Most of them want to be set up at home, on wifi, before you fly. Suica on Android and the Visit Japan Web QR code are the two that catch people out at the airport.
Plan Japan in Stippl
Day-by-day planning, stays and budget in one app, with every place from this guide already on the map.
Download the appWhich apps do you need for Japan?
The best Japan travel apps, in the order you meet them:
- Stippl: the route, the train legs, the stays and the budget in one trip
- Visit Japan Web: immigration and customs in one QR code, set up at home
- SmartEX: Shinkansen seats booked from home, a month ahead
- An eSIM: data from the moment you land
- Suica on your phone: tap through the gates, pay at the convenience store
- Google Maps, NAVITIME or Japan Transit Planner: which train, which platform, which exit
- Google Translate and Tabelog: the menu, the sign and the restaurant worth the queue
- LINE: the app Japan messages on
- GO or Uber Taxi: a taxi after the last train
- GetYourGuide: timed tickets and guided days
Stippl: the best app to plan your Japan trip
Travellers have planned more than 100,000 Japan trips with Stippl, and the money they log tells you what a Japan trip really is: transport gets logged more often than sightseeing. The railway is the trip. So in Stippl every hop between two stops is a leg with its train, its time and its fare, and the stays, tickets and notes hang off the day they belong to.
The Tokaido and Sanyo line as your map
Most first trips run along one corridor. The Tokaido Shinkansen goes from Tokyo through Kyoto to Osaka, and the Sanyo Shinkansen carries on to Himeji, Hiroshima and Hakata. Drop your stops on the Stippl map and that line becomes the spine of the trip:
- The Shinkansen legs. Each one goes in with its time and fare, and the fares add up fast: a typical train fare logged by travellers in Stippl is €21 (¥3,950), and the Tokyo to Kyoto run alone is about €76 (¥14,000).
- The private and local lines. Nara is the Kintetsu or JR line from Kyoto, Miyajima a JR train and a ferry from Hiroshima. Put them in as legs too, so the day shows the real door to door time.
- The bags. Hand a case to your hotel and it meets you at the next one, usually the next day, for about €12-19 (¥2,200-3,500) per case. Note the forwarding on the leg, and the day stop in between is suddenly easy.
Sample route: two weeks on the Shinkansen line, with day stops
This is our "Shinkansen line with day trips" route: three bases, three day stops, thirteen nights, and only four hotel moves. Nara, Himeji and Miyajima sit in the trip as stops with zero nights, which is how most travellers see them.
| Stop and nights | Leg to the next stop | Time and price |
|---|---|---|
| Tokyo, 4 nights | Tokaido Shinkansen to Kyoto | about 2 hours 15 min, €76 (¥14,000) |
| Kyoto, 4 nights | JR Nara line or Kintetsu to Nara | 35 to 45 min, about €3.80 (¥700) by JR |
| Nara, day stop | Kintetsu to Osaka Namba | about 35 min |
| Osaka, 2 nights | Sanyo Shinkansen from Shin-Osaka to Himeji | about 30 min |
| Himeji, day stop | Sanyo Shinkansen west to Hiroshima | the same line |
| Hiroshima, 2 nights | JR to Miyajimaguchi, then the ferry | 26 min, then 10 min, €1.10 (¥200) |
| Miyajima, day stop | Back to Hiroshima, Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka | about 1 hour 30 min, €57 (¥10,500) |
| Osaka, 1 night | Haruka Express to Kansai airport | 30 to 45 min, about €9.70 (¥1,800) |
On the two moving days with a day stop, the bags go ahead: forward them from Kyoto to Osaka on the Nara day, and use a coin locker at Himeji station for the castle. The last night sits in Osaka because Kansai airport is the easy exit, and flying into Tokyo and out of Osaka usually costs less than a return.
Kyoto is the longest stay on this route and the one that fills first in blossom and autumn colour season, so it is the bed to book before anything else.
Want a slower version with Hakone and a night on Miyajima? Our Japan trip planner walks through a different two week route, with the nights per stop travellers choose and the booking calendar.
Turn these stops into a route
Pick your favourites and Stippl orders them, adds travel times and builds the day-by-day.
Copy it, change the nights, give Himeji a bed if you want the castle at opening time, and the legs move with you.
Budget in yen, with the railway as the big line
Set the trip budget in yen and Stippl shows each amount in your own currency beside it. Log the Shinkansen legs as you book them in SmartEX and you see the railway's share of the trip before you land, which is the number that surprises most first timers.
Track what you actually spend
Set a daily budget per country and log expenses in any currency while you travel.
The budget planner also splits costs between the people on the trip, so the ryokan, the late GO taxi and the Miyajima ferry settle themselves at the end.
Offline underground, and the neighbours
Tokyo's deep subway lines and the tunnels of the Sanyo Shinkansen eat signal. A trip you have opened once on wifi stays readable on your phone, so the stops, booking details and train times are there on the platform.
Japan is usually the whole trip: nearly three in five Japan trips planned with Stippl contain no other country. When travellers do cross a border, South Korea is on one in seven Japan trips, and in Stippl that flight is one more leg on the same map.
The apps for home, the station, the table and the taxi
Stippl holds the plan; the rest of your home screen does the daily work in Japan, and each app has one moment when it matters.
At home: Visit Japan Web for the border
Visit Japan Web is the government's online service for immigration and customs. It runs in your phone's browser, so there is nothing to download from an app store: register before you fly, add your flight, and it gives you a QR code that replaces the paper immigration and customs forms at the airport. Screenshot the code in case the arrival hall wifi is slow. It does not replace the entry rules, so check those for your passport too.
At home: SmartEX for Shinkansen seats
SmartEX is the official booking service for the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen, from Tokyo through Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima to Hakata and Kumamoto. It works in English from your own country: register with a credit card, pay in yen, and change a booking as often as you like until the train leaves. Seats go on sale one month before departure. At the station you link your IC card and tap through the Shinkansen gate; the fare goes on your credit card, not the card balance.
Editor's tip: Travelling with a big suitcase? On the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen, a case of 160 to 250 cm in total dimensions needs a seat with the oversized baggage area, booked ahead. Those seats can only be booked from the day sales open, one month out, and without one you pay an extra fee on board.
At home: an eSIM, online the moment you land
Every app on this list needs data, and free wifi in Japan is patchy outside stations and convenience stores. An eSIM bought before you leave costs about €10-20 (¥1,850-3,700) for a trip's worth of data. Travelling as a group? A pocket wifi device can serve everyone for €6-9 (¥1,100-1,650) a day. You can get a Japan eSIM through Stippl while you plan.
At the station: Suica on your phone
IC cards (Suica, Pasmo, Icoca) are the default for everything local. They work nationwide, whichever one you hold, on trains, subways and buses, and they pay at convenience stores and vending machines. On an iPhone you can add a Suica to Apple Wallet, or use Welcome Suica Mobile, JR East's app for visitors: no deposit, topped up with Apple Pay, and the balance expires 180 days after you issue it, with no refunds. Spend it down at the airport before you fly home.
On Android it is different. Most phones bought outside Japan cannot carry a digital Suica, so buy a physical IC card at the airport or the first station.
At the station: Google Maps, NAVITIME and Japan Transit Planner
Google Maps routes you across Japanese cities with the platform number and the station exit, which matters at stations with dozens of exits. For the long legs, Japan Travel by NAVITIME has a JR Pass mode that shows the best route for pass holders, and it saves up to 50 recent routes to read offline. Japan Transit Planner does the same job with fares, times and a JR Pass filter. Both are free for basic route search, with paid extras. Neither sells tickets: that is what SmartEX is for.
At the station: lockers and luggage forwarding
Station coin lockers cost €1.60-4.90 (¥300-900) per calendar day by size, and the big ones go first at Kyoto and Shin-Osaka. When they are full, app-based shop storage covers the gap. For a whole case between two hotels, ask the front desk to forward it (takuhaibin): it is how a day stop like Nara or Himeji works without dragging a suitcase up a temple path.
At the table: Google Translate and Tabelog
Station signs are bilingual; spoken English thins out fast outside the tourist areas. Download the Japanese pack on wifi so Google Translate works offline, then use the camera for menus and ticket machines and voice mode at a hotel desk. Many small restaurants take your order through a vending machine at the door, and the camera handles those too.
Tabelog is the restaurant rating site Japanese diners use, and it reads differently from Google: on Tabelog a 3.5 is already a strong score. It publishes national top 100 lists per dish, so you can find the okonomiyaki in Hiroshima that locals rank. The good places often seat under a dozen people, which is why they have queues.
In between: LINE, the most used app in Japan
LINE is how Japan messages: about 98 million people in Japan use it every month, roughly four in five of the population. Businesses, restaurants among them, run their own LINE accounts for bookings and questions, and a guesthouse host will often suggest it over email. Install it before you fly and add your hosts as you book.
After the last train: GO and Uber Taxi
Trains stop around midnight, and a taxi is the way home with luggage or after a late dinner. GO is the most widely used taxi app in Japan, in all 47 prefectures, with an English version that takes international credit cards and Apple Pay. Uber also works, as Uber Taxi: the app books licensed local taxis in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Sapporo and more, with a fare estimate before you request. There is no tipping, in a taxi or anywhere else.
Tickets and tours: GetYourGuide
GetYourGuide is useful for anything with a fixed slot or a guide, such as a food tour in Osaka, which runs about €50-90 (¥9,250-16,650). Many headline sights need no ticket at all: Fushimi Inari, most shrine grounds and Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park are free.
Checklist: the apps to install before you fly
Nearly everything above is free to download. Do this at home, on wifi, the week before you go:
- Open your Stippl trip on your phone so the route, stays and train times are saved.
- Register on Visit Japan Web and screenshot the QR code.
- Book your Shinkansen seats in SmartEX once sales open, a month before each leg, plus a big-case seat if you need one.
- Install the eSIM, and add Suica to your iPhone wallet or plan to buy a card at the airport.
- Install LINE and GO, then download offline maps and the Japanese pack in Google Translate.
Japan's real hazards are natural ones, earthquakes and typhoons, so add an earthquake alert app too, and keep your dates flexible from August into early October.
Frequently asked questions about Japan
Stippl: it puts your stops on one map, turns every Shinkansen and local train between them into a leg with its time and fare, and keeps the stays and the budget in yen on the same trip. More than 100,000 Japan trips have been planned with it.
LINE. About 98 million people in Japan use it every month, and many restaurants and guesthouses message through it. Install it before you fly.
Fill in Visit Japan Web before arrival for immigration and customs; it is a website rather than an app, and it gives you one QR code for both. Check the official entry rules for your passport too.
Yes. SmartEX books the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen from abroad, in English, from one month before departure, and you tap through the gate with your IC card. Add each leg to your Stippl trip so the seat sits next to the stay.
Yes on an iPhone, with Suica in Apple Wallet or Welcome Suica Mobile, for trains, buses, convenience stores and vending machines. Most Android phones bought abroad cannot, so buy a physical IC card on arrival.
Japan runs on time, so the plan is the part to get right. Lay the Shinkansen line out in Stippl, put Nara, Himeji and Miyajima in as day stops, book each seat in SmartEX the day sales open, and land with the Suica already in your wallet.
