Our First Trip to Japan Was a Disaster. 
The Second Time, We Finally Got It Right.

Updated 12 August 2026

Read time: 5 mins

Written by Katie Rhodes

I had dreamed about going to Japan for years.

And I mean years. 

 

I had folders on my phone full of saved restaurants, hotels, Facebook and Instagram posts, with titles like 

"10 Things You HAVE To Do In Tokyo" 
"The Best Hidden Restaurants In Japan"
"Don't Visit Japan Without Doing This." 

So by the time my husband and I finally booked the trip, I thought I was ready.

 

With months of research done. What could possibly go wrong? Well… Pretty much everything. 

It Only Took About 4 Hours For Things To Start Going Wrong

Day one. New country. New everything. Even the convenience store felt exciting.

 

Then came the first restaurant. 

 

I would ask something in English and get that confused look back. 

 

My husband pulled out his phone. Tried Google Translate. Sometimes it worked.

 

Sometimes we didn't know what we'd ordered until it landed on the table.

After that dinner, I stood outside on the sidewalk and said, "I feel like such an idiot."

 

He laughed.

 

I did not.

 

At the time, I thought the language barrier was going to be our biggest problem.

 

I was wrong about that too.

Then We Got Lost Inside The Busiest Train Station On Earth

Everyone told us Japan's trains were incredible.

 

They are.

 

But nobody tells you how confusing they are.

There was one afternoon in Tokyo when we were trying to find a particular exit at Shinjuku Station (the busiest station in the world). 

3.5 million people pass through it every day.


I thought this should have taken, I don't know, five minutes?  

 

We got off the train. Went upstairs. Wrong way. Back down. Down a hallway. Wrong again.

 

My husband stopped walking. Stared at a storefront a second too long.

 

"Didn't we already pass this?"

 

We had.

 

We'd walked in a full circle.

 

35 minutes. Gone. For one exit.

 

That's when I started keeping score, whether I meant to or not.

 

Ten minutes here. Twenty there. Another wrong turn. Another thing to stop and Google.

 

None of it felt like a disaster on its own.

 

Until I did the math on how many hours we wasted with little amount days we had left.

The Food Was Where I Really Started To Get Frustrated

There was one lunch spot I'd been thinking about for months.

 

I'd seen it everywhere. Every "must visit Tokyo" list. Every foodie account.

 

So naturally we went. 

And when we got there, the line wrapping down the block.

"It has to be worth it," I told my husband.

55 minutes later, we got a table.

 

We ate. We walked outside.

 

"That was it?" he said.

 

I laughed, because I was thinking the exact same thing.

 

The food wasn't bad. It just wasn't a 55-minute-line kind of good.

 

And then it hit me.

 

We had three dinners left in Japan.

 

Then two.

 

Then one.

 

I know it’s only dinner. 

 

But when you’ve come all the way to Japan and you don’t know when you’ll ever be back, every meal matters. 

 

And by the end of the trip, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things that could’ve done differently. 

Japan Wasn't The Problem. But I Left With Regret that I Couldn't Explain

Japan was incredible. That's what made it so frustrating.

 

We'd done the research. 

 

Hundreds of hours of it. 

 

And we still spent half our trip checking our phones instead of looking up.

 

Which train. Which exit. Is this the right line. Do we need a reservation. Is this actually worth the wait.

 

By the end, we weren't tired from the trip. We were exhausted.

On the flight home, I told my husband:

 

"If we ever go back, I want to do this properly."

A Couple Years Later, Our Friends Went To Japan

And their trip sounded completely different from ours.

 

When they got back, they wouldn't stop talking about it. 

 

The food. The neighborhoods. The little places we'd never heard of.

 

At one point my friend said, "Oh, once you know a few things, the trains are actually pretty easy."

 

Pretty easy?

 

I had practically lost my mind inside Shinjuku Station.

 

She kept going. Restaurants we'd missed. Things they'd booked before they even landed.

 

I gotta admit... the more she talked, the more it pissed me off. 

 

She was describing the trip I thought we were going to have.

 

And I'd spent more time planning than she had.

 

So I had to ask. "What did you guys actually do differently?"

 

Her answer wasn't what I expected.

“Oh, I Got This Guide Before We Left.”

A guide?

 

You've got to be kidding me.

 

If more information was the answer, I should've been the most prepared woman in Tokyo.

 

But she kept talking about it. 

 

How much they'd used it. 

 

How it wasn't like the other stuff.

 

So she sent it over.

 

It was called The Ultimate Tokyo Travel Guide by Farr East.

I opened it out of curiosity. 

 

Turns out it was put together by locals who actually grew up there 

 

And that's when it clicked.

I Hadn't Done Too Little Research. I Had Done Too Much Of The Wrong Kind.

That was our mistake.

 

I thought preparing for Japan meant collecting as much as possible. 

Another restaurant saved. Another "hidden gem." Another list of 20 things to do in Tokyo.

 

None of it answered the questions that actually mattered once we landed.

 

Which exit do I need? 

 

What should be booked before we arrive?

 

Which lines are worth standing in? 

 

What apps should already be on my phone? 

 

What mistakes are going to eat our time once we're there?

 

I didn't need more places.

 

I needed someone to tell me what actually mattered.

So We Decided To Go Back

As frustrating as that first trip had been, we still loved Japan. 

 

We had talked about going back before, but hearing our friends describe their trip made me want another shot at it.

 

So we booked another trip. 

 

Still had doubts, if I'm honest.

 

Come on. How much difference can one guide really make?

 

But our friends had gone to the same country we had. Same stations. Same crowds. Same language barrier. 

 

Completely different trip.

 

So this time, I actually used it. 

App recommended? Downloaded. 

 

Something needed booking early? Booked. 

 

Something worth knowing before we landed? Noted.

 

Here we go again.

 

First day back, and we were back in another massive train station.

My Husband Looked At Me And Said, "Uh Oh."

Crowds everywhere. Signs in every direction. Exits going four different ways.

 

I knew exactly what he meant.

 

Last time, this was where we'd wander. Go up too early. Realize we were wrong. Come back down. 

 

Circle for another 10 minutes. End up right where we started.

 

This time, we didn't.

 

We stopped. Checked what the guide flagged. Looked for the signs it told us to look for.

 

5 minutes later, we were standing exactly where we needed to be.

 

My husband just stood there a second, looking almost annoyed at how easy it was.

 

"Well. That was easy."

 

I laughed, because I knew exactly what he was thinking.
 

Where was this the first time?

Then We Started Finding The Japan We'd Completely Missed

This was the part I wasn't expecting.

 

The guide didn't just help us avoid mistakes. 

 

It took us places we never would've found on our own.

 

One night we went to a local restaurant, recommended from the guide. 

 

No line. No crowd of tourists taking photos out front.

 

We sat down. Ordered what they recommended.

 

Best meal of the entire trip.

 

Halfway through, my husband set his chopsticks down and just looked at me.

 

"Okay. THIS is what I thought eating in Japan was going to be like."

I also realized there were a bunch of little cultural etiquette I'd been doing wrong on our first trip.

 

Walking around while eating. Standing on the wrong side of the escalator. 

 

Little things that probably offended the locals, but I'd had no idea.

 

I remember reading that part and thinking, Oh my god. I definitely did that last time.

 

It was embarrassing.

Why Every Traveler Should Get This Guide Before Going To Japan

Everything I'd used before just gave me more things to look at.

 

More restaurants. More places to visit. More lists.

 

This was different.

 

It actually helped me figure out what was worth our time and what wasn't.

 

What needed to be booked before we got there. 

What we could skip. 

What would make things easier once we landed.

 

Google could tell me what was popular.

 

Instagram could tell me what was trending.

 

But neither could tell me whether something was actually worth giving up one of our ten days in Japan for.

 

This guide could.

 

And because it was put together by locals who grew up in Japan, it answered a lot of the little questions I didn't even know I should've been asking.

 

That was the part I had been missing the first time.

 

I didn't need another hundred places saved on my phone.

 

I needed someone who knew Japan to tell me which ones actually mattered and the mistakes to avoid.

 

And actually, we got pretty lucky when we bought ours because it was 40% off at the time.

 

I’m not sure if they’re still running the same sale, but if you’re planning a trip to Japan, it’s probably worth checking while you’re here.

What One Mistake In Japan Actually Costs You

A trip to Japan isn't cheap.

Flights, hotels, food. By the time it's all added up, you've spent thousands.

 

And looking back, it's almost funny. I spent all that money on the trip, then let random Instagram decide how we'd spend it once we got there.

 

One disappointing meal. One attraction you forgot to book. One afternoon wasted walking the wrong direction.

 

Any one of those can cost you more than the guide itself.

 

But honestly, it was never really about the money.

 

It was the time.

 

You can earn money back. You don't get another Tuesday afternoon in Kyoto once the trip is over.

 

That's the part I didn't understand until we came home the first time.

 

You're already spending thousands on flights, hotels, food.

 

This is the few dollars that makes sure the rest of it isn't wasted.

Check if the 40% off sale is still available.

If You're Going To Japan For The First Time…

I spent months researching it myself. 

 

Blogs. Videos. Hundreds of saved posts. But none of it did what this guide did in one read.

 

If I could go back and talk to myself before that first flight, I'd tell her to stop saving another 50 Instagram reels and get the one thing that actually tells her what she needs to know.

 

The Far East Insider Japan Travel Guide is what our friends used. It's what we used the second time.

 

It didn't plan every minute. It didn't make Japan simple. It didn't turn us into experts.

It just helped us skip the mistakes we'd already learned the hard way.

 

Which meant less of the trip spent figuring Japan out.

 

And a lot more of it spent actually being there.

 

Over 10,000 travelers have downloaded it so far.

 

After our second trip, I understand exactly why.

 

If you've waited years to go, don't gamble your one trip on random influenecers giving you advice.
 

Get the guide below before you book anything else.

Because you don't get a second first trip to Japan.

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