travel without reservations

We are traveling for three weeks in the areas around Kyoto and northern Touhoku (Sendai, Yamagata, possibly further north). We perfer to not set an itinerary but rather to make spontaneous decisions about our next stop.

I understand that it is possible to find rooms on the day we arrive in a place, using the Japanese Tourist Offices usually found near train stations. (And understand that our options may be limited). I have also read that the proprietor of a place we stay on one night might be willing to phone ahead to our next destination on our behalf.

I know this sounds rather risky, but that's part of the adventure, isn't it!

Please can anyone offer more specific advice, other options, opinions, etc? Our budget is flexible - we'd like to keep the costs down but also like to splurge on occasion. Minkushu and cheaper Ryokan would be nice, with hostels when we're feeling poor and now and again a nice resort.

Thanks for advice.

I hope that your travel date does not coincide with the golden week of japan. It starts beginning of May. Most of hotel will be more expensive and booked. Thus it is always good to plan ahead. especially if there's a matsuri.

Definately check if there is a festival in the area the time of your arrival, as that will overpopulate the area significantly.

Does anyone in your group speak Japanese? I think Sendai may be a large enough city to have English speakers at the information booths, but getting any more north / west of Sendai may raise a language barrier.

I got the impression that the information desks in train stations were more tailored toward other Japanese visitors, but that could have been dependant on where I lived.

I have travelled without reservations although not extensively - only for a night or two at a time. Here were the cons of such travel:
- Many tourist information offices close fairly early. We had to be ready to make a decision about where we wanted to spend the night early if we wanted to use the tourist office.
- Only in Takayama did we find an English speaker - in Lake Akan, Takeo Onsen (Kyushu), Kurokawa Onsen (Kyushu) and Shirakawa-go, they spoke only Japanese; this was okay, since I can manage simple Japanese (and if I hadn't been able to manage, maybe an English-speaker could have been found).
- We arrived at Magome after the tourist office closed (I think it was five-ish) and found it VERY difficult to find a place to stay; it was off-season, getting dark, and it was actually hard to distinguish which buildings were ryokans. Not to mention that they were all shut up tight.
- if you arrive after five or so without a reservation, you most likely will not get dinner though you may be charged for it (happened to us in Magome).

On the other hand, we always found a spot to lay our heads. There are business hotels and love hotels as well, though not so much out in the boonies. I found the people in Tohoku to be much more interested in gaijin and more friendly than those in more travelled areas, which is a plus.
If it were me I'd make a reservation or two here & there, so that you have a day or two during which you don't worry about accommodation. Good luck.

I also would think carefully about reserving atleast some of your accommodation otherwise a huge amount of your valuable travel time becomes absorbed in constantly looking for accommodation. In most cases we found the accommodation to be quite spread out. It is NOT a case of rocking up to an accommodation area and just popping in door to door to enquire about rooms. The ryokans can be tricky to find and spread out requiring a lot of walking to go from one to the other.Phoning ahead is VERY difficult unless you are fluent in Japanese. With the internet it is much easier to book ahead. Good Luck.

We have been to Japan twice now. The first was pre-internet and we just back- packed around and used travel guides as references and rang each day to book accommodation. While this meant we could be flexible it was VERY,VERY time consuming, as very few places spoke much English especially off the beaten tourist track. We got alot of hang ups on the phone because they couldn't understand us. We chose to try to ring up before just arriving on the door step to enquire. Otherwise alot of time can be chewed up trapsing around at the end of a long day looking for somewhere to stay then having to go out again often to find somewhere to eat. Also remember that in Japan restaurants aren't always as obvious to Westerners as we are used to-Look for the fabric hanging down from doorways for great little bars that serve inexpensive meals.
The second time we returned to Japan in the last few months, we did a lot of homework before we left to maximise our 3 weeks there. We booked everything over the net before we left and found it to be a Godsend. There is enough cultural difference and amazing experiences to be had without the drama of constantly looking for accommodation in a non English speaking( and writing) country.Outside the big cities there is still very little in English. You can get by okay but we found that there was enough to cope with ie transport, language, food etc without worrying every day about where we were going to stay. This way we knew exactly where we were staying, how much it would cost (usually cheaper on the net anyway)and we could print off maps of how to get to each ryokan before we left. Even with the maps it we found it rather challenging at times.
So I can see where you are coming from. In an ideal situation it is great to be flexible but just keep in mind that it does use up A LOT of time. All the best. We absolutely loved our time there and are already planning to return!

Try these websites-

For rail timetables-http://www.japanrail.com/JR_hyperdia.html

For accommodation-
http://www.itcj.jp/
http://www.japaneseguesthouses.com/index.htm