Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Japan 2017 CamperVan Road Trip


I won't say this is a very last minute trip but from deciding/planing to execute the actual trip only took about 5 months ? Plus the fact that this is my 2nd trip to Japan this year ( went Skiing at Zao Onsen in March ) , also this is like the 3rd oversea trip this year, think the most flight so far in my lifetime a year. Had been lazy so had not been blogging those previous trip but once I completed this , I will try find time to do up the Zao onsen trip and the Norway Northern light chase trip.

One of my travel buddy had been mentioning to do MotorHome driving in New Zealand / Iceland but we do not have experiences in driving those so when I read up and saw Japan had these Campervan things , we decided to give it a try. We had planned for an Autumn trip to see the Koyo ( aka red leaves ) so we decided to start from Tokyo to Kyoto and so on , most people would have do Campervan in Hokkaido usually. ( in 2015 we did a Kyushu self drive for Koyo but was very disappointed cos due to weather , most of the trees were "injured" before they blooms.

Decided to fly by SQ this trip as couldn't find other cheap budget carriers ( really missed the $370 flight to Tokyo when I went in March by Philippines Airlines, paid about $750/pax which SQ usually cost around $650+/- if got promotion. 

While doing research for Campervan , there are quite a few companies , below will list some that I found but we end up choosing Japan Campers as they seems to have more cars selections and also they offer free ONE night stays at their guesthouse ( subjected to T&C and availability ) and cos we wanted a bigger van.

Camper Van

The main link that links to many companies





So you might wants to compare then decide which company is best for you.

Some site that is VERY useful while planing for Self drive in Japan 

Car Navigation System

If you use Car Navigation System ( most rental cars do but Japan Campers use their own iPad ) you might need to use map codes. Some link to show how to get map codes




Now there is an easier way to obtain it by the link below , just find the location like how you use google map and the map codes with appear below


Car Route / Toll charges

Google Map : https://www.google.com.sg/maps/
Good for plotting Places of Interest and also use as a Navi system

Use the website to count toll amount ( apps must pay for car route search )

Michi no Eki (道の尺)

A Michi-no-Eki is a roadside rest area for those driving across Japan.
Michi-no-Eki are located along national highways and provide free parking space,
restrooms, and regional and tourist information for road travelers.
There are currently over 1,000 locations throughout Japan. ( from their Official site )
These are where we usually park our camper van overnight. Car parks are FREE ! 

Parking lots and charges

For parking lots and cost I use Times or NaviTime site

Times parking : https://times-info.net

NaviTime parking : https://www.navitime.co.jp/parking/

Trains

Hyperdia : http://www.hyperdia.com ( more for non self drive trips )
For checking trains route/time/costs

Total we drove about 2750 KM in 14 days cos last 2 days in Tokyo we did not really drove around, instead we rely on Metro/Subway. Compared to the initial itinerary , there were some changes due to weather , time and biggest factor is SHOPPING TIME !

Places we visited this trip






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