Japan: Practical Information
Japan is among the safest, healthiest and easiest countries in the world to travel in. The tap water is drinkable, the food is impeccably handled, the crime rate is remarkably low, and a lost wallet has a genuine chance of finding its way back to you.
So this page is short on alarm. But three things do repay real thought before you fly: your feet, because you will walk further than you expect; your medication, because Japan bans some drugs sold freely elsewhere; and the weather, because the summer heat and the typhoons are not to be shrugged at.
What follows is the preparation layer — the things worth sorting out at home, in the fortnight before you go. For what a trip costs, see our cost of visiting Japan page; for the customs of where you'll sleep, see where to stay in Japan.
What to pack for Japan
Japan is a developed country with superb shops, so the honest headline is: you can buy almost anything you forget. Pack light — trains have limited luggage space, and you'll be hauling your bag up station stairs more than you'd like. The exceptions below are the things that are genuinely awkward to source, or that you'll want from the first morning.
The five that actually matter
1. Shoes you can walk 20,000 steps in. This is the whole list, really. Japan is a walking country — city days routinely run 15–25km without feeling like it. Comfortable, broken-in shoes will do more for your trip than anything else you pack.
2. Shoes you can slip off. You'll remove them constantly — temples, ryokan, some restaurants, anywhere with tatami. Laces get old fast.
3. Socks without holes. Said with affection, and entirely seriously. Given how often your shoes come off in front of other people, this is not a joke item.
4. A small hand towel. Public toilets are spotless and plentiful — and very often have neither paper towels nor a dryer. Every Japanese person is carrying a little cloth for this. Now you know why.
5. A bag for your rubbish. Public bins are almost nonexistent, a hangover from the 1995 subway attack. You'll carry your wrapper until you find a konbini. Everyone does.
| Item | Why |
|---|---|
| Layers | Trains, shops and restaurants are aggressively heated in winter and aggressively cooled in summer |
| Compact umbrella | You'll use it; every konbini sells them for ~¥600 if not |
| Portable charger | Your phone is your map, ticket, translator and camera — it will not last the day |
| Coin purse | Japan's coins go up to ¥500 (about £2.70), so they accumulate fast and are worth real money |
| Some cash | Cards are widely taken now, but small restaurants, shrines and rural buses remain cash-only |
| Deodorant / antiperspirant | Western-strength versions are genuinely hard to find |
| Larger clothes & shoes | Above roughly UK men's 11 or women's 8, Japanese sizes run out. Bring what you need |
| Tattoo cover patches | Only if you have ink and want to use onsen — see our guide on onsen etiquette |
| Reusable bottle | Tap water is excellent, and vending machines are everywhere anyway |
Health in Japan
Japan is a low-risk destination with world-class medicine. The main things to sort are insurance, your prescriptions, and a realistic respect for the summer.
Vaccinations
No vaccinations are required to enter Japan from the UK, Europe, North America or Australasia. Make sure your routine jabs (tetanus, MMR, and so on) are current — the standard advice for anywhere. Japanese encephalitis is occasionally raised for long rural stays in summer, but it's not relevant to a normal trip. Check with your GP or a travel clinic six to eight weeks out.
Travel insurance — do not skip this
Japan has excellent healthcare and no reciprocal arrangement with the UK: the GHIC/EHIC is worthless here. Treatment is charged in full, and a hospital stay is genuinely expensive. Get proper travel insurance, and if you're cycling, hiking or skiing, read the activities clause — standard policies routinely exclude exactly the things you came to do.
Water, food and stomachs
Tap water is safe and good everywhere. Food hygiene standards are exceptionally high, raw fish very much included — Japan is one of the few places where you can eat raw seafood from a market stall without a second thought. Travellers' tummy is rare here.
Pharmacies and everyday remedies
Pharmacies (kusuri, 薬) are everywhere — chains like Matsumoto Kiyoshi and Sugi, plus Don Quijote. Two things to know: staff may have limited English, so a translation app on your phone earns its keep; and Japanese over-the-counter doses tend to be weaker than Western equivalents, so the paracetamol may feel underpowered.
The summer heat is a real hazard
Japanese summers are punishing — 35°C with high humidity is normal in July and August, and heatstroke hospitalises thousands of people a year. Treat it seriously: drink constantly, use the salt-replacement drinks (Pocari Sweat and its kin) that every vending machine sells, duck into air-conditioned konbini, and simply don't sightsee between 11am and 3pm. Do the temples early, the museums at midday.
Hay fever, if you're visiting in spring
Japan's cedar pollen season (kafunshō, roughly February to April) is legendary and brutal — a legacy of postwar mass planting. If you're a sufferer, bring your usual antihistamine, because coming unprepared into a Kyoto March can ruin the cherry blossom you flew for.
Medication: the bit that catches people out
This deserves its own section, because it's the one area where an innocent mistake has serious consequences. Japan bans or restricts a number of medicines that are sold over the counter, or routinely prescribed, elsewhere. A foreign prescription is not a defence, and people are detained at the border every year over it.
Flatly banned — leave them at home. Amphetamine-based medicines, including Adderall and Dexedrine, are classed as stimulants under Japanese law and cannot be brought in for any reason, prescription or not. Japan's own Narcotics Control Department is unambiguous about this. Cannabis and CBD products are likewise prohibited, however legal at home.
Allowed, but only with advance permission. Opioid painkillers (codeine, morphine, oxycodone), some ADHD medicines such as Vyvanse, and certain injectables need an import certificate — the Yunyu Kakunin-sho, formerly the Yakkan Shoumei — obtained before you fly. Allow several weeks.
Fine, within limits. Most ordinary medicines — paracetamol, ibuprofen, plain antihistamines — are unrestricted for personal use, broadly up to a month's supply of prescription drugs and two months of over-the-counter ones.
Safety and emergencies
Japan is about as safe as travel gets. Violent crime is rare, theft is rare, and the culture around lost property is close to miraculous — hand a found wallet to a kōban (police box) and it will very likely reach its owner, cash intact. Solo travellers, including women, generally report feeling safer here than at home; women-only carriages run on many city lines at rush hour.
The risks that do exist are mostly geological and meteorological, not human.
Emergency numbers
| Number | For | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 110 | Police | Free from any phone |
| 119 | Fire and ambulance | One number for both — an ambulance is free in Japan |
| 118 | Coast guard | Maritime emergencies |
| Japan Visitor Hotline | Help in English, 24/7 | Run by the tourist board for visitors — accidents, illness, lost property, or just being stuck |
Save the Visitor Hotline number in your phone before you go — it's the single most useful thing on this page if something goes wrong.
Earthquakes
Japan has thousands of earthquakes a year, and you may well feel one. Almost all are harmless, and the buildings around you are engineered to a standard most countries can only envy — this is the best-prepared nation on earth for exactly this.
Your phone will shriek an alarm seconds before the shaking, via the national early-warning system. It is startling the first time. What to do is simple and worth knowing now, because there's no time to look it up: drop, take cover under something solid, and hold on. Protect your head. Do not run outside — falling glass and masonry are the real danger, and inside a modern Japanese building is where you want to be. In a shop or station, follow the staff; they drill for this.
Typhoons
Typhoon season runs roughly June to October, peaking in August and September, and mostly affects the south and west — Okinawa and Kyūshū especially. A serious one shuts things down: flights cancelled, and trains halted under a planned suspension usually announced a day in advance.
The good news is that they're forecast well. The response is simply not to be heroic: check the forecast, believe it, stay indoors for the day, and build slack into your itinerary if you're travelling in the season — never plan to reach the airport on the last possible connection.
Before you fly, download these
Safety Tips — the official disaster app for visitors, in English. It pushes earthquake early warnings, tsunami alerts, typhoon and heatstroke advisories, and tells you what to do. It is free and it is the one app on this page you should not skip.
A translation app — Google Translate with the Japanese pack downloaded for offline use. The camera mode, pointed at a medicine box or a menu, is close to magic.
A two-week-out checklist
| Do this | Why |
|---|---|
| Check your medicines against official guidance | The longest lead time on this list — permits take weeks |
| Buy travel insurance | And read the activities clause if you're cycling or hiking |
| Download Safety Tips + offline translation | Two minutes; potentially the most useful thing you do |
| Save 110, 119 and the Visitor Hotline | You won't be googling in an emergency |
| Sort your data — eSIM or pocket WiFi | Public WiFi is patchy; see our cost of visiting Japan page |
| Break in your shoes | Genuinely. Do not arrive with new shoes |
| Check bag dimensions if taking the shinkansen | Over 160cm total needs a free reservation |