I’m sure you’ve seen the hundreds of Tiktoks and Instagram reels about tips and tricks for your next trip to Japan. Well, here’s my personal take on the best tips that I would tell anyone that’s planning a trip to Japan. Some of these below made our own trip super easy and helped keep everything flowing smoothly.

eSim
If you have an unlocked phone, get an eSim before you go, so the moment you land, you can activate it and start using your phones to navigate, text family, etc. We all used Ubigi and it worked perfectly. We purchased the 10GB plan and downloaded the app prior to our departure from the States. Once we landed, we were able to scan the QR code provided to connect right away. X used his 10 GB plan for the entire two week trip and still had some data leftover. The connection was very stable throughout our entire trip and everything worked perfectly.

Buy Shinkansen Tickets online via SmartEx
I signed up for a SmartEx account and was able to buy Shinkansen tickets and book our seats about a month out from our trip. Since we were taking our luggage with us for parts of the trip, we had to book the seats that allowed for large luggage and this worked perfectly. I was also able to use the app while in Japan to buy Shinkansen tickets to Kyoto the day before.

Print out your Shinkansen tickets
If you do pre-buy your Shinkansen tickets via SmartEx, I highly recommend printing your tickets out and scanning those instead of the mobile tickets. We encountered this issue several times when the scanners kept trying to default to our mobile Suica cards instead of scanning the Shinkansen QR tickets.

Check your reservation dates
Different places have different reservation times and dates, so make sure you double-check when everything is available to book. For example, Studio Ghibli Museum tickets go on sale at 10 AM (JST) on the 10th of each month for the subsequent month. The Pokemon Cafe reservations, on the other hand, open at 6:00 PM (JST), 31 days before your desired reservation date.

Suica or Pasmo card on iPhone
You can now add a mobile Suica or Pasmo (IC Card) to your iPhone wallet and preload it with Yen before your trip. We preloaded about 20,000¥ to our Suica card prior to our arrival and were instantly able to use the trains without having to buy a card or buy tickets at the stations. You can also use your mobile IC cards at restaurants and stores that take them, as well as all the convenience stores like 7-11 and Lawsons. We reloaded as needed via our Apple wallet and it was so easy to just tap out phones in/out when we took the train.