These are just a few of the websites that you can use to arrange for your hotel.  www.hotwire.com, www.travel.rakuten.co.jp/en, www.japanlifestyle.com/au, www.japanhotelsonline.net, www.hotels.com, www.jcha.or.jp/english/ or www.japaneseguesthouses.com.  I personally like www.hotwire.com, because when I recently visited Toronto, Canada, I was able to use Hotwire to book a hotel room at a 4star hotel in Downtown, Toronto, for more than 50% less than the normal room rate.  That’s the kind of savings that you don’t want to miss out on.

     For people who have moved to Japan you really have 3 basic choices.  First, if you’ve arranged a homestay in Japan then you are basically already set because your homestay family will meet you at the airport and bring you back to their house.  If you aren’t doing a homestay then you can either stay in a hotel or short-term guest house until you find an apartment, or you can stay in company housing and then later find an apartment.

     I would recommend going with option 2.  Let your company do all the work for you in the beginning, so that when you arrive in Japan you won’t have to think about housing at all.  Stay in the company housing for a few months and use that time to locate your long-term apartment using a Japanese Real Estate agent.

     In my next Post I’ll explain how to find Japanese Real Estate agents, and I’ll explain the process of applying for and renting an apartment in Japan.  The process is very similar to in the USA or Canada, but there are a few differences and a few hidden costs that you need to know about.

Depending upon where you are flying from you will most likely have to fly into Narita Airport which is located about a 40 minute train ride East of Tokyo.  The airport code for Narita is NRT.  The first thing I like to do whenever I decide to fly somewhere is to get an idea of the average cost of the flight I’m looking at taking.  I have found that www.sidestep.com is a great site for this purpose.  Simply enter your search information and Sidestep searches 40 to 50 airfare related websites all-at-once.  It will even give you the option of adding other top rated sites like www.travelocity.com, www.orbitz.com, www.airfare.com, and www.expedia.com to your search with the simple click of a button.

Once you have an idea of the average cost it’s just a matter of checking Sidestep’s Best Fares calendar to see if there is a day with a price that’s lower than the average.   The price quoted by Sidestep almost always includes all the airport fees and fuel surcharges.  When you are ready to book your ticket Sidestep will directly link you to the airline’s website and you will actually end up buying your ticket from the airline itself.

In my next Post I’ll walk you through what you need to do once you arrive at Narita Airport, how you get from the Airport into Tokyo, or alternatively how to get over to Yokohama’s Haneda Airport to catch your connecting flight to Okinawa or Hokkaido.