This is a personal record of the places that I have travelled in Japan. I hope that I will be able to cover all 47 prefectures some time! And this is one of my life goals that I hope to fulfill. For some photos on these prefectures, visit the gallery.

Starting from the northernmost areas going down,

1. Hokkaido

2. Aomori

3. Akita

4. Iwate

5. Yamagata

6. Niigta

7. Miyagi

8. Saitama

9. Tokyo

10. Kanagawa

11. Ishikawa

12. Fukui

13. Shiga

14. Nagano

15. Shizuoka

16. Nara

17. Wakayama

18. Kyoto

19. Osaka

20. Hyogo

21. Okayama

22. Tottori

23. Shimane

24. Yamaguchi

25. Hiroshima

26. Kagawa

27. Fukuoka

28. Kumamoto

I will continue to update this post because I think I left out a few.

Some of the things that friends ask me are: Japan is a very expensive place to travel! How on earth did I manage to survive there? What’s your budget like?

What I can say based on my personal experience is, yes, Japan is an expensive country to travel. It is expensive even for the locals. There is a common saying among the Japanese that it is cheaper to go overseas than travel within their own country! But that is if you are looking to join a tour, eat the best food, and travel the most-travelled paths. For me, I prefer to the opposite. In other words, Japan is actually cheaper than what most people like to think, if you know how to get your way around and also when to do so. And I am not suggesting that you cheat on your train fares or anything close to that. Accommodation is also not as expensive as what most people think. On the other hand, I was more surprised at rates of the hotels in Singapore. For a quick example, accommodation can be as cheap as S$30 in Tokyo. How about that?

Related posts:

  1. Backpacking Japan – Introduction
  2. Backpacking Japan – Transportation
  3. Backpacking Japan – Transport – Highway bus
  4. Backpacking Japan – Transport – Tokyo free ticket
  5. My Life List