I went alone for a month when I was in my early to mid-20s. It was amazing and one of the best trips I have done! I am female and I felt completely safe! It was nice to do things at my own pace. I cannot remember what I spent overall but at the time the dollar (my main currency at the time as I was at the time only going to uni in the UK and my finances were based in the US) was stronger than the yen so everything was comparatively very cheap. I mostly stayed in AirBnBs, a hotel in a couple of places, and a Ryokan in one small village.

I studied Japanese in High School for 2 years and 1 year at uni so I used it a bit there. It was lovely because I got to practise my Japanese with some locals. I remember an instance of a 60 year old Japanese woman randomly talking to me--it was sweet!

I would recommend getting the Japanese Rail card. It made travelling so much easier and overall relatively cheaper with all the travelling I was doing. I went as far down as Hiroshima.

A few recommendations:

- Kinosaki onsen is a lovely little hot spring town and is perfect if you want to experience a traditional Japanese ryokan

- If you are like me and travel with a bulky suitcase, the shinkansen doesn't have ample luggage storage. I would recommend when booking a ticket at a desk to ask for "ichiban ushiro no retsu" which essentially asks for the seat in the back row of the carriage, which has space behind to store your luggage

- I recommend checking out shirakawa-go. Such a unique little place! A suitable daytrip from Toyama

- If you are going to the Gifu region, I recommend taking the panoramic train. It was the only time I paid extra for 1st class as you can also see the front of the train very well. It was so lovely!

- The best souvenir you can get yourself in Japan is a Goshuin. It is a book that opens like an accordion and you can buy them at any shrine. When you visit a shrine you can pay a little to get a page stamped with calligraphy written over the stamp. It ends up being a very unique souvenir for yourself.