This little report is aimed at people who want to travel Japan on a budget,
if you are looking at a short holiday on two wheels and don't mind spending big bucks, many things here might not apply to you, but you are of course welcome to read it anyway
A bit of context, I missed Japan on my round the world travels for financial reasons, but I really wanted to travel this country extensively, so now, a few years after I was standing at the port of Vladivostok with my Honda Transalp and went to Bangkok instead of Japan, I needed a bike.
Red line is the current 10 week 11500km trip, blue line is a previous trip on a bike borrowed from a friend.
Buying a bike
Before looking into buying I checked rental prices, for a 3 months rental of a CRF250L I was first quoted 9000 usd, 6000 usd was the lowest they would go after some discussion. For this money I can almost buy two brand new ones. No thanks.
I was always under the impression that buying a motorcycle on a tourist visa is not possible, I was wrong, but almost nobody knows about it.
There are three things you will need
A) A letter from your embassy (in Japan!) that certifies your signature. Here is what the US version of the document looks like:
https://japan2.usembassy.gov/pdfs/wwwfsign.pdf (if it states your address to be at the fixer in point C it makes things possibly easier)
B) A valid international driving license, likely needs to be translated to Japanese (can be done easily for a fee at JAF offices, sometimes takes an hour, when busy -> next day)
C) A fixer (or how good is your japanese?
)
The one I recommend here (the only one I know that offers this), will do basically everything for you. John (and his wife) at Apexmoto (sales@apexmoto.jp or
https://www.facebook.com/ApexmotoInc)
For me it worked like this:
You tell John what kind of bike you are after and what your budget is, there are big auctions every week so it's good to give him a few weeks advance notice
You pay around 20% deposit of the expected buy price
John will send you a few emails with bikes on offer or you can check the auction website yourself (he will give you access).
At some point he will have made a purchase (you are buying more or less blind and trust him to make a good call)
In my case he got me a Honda CRF250L with 6600km and lots of extras for 350.000 yen (~3230 usd), this included his fee for sourcing it. He will also ask if you want anything done to it (oil change, phone holder...)
You now pay the outstanding amount of your new bike.
You fly to Tokyo, get the required documents (can be done in a day, but better allow two).
You take a train/bus to somewhere close to Apexmoto and wait for John to pick you up.
Someone (likely John's wife) will bring you to the bike registration place, in my case it took about an hour and I had papers in my name and a brand new number plate. Note, not many people in Japan know tourists can buy bikes, so some confusion is possible. Plates and service did cost a bit less than 200usd for me (might depend on bike size, not sure).
You go back to the shop, screw your number-plate on, do all the other preparations (attach your luggage...), meanwhile John's wife will get your mandatory motorcycle insurance ready (I think mine cost only ~25$/month). Health/Travel insurance can also be arranged, but I already had.
You ride off and have a wonderful trip.
Size matters, it's important to know that above 250cc there are tight vehicle checks (like the British MOT, German TUV...) that could potentially make things more complicated/expensive. Less than 125cc you are not allowed on highways and many tunnels/bridges, you are basically treated like a bicycle.
When taking ferries or paying tolls there are three classes, <= 125cc, 126-750cc and >750cc. I would have chosen a 250cc bike anyway but it's important to know that the engine size will also determine other factors/costs of your trip.
Selling a bike
The best and easiest way would probably be to bring the bike back to Apexmoto, they will take care of the paperwork and put it up for auction then remit the money minus commission once sold. I didn't go this way as my onward flight was from Osaka and I didn't want to carry all my stuff from Apexmoto to Osaka. I did almost regret that decision as I found it hard to get the bike on japanese auction websites and dealers would give me almost nothing for it (150k).
In the end Apexmoto found me a customer near Osaka and we managed to get the paperwork done within an hour at his closest transport department (buyer spoke good Japanese).
Sold for 250k minus commission, cheaper than the prices I saw online (~300k) but I didn't have much time left, so was happy about this deal.
Budget
My usual goal is to spend not much more than 1000$ per month, depending on the country that means camping and also cooking myself.
A huge reason why I love Japan so much is the food and drinking culture, something I wasn't willing to skip to keep my budget. Just did a rough calculation and I come out at 480$ per week (includes everything but the bike purchase itself), which is almost exactly what I had aimed for.
Never touched a frying pan and didn't have too much convenience store food + about 2
s per day on average.
Most money was spent on Food/Beer, some for fuel and other road charges and not too much for accommodation.
Traffic
You ride on the left, people are generally driving very careful with a few exceptions in the big urban centers.
Traffic limits are extremely low but nobody seems to care about these, it's not uncommon to go more than twice the speed limit, I've seen two mobile speed cams and lots of road monitoring electronics, but most are not to check for speed violations (i hope
). My personal strategy is to ride in a way that I feel is safe for everyone.
Tolls
If you use express-ways you have to expect to pay 2 or 3 times of your fuel costs additional in tolls, it's extremely expensive even for bikers.
Bring enough time then you don't have to take express-ways, but riding through the massive urban areas in central Japan isn't fun either with stop-lights every 200m, either way it sucks, so try to stay out of urban areas as much as you can.
There are some bridges that cost big bucks too, most notably the ones that link the Island of Shikoku with Honshu, I was shocked to get a 25usd bill after crossing one of these bridges.
Also Japan has a lot of "skylines", scenic roads built for the purpose of tourism (i think), they cost between 300-1000 yen (3-10$). Racing bikes usually come to those and go up and down for hours, I paid for a few but it was mostly not worth it for me. It's for people who love curvy roads, scenery isn't that spectacular or can be had for free in the same area.
Roads
Condition of most roads is excellent, unfortunately in all parts except Hokkaido it's very difficult to find a dirt-road that actually lead somewhere.
Get used to road blocks, Japan has a huge network of roads, but many have been closed for various reasons (natural disasters, unused, constructions...), you might not know till you hit a proper fence and have to go back.
Also don't expect any real adventurous roads like along cliffs without guardrails... Japan's safety standards are very high, so everything too exciting gets fenced off properly. Check dangerousroads.org for Japan to get an idea what is considered exciting here.
Having said that, there are many really beautiful rides and of course you can try things like "getting as close as possible" to an active volcano, riding roads that are known to have many bears roaming around, or just to go as remote as possible from civilization.
Holidays
There are certain holidays where the country is fully booked with basically not a single bed left. Golden Week probably the most notable which lasted a record 10 days this year but is usually around 5 days. Hide, don't do anything in these days, or just ride some remote roads but don't try to go to a museum or anything that a Japanese family could think of doing. There are also times where the big cities get fully booked by foreigners coming in for Cherry blossom or Autumn leaves viewing. Beware of Olympics 2020!!!
Food
...is excellent. Try as much as you can, amazing raw fish, Japanese style bbq, regional specialties, convenience store snacks, udon, soba, tempura, curry....
a glass of delicious draft
is usually around 500 yen (~5 usd) in a restaurant, 200-300 yen for a big can in a supermarket.
There is zero tipping, but some bars might have a table charge which is very uncool if you want to bar-hop.
A good lunch set sets you back around 650-1000 yen (6-10usd).
For evening food I usually pay around 1000 yen (10usd) +
s.
Language
If you get off the tourist trail almost nobody will be able to speak English with you. Most could have an okay conversation with you by text chatting but Japanese people are extremely shy/inexperienced about speaking/hearing English. More tech-savvy Japanese would get out google translate very quick to talk with you (it works well but I personally dislike it). Restaurant menus are often Japanese only, sometimes without pictures and even the prices are in Japanese alphabet. What I do in this situation is go on google maps and check the pictures that have been posted for this place, if someone else is eating something that looks good I point at that. If you are not vegetarian etc. you can be sure whatever you order is good, you just might not know what it is or how to eat it properly
Route planning
There are a few google maps overlays that really helped me:
1) Best Motorcycle Rides:
A guy named Warren who has ridden his bike all over the country made a map for himself with notes about certain roads, he loves curvy rides so this seems his main factor for classification but with the comments he wrote in many of the roads it's an invaluable resource
https://www.motorcycleparadise.net/2...-in-japan.html
2) Free Camping and Onsen Map
Another Google maps overlay can be found on this facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wildcampingjapan/
Direct Link to the overlay:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewe....Tnen48lI5NCn7w
It's an excellent collection of reststations, free camping spots and hotsprings. Some are out of date but mostly it's accurate.
3) Riders houses (Hokkaido only)
An outdated list but if you find one that is still operational chances are high you will have a very good time:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer...txGgE&hl=en_US
4) iOverlander
I've put some spots in there and I hope to add quite a few more in the next few days.
Sleep
There are several options,
a hostel dormitory will cost between 15-30 usd.
A private room more like 40usd-60usd, in rare cases ~30usd.
Free official camp spots, these are usually really nice, maintained by the district/town offering toilets and sometimes other facilities.
Michi-no-ekis, these are rest-stations all over Japan that usually have free WiFi, toilets, restaurants, local produce and people in cars are allowed to overnight/rest there. Tents are not seen very often and probably not wanted but if I couldn't find anything else I would just pitch late at a flat spot and leave before the main buildings would open in the morning.
Free camping, this was my absolute favorite, there are amazing camp spots to be found, officially it's illegal to camp in non-designated spots but if you are polite about it you should have no problems, neither with locals nor police. Small parks near towns can be nice, especially the ones at the ocean. After dark there is usually nobody around. I often used the piers that fishermen use for fishing at night, they sometimes put up a tent for a nap themselves. If you go for the spots that are visible to others make sure there is a toilet close by, I think this gives the locals a better feeling that you will leave "without a trace".
There are of course also paid camp-grounds, not expensive (~5$), but they lacked character most of the time, I only used a couple.
Convenience Stores
7/11, FamilyMart, Lawson are everywhere, many have small tables inside and some even outlets to recharge your phone. All of them have clean high-tech toilets, 99% of all toilets I used where in convenience stores. My morning procedure after camping would be to find a store with tables and outlets, get some drink, a snack and recharge batteries plus do the route planning for the day.
They also have free WiFi but it's often restricted in usage time.
Mobile Internet
I don't plan ahead much so having internet everywhere really makes my life easier.
Best offers you will get at the Airports when you come in, so do your research which one is a good package for you before you arrive.
Expect to pay around 60$ for 3 months 10GB internet sim. Getting a local phone number is rather complicated, better to use something like google call/skype call... Being able to call a number can be helpful when you go to a city and need to find out if there is some space to park the bike.
I have an american phone so my frequencies are rather strange and Softbank as the carrier behind was much better than NTT Docomo.
Time of the year
My trip started 4th of April and ended mid June (Visa is 3 months for most people).
I would say this was almost perfect, I had some very cold nights at the beginning (-3 degrees/26 Fahrenheit) but as I was heading South it started to get warmer very soon. I had Sakura (cherry blossom) time for more than two weeks, everything looked really nice and contrary to my expectation it wasn't horribly overrun by tourists coming specifically for this time. I had rainy days but weather forecasts are really accurate so I planned some indoor rest days once I saw it would turn bad, almost never had to ride in the rain. I arrived Hokkaido in the North on the last day of May and spent around 10 days, unfortunately with quite a bit of rain and cold temperatures. June is the beginning of the rainy season on Honshu but Hokkaido is usually dry and nice at that time. This year was a bit weird, also they had new heat records just a week before I arrived. There were still very enjoyable sunny days.
Things to see
My main interest are nice roads, good views, free onsen (hot springs), lively drinking spots and abandoned places.
Temples, Castles and other typical sights I only visited if I saw a nice photo opportunity and it was right in front of me.
(but this was also my second trip to Japan and I saw many of those on the first one)
If you are into history and other things I'm sure Japan will satisfy you as well.
More
Warren of MotorcycleParadise has written an extensive guide about riding in Japan here:
https://www.motorcycleparadise.net/2...wo-wheels.html
It's not exactly budget travel, but contains lots and lots of good information.
Many pictures and stories can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/veely.red
I'm on Instagram too but not many pictures of Japan on there yet: @moritzontheroad
There would be a lot more to write about but the thing that I'm really missing on this trip is computer-time and I'm continuing travels to Hawaii->LasVegas and possibly Alaska this summer so won't have much time in the next few months either.
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Cotton or synth sweat-wicking t-shirts with the cool Horizons Unlimited graphic on the front and a snappy slogan (changing every year) on the back.
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Motorcycle and travel books to inspire and inform you!
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