once we are in Japan. So with Google Maps, basically what I'm doing is I'm saving all the locations that I find interesting for myself and that my wife finds interesting. So what we'll do is we'll go on you know YouTube and we'll follow people that we like and that we have common interest in, and people that you know are very passionate about traveling to Japan and love sharing advice, and some people that come to mind on YouTube are are people like uh John from Only in Japan and his Only in Japan Go, which is his live because he's he's lived in Japan for almost 30 years and he's so passionate, and you can feel it in his videos. So just find people that you enjoy uh watching vlogs. You can go on Instagram, watch shorts. Um, I'm sure TikTok's a great place to go to find you know popular things to do in Japan. There's so much content out there, but you know, just pick out the things that really stick out to you and that you find interesting. There's also blogs. Um, a great blogger that I know is the Navigatio, which I'll I'll link these people down below uh in case that you're interested in in following any of them. And um there's a lot of great people that I follow on Instagram, uh, especially that are you know some foot photographers. I like following photographers in Japan um and seeing their perspective and how they they see Japan. So there's a lot of different people to follow. There's a lot of content out there. Um I'm going to share throughout planning for our trip to Japan. I'll be sharing things that you know interest us. And yeah, there's just so much content to follow and to to find things that interest you that you can save locations of. So, I mean, you can find a lot of great food places. I follow quite a few uh food channels in Japan, so there's a lot of food to save, a lot of restaurants, a lot of regional cuisines to have, and I'll be going over that very shortly here. Um, but basically, I'm just saving everything in Google Maps, and what this allows me to do is in time, as you save more and more places, you're able to see these pockets of areas that you know really have your interest. So, for an example, in 2023, when we took our first trip to Japan, um, I was able to see that a lot of places that had our interest were in Shinjuku. There are other places that had high interest over by Asakasa. So, what I did was I actually booked hotels in those two areas of Tokyo because I knew a lot of places that we saved were in those areas, and being able to see all the pins in Google Maps in time, it definitely helped you see the areas and the neighborhoods that you might want to stay nearby. So this is a great visual because I'm a visual person. Uh so when I when once I see a map and I can see the pins and I can see how many things we have saved near Shinjuku, things we have saved near Asakasa, then it was easy for us to pick a hotel in those areas. So uh in Shinjuku, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Tokyo, which is about a 12-minute walk from Shinjuku Shinjuku station. And in Asakasa, since there was no Hyatt and we were trying to use points, but unfortunately there just wasn't anything over there. But we knew we wanted to be in that area because of just how many things interested us. We just went ahead and booked a couple nights in with booking.com for a really cheap accommodation, but it was perfectly fine, and it was in the heart of Osaka, about a two-minute walk from Sensoji Temple, and it was fantastic, and we got to do so much in that area because there were so many things saved for us that we knew interested us. So, yeah, I think this is a major like essential thing for our beginning planning uh whenever we travel, honestly, anywhere, but especially Japan, and that's why I find this so helpful to visually see on a map of all the things that you can save and the locations that you save, and it just makes it easier and you can visually see like the areas that actually have your interest. So I think it's a fantastic tool to use, and um, and I can highly recommend Google Maps for that. So now this leads me to the next part, and that's learning the regions. And if this is your first time to Japan, maybe you're doing the golden route, which is Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, fantastic. Those are places worth visiting, definitely. And you know, it'll be crowded in most popular parts, but you know, these places are popular for a reason, so um, they're well deserved to be seen. And if you've been to Japan already, you know what to expect, and and there might be different regions that you want to learn about. So this is a part where I really get excited because I love learning new things and I love learning along the way. Um, so for this trip that we actually have coming up, there are certain areas that I haven't even studied or learned about, and there's prefectures I didn't even know the names of because there's so many, and I only know a handful of them, maybe half of them. Um, because there's 47, and I'm just not familiar with all 47 yet, but I'm going to get there, and that's why I'm doing this because I I want to learn along the way, I want to learn these things, and I don't want to pretend that I know everything because I definitely don't, but that's why we're here, and this is such a fun part for me because this is our third trip to Japan, and you know, I'm going to start learning about different regions, different prefectures that um we have never been to before, and and learning about cities and and towns within that prefecture and what those places are known for. So when you start saving places and places that interest you, either if it's on the golden route or if you're wanting to expand on, you know, this is your second, third, tenth trip. Um, this is uh a great and really exciting part because we can learn about what this prefecture is known for. What are the things that make this pre that this prefectures proud of doing? Um, you know, there are prefectures like Fukuoka, which has, you know, it's known for its ramen, or you have um Kagawa, which is known for its udon, or Amori, which is known for its apples, Yamagata, known for its cherries, Hokkaido for its dairy and for seafood, and just fantastic food in general. Like each region has its own unique thing and its own unique food and the things that they offer. There are just so many things to explore and to learn about in these different prefectures. So this is a really uh exciting part because when you start learning about prefectures, you start learning about what that prefecture is about, what the vibe is, what the cultures are, um, what the foods are that they they eat in that area, and you know, having Okonomiyaki style in in Osaka and Takoyaki, then going down to Hiroshima and having Hiroshima style okonomiyaki, which is added soba noodles, it's just really cool to learn about these things and um to experience these things to eat these different flavors of food and and and eat something that's really known for that area. So that's why I love learning about these different regions, these different prefectures, because there's always something to learn about them. And for example, with our trip coming up, we plan on basing ourselves out of both Kyoto for maybe a week and Osaka because we plan on doing day trips to different places. So one of those places is Okayama, which I haven't really looked much into Okoyama Prefecture, but there's this town in Okayama called Kurashiki, and Kurashiki is known as this very beautiful canal town where there's these boats going down these canals, and there's these nice shops along the water, and I actually just learned that Kurashiki is the birthplace of Japan-made denim. So that's a fact that I just learned recently, and I still have a lot to learn about Kurashiki and you know the foods in the area and what Okayama Prefecture is known for in general. And those are things I'm gonna learn and save along the way, and this is the process of me going to start saving for those locations. Uh, apologies if you hear my little one, he is in the carrier on me, and um, I think he just woke up, but uh you might hear him here and there. But I'm giving mommy a little rest and I'm kind of behind on my recording, so I'm just doing this here with him. Um, he usually falls asleep to my voice and he usually knocks out when he's in the carrier. But yeah, back to it. Um Okayyama, it I'm really excited to learn more about it and to learn more about just what the prefecture has. Uh, we're gonna be doing day trips most likely from Osaka to Kuroshiki, and um maybe there'll be some areas that we stop at, but we're trying to trying to keep it as simple as possible because we'll have a one-year-old by that time um of our trip. So now that takes me to our next part, and that's understanding the season that you're going in. So we talked all about spring in Japan about two episodes ago, but understanding the season can really help plan your trip. Um, we're going in the winter time in February, it'll just be nice and cold. So maybe there'll be some meals to have during the winter that I have to research myself, or if you guys have any experience, you can let me know and and um inform me and and definitely learn from you. But I think understanding seasons is really important because, say, if you go during cherry blossom season, like we talked about in the spring, you're going you're going to experience larger crowds, you're going to experience higher prices. Uh, if you go in golden week, which is the last week of April, going into May, then you know it's Japan's busiest holiday, so things are going to be very full, a lot of places are going to be closed, so those are things to look out for. But say you're going during the summer, and I know you'll hear a lot about the summer is absolutely brutal with the heat and the humidity, but summer is also a fantastic time for Matsuris, which are Japanese festivals, and this is something I want to do so bad. And I might wait for our little one to get a little bit older so that he can experience these festivals. But there are so many amazing festivals and fireworks shows in Japan during the summer that you know you just put on a yukata and you join the festival, you eat the foods at the stands, you have the yakisoba, you have all the all the amazing meals and and and the energy from these festivals. They look incredible, and there are so many that I have a few saved, and one of them that really comes to mind for me is the one in Amori. It's called the Nebuta Matsuri, the Nebu uh Nebuta Festival, which is held sometime in early August. And basically, what it is are these massive illuminated lantern floats that look absolutely stunning in art. When I say massive, they are massive. There's some YouTube videos. I believe I saw a video by Chris Broad abroad in Japan. Um, and even John Dobb had a video about these um these massive floats, and they are extremely impressive, and I would love to see these as well as you know, fireworks shows that they have up uh in Tohoku, which just look incredible. So, you know, if you go during the summer, I know you'll hear a lot about avoid the brutal heat, but you also have all those beautiful festivals that you can enjoy and that you can add into your itinerary, so you could save those things if you know you are going sometime in June, July, August, especially. So, yeah, those are things to look into. Now, moving on, and something I like to do early on as well is what I like to do is once I start saving places, especially places that require maybe advanced booking or I have an idea of the price of that place, I like starting like a very simple budget sheet for the trip. So I'll in Google Sheets is what I use. I'll create a little budget sheet, very simple, and I'll start putting down activities that I know I want to do, and maybe activities that are maybe secondary or things that we would like to do, but we don't know of if we will actually do. Um, and once I start saving those experiences and going online and seeing how much those things cost, then I can start adding that into a sheet to visually see what this trip is going to start looking like budget-wise, because you know these are things and experiences that you want to have, and you know, if you know you want to have these experiences and you have the prices right there on the website, you can input those into a sheet, and then as time goes on and you you save more and more things, you're getting a better idea of what kind of budget you should have and what you can save for. You can just uh get ahead of it. Same thing goes for transportation. If you know you're gonna ride the Shinkansen, you can save how much that's gonna cost you. If you know you're gonna take uh you're gonna book a limousine bus from the airport to wherever you're staying in Tokyo or wherever, you know how much that's gonna come out to. You can go on Kluke and and see the prices on there. Um, same thing for accommodations. If you, you know, say you booked mostly on points for hotels, which is fantastic. You know, that's what we want to do. We want to save our money. You know, you booked a flight with points or with miles, and you booked hotels with points, that's great. But I know some people are gonna maybe want an experience of a traditional inn, which is a ryokan, and it's something I'll probably have an episode about in the future because it's something I would highly recommend to anyone to experience at least one night, maybe even two nights. But a Ryokan, a tri traditional inn, is a really great experience, and it's something that should be booked in advance. And I'm not sure if I actually talked about it in the last episode, but it's something that should definitely be looked at in advance. A great example of this is the Ginzon Ansen in Yamagata Prefecture. And if you haven't seen this, and maybe you have, but you just didn't recognize the name, look it up. It's a beautiful place, it's a place we would love to visit and potentially love to maybe stay at a Ryokan there. But we know that place from what I've seen in in YouTube videos. I believe John Dobb has a video in only in Japan about you know one of the uh Ryokans in this place, it has to be booked eight months, six months in advance. So this is something that has to be booked in advance, but it's an experience definitely worth having. So this is why I would recommend it, and I it's probably why I'm going to have an episode all about Ryokans and my experience with one that had an onsen, and I do have uh one tattoo that's like a medium size, so I can talk about that experience as well because I know people are curious about you know tattoos and onsense, and you know, normally it's not allowed, but there are places that do allow tattoos and that are tattoo-friendly. So back to the point for Rio Cuns, you you're going to have to book in advance for ones, especially to have onsends with them. And if you know that you have to book in advance, that's something you can put in your budget sheet, and then you can get an idea, you know how much you need to save for that stay, for the other activities that you want to do, and you're just able to get a better idea of what your trip is going to cost and what you're able to save for. And I actually have an episode, episode 22, I talk all about how much you need to save for a trip to Japan, and they're basically rough estimates of you know, you can do budget trips, you can do a very, you know, standard trip, or you can do more of a high-end trip. It's really based off of what you want. But if you're able to track these things early and see, okay, we know we want to do team labs, okay, we know we want to say a Ryokan, we know we want to um do you know cooking classes and and these things, then you can start jotting those things down, saving them in Google Maps, saving them in maybe another app like Wonderlog, which is an app I use as well to start to really create the itineraries once I start um filtering out and seeing the areas that have our higher interest, and then yeah, you can go from there and you you just get more of a visual. I'm I'm all about the visuals and seeing places on a map. I'm all about seeing numbers because these are things I'm able to see, and it's easier for my brain to process and to understand, okay, this needs to be done. I need to save this much, this is the areas that interest us, and it just kind of goes from there, and then that's how our itinerary really starts to take shape later on. Um and I do want to take a moment and say that you're gonna hear me in some parts of this episode kind of having like I'm running out of breath or like my breath's kind of short. It's because my baby's strapped against my chest and I am standing up, and normally I'm sitting down recording, so the mic is kind of at an awkward angle for myself. So when I'm talking these long stretches, I find that I uh my breath is starting to leave me a little bit, but we're good. He's completely knocked out, and and we're you know, we're getting through this. So, you know, this is all about new parenting, learning as I go and and just kind of powering through it. So yeah, you'll hear those moments where it just I'm it sounds like I'm struggling, and I just listened back and I and I heard it. I'm like, oh, I should probably just mention something really quick. But yeah, getting back to it when when you see the prices of things, um It can go for me, it goes a long way because it it helps me prepare prepare mentally and and see, you know, I'm not panicking last minute, like, oh, maybe we shouldn't do these activities because we're already past our budget, but it gives me a head start and and understands I can understand what to expect and I can understand some of the pricing and then I can save for food. And I talk all about that in episode 22 where I talk about how much you should save for a trip like um for like a two-week trip to Japan, and I go over the numbers and and some rough numbers, they're not exact. You know, everybody's trip is completely different, but these are just you know some basic things that you know hopefully could help and and and can provide value for yourself. So yeah, you know, those are some key things that I've I've been able to learn um and that I do myself, uh creating a budget sheet. And I know it's not doesn't sound super exciting, but I for me who who's truly a visual learner, um, when I'm able to input these numbers and and save things and see things on a map, it just helps me tremendously whenever I start planning for trips um that I want to make the most of and I want I want to see the things that we want to see. And I do want to mention that you're gonna you're going to save a lot of things and you're going to want to do a lot of things, but just know there are so many things to do. And one of our things that you know I made a mistake on during our first trip was doing too many things and trying to be at too many places. So I would recommend saving the things you absolutely want to do, but still saving the things that interest you. And once you start building an itinerary, you can start, you know, have the activities that you booked ahead of time and then start putting in like filling in the gaps. But just understand you you probably have to be okay with not seeing a lot of things because there's just so much to do, and that's why I I want to keep going back to Japan because when I have that mentality that yes, I'm gonna go back every single year, I'm able to relax a little bit and take a step back. And you know, when I create these itineraries, I can tell ourselves like we can slow down and we'll be back. Like this won't be the only time we're here, we'll be back. And I know we want to see all 47 prefectures, but there are areas that I'm going to want to keep coming back to and revisiting. So it's nice because that's what Points and Miles allows you to do, and this is why I'm so passionate about this, because you know, without points and miles, I probably wouldn't be able to repeat these trips so often, not every year at least. And it's really big, uh, especially mentally, like knowing we'll be back, so we can take our time, we can do the things we love, and if there are things we miss, it's okay because we'll have it saved and we'll be back, and we'll you know, we'll be visiting again, and it's really nice to have that feeling, and you know, of course, points and miles are getting devalued here and there, but there's always new programs coming up, and I know there's like this law or something trying to take away points and miles, and I have to research a little bit more about that, but it doesn't seem like it's going to happen or go away anytime soon, and there's always new programs coming out. So whenever you see devaluations, especially you know, like with Hyatt, and that we'll have an episode about Hyatt coming up, um, don't let that get you too down because there are always new programs coming out, and there are always ways to to be able to take these trips. And you know, if one day points and miles don't exist, we'll we'll find other ways and we'll be able to travel because you know, for for especially me and and my wife, like travel's so important to us, and I'm sure if you're listening, travel's important to you. So we'll find ways, and right now, points and miles is the best way to be able to save and to be able to take these trips repeatedly. So, moving on to our like last portion of this podcast is basically what I like to do is like start as far in advance as possible. If you have a trip plan, that's great. You can start now. If you don't have a trip plan, you can still start now, and you can still start saving places, just like what we talked on in the very beginning. You can start finding creators that you know that you like that have things in common with you that you can kind of relate to and and start following them and start saving places. Now's a great time to start saving those those locations, those spots that you want to visit. And now it's a good time to get familiar with you know saving places on Google Maps, um, maybe using like applications like um Google Docs or Notion. I use Notion uh a lot for organization as well, and you know, or if you want to use the notes app on your iPhone, you can use that. You can use whatever is easiest to you, whatever works best for you. There is no single tool that works like magically. There's there's whatever works best for you and whatever you find is easiest. And I have my recommendations, and people will have their recommendations, and you can take those and then you can learn from them, but you honestly find the way that you feel most comfortable with, and and the way that you know you should have fun planning these trips and learning about these, you know, places that you'll be visiting and exploring and enjoying and creating memories from. So I hope you're able to enjoy this episode. I hope you gain some true value from it. You know, this is a very exciting time, especially if you have a trip planned and you're starting to like save these locations and and start to get really excited about learning about these different spots. This is one of my favorite parts of the trip, if you know, besides the trip itself, like learning about these places, getting excited, watching these different people um post about them and just learning from their experiences as well, and like things that to do, things not to do, and such. So I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I haven't said it much, but if you would be kind enough, leave a review, five stars would be great. Um, definitely hit me up if you have any questions. I might be doing a QA episode in the future as well, because I know there are some questions that do come in. And like always, feel free to reach out. Uh, you can reach me at it's John Diaz on Instagram, you can email email me at rewarding routes uh podcast at gmail.com. Uh you can tell me about your experiences, what are ways that you plan, what are tools that you use, because I would love to learn from you as well as you know I'm sharing my experiences and things that I do, but the same goes for you of sharing your experiences and the things that you do, because I I want to learn from those things as well. So I want to learn from you, and I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I'll catch you on the next one. See ya