General Comments: "Accommodation in Japan" Top 5 Page for this destination Japan Hotel Tip by SLLiew

Usually Japanese will not invite you to stay at their homes because their rooms are very small and may feel that it is not good enough for you and you may not be used to their baths, no chairs and small spaces.

I was fortunate to know some Japanese well enough and stayed in different homes like home-stay. It was great but I had enough after 2 weeks as there is little privacy and I prefer hotel hot water free flowing shower than sharing a hot water tub with the entire family.

Hotels are needless to say expensive and small in size.

Ryokans are Japanese style accommodation and can be even much more expensive than business hotels as they may have gardens, meals served and you have to sleep on a futon (on the floor mat).

Minshuku are family run accommodations but mostly cater to local Japanese. Many accommodations outside of cities are adverse to cater to foreigners because fear of communication barrier resulting in misunderstanding. I spoke little Japanese then but it was good enough for me to stay anywhere although I hardly understood the long introduction of the available facilities by the welcoming receptionist.

Youth hostels are affordable for backpackers and students. Some youth hostels have no age limit and welcome foreigners though may restrict on the number of days of stay. Do not be surprise if Japanese and non-Japanese are separated in different rooms and Asian are separated from Caucasians when it comes to room sharing. It is just the Japanese way. Of course, you can still interact in the living and dining room area.

Although many have common public bath where modesty goes out the window, there is strictly no mixing of genders.

In Tokyo and larger cities, there are special Japanese accommodations like the love hotels and the capsule hotels. And I have seen in a major Tokyo MRT station, the homeless will start building their overnight beds with cardboards.

Thus the range of accommodations available to you.

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