Travel Tips– category –

Can you shop tax-free online in Japan? No. Japan's National Tax Agency says a website is not a tax-free sales location. The exceptions are shops that ship your purchase overseas themselves, which is up to each shop. Mailing tax-free goods home yourself ended on March 31, 2025.

Which Japanese hotels run a free shuttle, and what is the catch? We read the official pages of 28 hotels: 26 say the shuttle is free, 11 can need a booking or a phone call, and the Haneda airport hotels skip Terminal 2.

What does Japan's onsen bathing tax cost? We read the official pages of 21 hot-spring towns: 14 charge a flat 150 yen per night, four charge more (up to 500 yen in Beppu), and Hakodate cut its rate to 100 yen in April 2026. Most exempt children under 12.

September is the month typhoons make landfall in Japan most often, 1.0 on average, and the main cities still average 23 to 25 C at 75 percent humidity. Tokyo gets 225 mm of rain. In 2026 the holidays line up into a five-day Silver Week. Eight cities, all from the JMA.

March in Japan is the month the cherry blossoms open, and on the JMA's own map they do so in the last week, from Kyushu to Kanto, while Hokkaido waits until May. Rain doubles from February, the equinox makes a three-day weekend in 2027, and Okinawa's blossoms are already over.

Japan's Valentine's Day began as a Kobe chocolate shop's idea in 1932, ran its first newspaper ad on February 13, 1935, reached Tokyo department stores in 1958, and got its March 14 reply in 1978 from a Hakata sweet maker. The companies' own timelines, the customs, and what is not a holiday.

JR West sells a discounted HARUKA one-way ticket from Kansai Airport to Kyoto for 2,200 yen, but only to foreign-passport temporary visitors and only outside Japan or online in advance. Here are the exact conditions, what the ticket does and does not cover, and what we could not verify.

November is the month Japan dries out: Tokyo's rain falls from 235 mm to 96, Kyoto's from 143 to 74. Maple color reaches Tokyo by the end of the month and Kyoto, on the JMA's own map, in early December. Two holidays, no typhoon landfalls in 30 years.

October in Japan is not the crisp dry month the brochures promise. Tokyo records more rain in October than in any other month, maple color has only reached Hokkaido, and typhoons still approach 1.7 times on average. Eight cities, one holiday, all from the JMA.

Nagasaki runs on a flat-fare tram: 150 yen anywhere. The 600-yen day pass pays for itself on the fifth ride - but you cannot buy it on the tram, and almost every visitor finds that out while standing on one. This guide has the official fares, the two-zone discount that only works cashless, and the Sunday every month when children ride free.

Janu Tokyo's own website gives two different room counts, two different restaurant counts and two different treatment room counts. This guide sets out exactly what the official pages say, what the 4,000 sqm wellness floor actually contains, and what is verifiable about Azabudai Hills' only hotel - without inventing the numbers nobody publishes.

December in Tokyo gets more hours of sunshine than August - 174.4 against 174.2 in the Japan Meteorological Agency's 30-year normals - and less rain than any month except January. This guide has the official December figures for Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sapporo and Naha, what they mean for what you pack, and where the snow actually is.