End of Year Trip to Japan! Costs?

[pantsu miru]

Good day!  18 year old full-time student here, planning a trip to Japan.  I have done the maths (minus living expenses of course) and by the end of this year I hope to be taking myself, a special someone, and two of my friends, one of whom will be paying for themselves.  I will be paying for myself, one of my friends, and that someone special.  By the end of this year it looks like I will have about 13- 15 thousand (AUD) to splurge on this one trip.  Will this be enough for a Tokyo trip for about a week to 13 days?  Any tips on where I should go?  What I should do?


Thanks very much!!

[EmptyMemory]

You should make me your friend. 

(click to show/hide)

The one your paying for.

[rostheferret]

I'm planning something similar and am looking at about £3000 (~$4500 US) for two weeks. Double the people makes that 6000/9000. A hotel for 2 comes to £1500-£2000 (unless you go swanky up market and not a cheap economy room) and then flights might be up to £1500 each; that comes to £5000/$7500 total, maximum. Being flexible with the dates (look for prices for the entire week both there and back, you can often find prices halve on certain days) can be a great advantage, even if it means you might have to stay in the country a little longer. Whilst it's always good to have some extra cash just in case you go over budget, it looks like you have plenty. Your best bet is to start looking up prices though; use tripadvisor for the hotels and I use opodo for flights, but I don't know how good that is outside of the UK. In fact, I just looked up flights for a trip from London to Tokyo, 1st - 16th December and you can get a (decent) ticket for under £700 a pop.

[kitamesume]

where the hell do you guys get your money for trips? i can't even go on a trip inside my country without spending bucks, nevermind going out of country...

[pantsu miru]

where the hell do you guys get your money for trips? i can't even go on a trip inside my country without spending bucks, nevermind going out of country...

Well I used to work full time for a year so I had a bit left over from then, when I decided highschool was complete stupidity.  Then I moved to a different state.. where the school ages are different, so even after taking a year off, I'm the same age as everyone in my class's.  That and I am still young and living with my parents so I hardly ever spend my money on anything at all.  It just accumulates over time and BAM you do what you want for a bit

[Ixarku]

where the hell do you guys get your money for trips? i can't even go on a trip inside my country without spending bucks, nevermind going out of country...

Some of us are also older than you 20-something fetuses, have real jobs, and make enough money to travel occasionally & live life reasonably comfortably.  (Of course, the stress associated with having a real job will eventually kill me, but, eh, who wants to live forever anyway.)
 
 
I forget exactly how much I spent when I went to Tokyo in May 2010, but it was a 13 day trip and I think it was something like $1500 US for airfare & hotel (flew from Orlando to Dallas to Narita, and stayed at the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa in Shinagawa), and I budgeted $100 per day for food and other expenses.  We ate cheap most of the time, so I think I wound up spending around half of my discretionary budget.