My 17 yr. old daughter will be traveling alone in Japan in April. Are the hostels appropriate places for her? Are there any specific ones you have liked? Later in her trip she will be near Tokyo and Kyoto. What other areas do you suggest? My daughter has a wide range of interests.

Japan is generally a very safe place, for everyone. She should take the same precautions she would take anywhere in the world. Avoid dark, lonely places at night. Avoid carrying large amounts of cash. Hostels shouldn't be a problem at all in terms of safety and cleanliness, but availability may be a problem as many school trips take place in April, and it is common for hostels to be completely booked by a school group. She can get accommodation help at the tourist information desk in Kyoto and Tokyo, as well as the airport, should she not want to prebook.

How long will she spend in Japan?

Two months, April 4th-May 26th.

She has plenty of time to see a variety of places. She might want to browse through some guidebooks, look through the JNTO website, and browse around here to see what she would like to include.

Travel within Japan is quite expensive, so that might limit where she goes. There are JR rail passes for foreigners that are either 1 or 2 weeks in vaildity (time cannot be broken up into parts). If she has long distance travel, she might want to consider a pass for the time of that travel. There are also some flight plans that I've heard of, but have no experience with as we are residents and not eligible.

There are several places I can personally recommend as very nice in addition to Kyoto and Tokyo. Nara, Gokayama, Shirakawa-go, Miyajima, and Kanazawa.

Bonjour MacNaughton,

In addition to the excellent advice from KimJapan, keep in mind that at 17 yr your daughter is considered a minor in Japan and you should make sure this will not prove a problem to her being alone there (check with Japanese consulate or embassy at home).

She should at all times carry her passport (you can be controlled in the street for no reason at all and failure to show your passport may result in a very unpleasant few hours at least) and printed contact addresses as well as of lodging.

There are a number of reasonnably priced accomodations that cater only to women in Tokyo and Kyoto, like capsule hotel, hostels, +/- traditional inns, etc.

You will find some of them on the site of the Wellcome Inns reservation center at http://www.itcj.jp/

It has been my experience of a female travelling alone for nearly 30 years that all the addresses in their list proved safe, clean, and generally well located. Also, their offices in Japan proved very helpful with arranging last minute bookings and providing all kinds of informations.

In Tokyo, I've stayed over the years in most of the ryokans located in Taito ward (Ueno, Asakusa) and found them very convenient and safe, my favorite being Katsutaro and its annex in Ueno and Yanaka, Mikawaya Honten and Shigetsu (bit pricey) in Asakusa.

In Kyoto, the cheaper ryokans are located not far from the station, which is rather convenient despite not being in the center of the city. My favorite are Hiraiwa and Riverside Takase (annex Kyoka), see http://www.jpinn.com/index.html

I need to qualify an earlier post. My daughter will only be on her own for about 2-3 weeks out of the 2 months she is in Japan. Given those 2-3 weeks, what are your recommendations for where to go if she will later be in Tokyo (1 month) and Kyoto (1 wk.).
Does anyone have experience of flying into one Japanese city and flying out of another Japanese city. Is it much more expensive to do that rather than using only one airport in Japan?
Also, what kind of gifts have been well-received by Japanese folks you have visited. We want her to be well-stocked.

It is generally the same price to have an open jaw ticket...on occasion it might vary by just a little bit, but not much. You could consider flying into KIX (Osaka) and out of NRT (Tokyo) for example. The airports you choose largely depend on the intinerary.

Gifts...small things are best, and they should be wrapped nicely. Keychains, pen sets, nice soaps...anything will be appreciated. If there is something from her university/high school/hometown with the name on it it is nice.