Japan Trip Expenditures
Here is a brief analysis of costs from my recent 2-week (12-day) trip to Japan.
Spending During the Trip
As there were 4 of us on the trip, all staying at the same hotel, taking the same trains, and often eating together, we didn't split every single cost. Often times, one person would just front the cash and expect to balance out the costs after the trip.
Categories
After returning from Japan, I organized my receipts into 7 spending categories to make 7 different total costs.
- Flights
- Food
- Transportation
- Cash/ATM
- Activity
- Souvenir (a.k.a. "Funsies")
- Hotel
Flights
One could argue that flights/transportation could be combined into one category, but the cost for flight tickets were pretty significant so I decided to put it in its own section. It was my responsibility to book flights for the group, which determined the exact start and end dates for the trip. I checked several companies, like United, Delta, ANA, Alaskan, Canadian, and ZipAir. I ended up opting for United, as I have flown multiple times (including my trips to Chicago and Spain), and it was a direct flight at a fair cost. I was also able to snag a row of 4 seats on both flights so we could all sit together.
Food
This includes the total for all the food I ate on the trip. As meals were included on the airplane, we needed to figure out our meals starting from dinner on July 2 through lunch on July 12. If you do the math, that's 30 meals (including breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day.) Breakfast was provided by some hotels, but 30 is a nice round number. Food was surprisingly cheap in Japan, and the meals were sizable.
Transportation
This includes the bullet train, local metro costs, ferry tickets, and bus fares. It does not include flights.
Cash/ATM
This was money that I withdrew from none other than a 7-11 ATM! I didn't track explicitly where all the cash was flowing, but it was mainly spent on transportation, food, and souvenirs. I used my credit card where accepted.
Activity
This includes museum tickets and other entry fees for things we had planned during our stay. The Blue Note concert and Hiroshima/Miyajima tour were the most significant costs from this category.
Funsies
This totals how much I spent on souvenirs for myself and friends.
Hotel
We stayed for 10 nights in 4 different hotels on this trip.
- Hotel Karaksa Colors, Tokyo (3 nights, 1 room)
- Holiday Inn Express, Osaka (3 nights, 2 rooms)
- Hotel Intergate, Hiroshima (2 nights, 2 rooms)
- Grand Hyatt, Tokyo (2 nights, 2 rooms)
The 4 of us shared 1 room in our first hotel, but had 2 separate rooms for the following 3 hotels. It was rather cost-effective, except for the Grand Hyatt, which was incredibly expensive.
Summary
| Category | Total | Percentage | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flights | $1,015.00 | 27.6% | |
| Food | $206.43 | 5.6% | Average of $6.88 for 30 meals |
| Transport | $414.73 | 11.3% | 1-week bullet train pass was $384, or 93% of the cost |
| Cash | $151.15 | 4.1% | |
| Activity | $321.56 | 8.7% | |
| Funsies | $105.02 | 2.9% | |
| Hotel | $1,464.57 | 39.8% | Grand Hyatt Tokyo was $865.91 per person, or 59% of the cost |
Grand Total
If you total up all these numbers, you get $3,678.46 spent on the trip. However, I had some credit card rewards and flight miles that helped reduce the cost slightly. Unfortunately, tracking this down will be more difficult than expected, since I will need to go through multiple credit card bills, as well as look through transactions between me and Michael, Christine, and Emily. However, I can estimate that I spent a final grand total of around $3,600 on this trip. For a 12-day trip, that's $300 per day, which honestly I think was worth it for all that we did.