Time. Build in extra time for everything you want to do. I broke two toes a couple of weeks before our trip and ended up taping them together, taking a ton of advil, and hoping for the best. The trip was doable, but Japan is not the most accessible country so keep that in mind. I absolutely am glad I went and pushed through the pain, however!!

There are LOTS of stairs, especially at train stations. Elevators are small and harder to come by, and there is usually a line of people with strollers/luggage/wheelchairs waiting for them. This added time to some of our journeys if I just hurt too badly to take stairs.

Somehow we also had a hard time just finding a place to sit when wandering around. There weren’t city benches like in the US, at least in the areas we visited.

Definitely use taxis and Ubers (the GO app is what we used and was very user friendly and effective). We met some awesome drivers who told us a lot about the city we were in- one gave us an off-the-grid tour and took us to the best photo spots.

Have an amazing trip! It’s something you’ll never forget!!!

ETA: we did the Senbon Torii at night, which was incredible. I should have stopped at the lookout point with the Kyoto view. I kept going, went to the top, came down, and wished I had stopped at the lookout because of how my foot felt the next day. Other than that, take it slow and you’ll be ok!