Japan Packing List with Kids
Packing for a Japan adventure with kids can seem daunting. Make sure you know what to pack for your trip to Japan with kids.
Japan with Kids!
Our family traveled with three young children for more than 2 weeks in Japan. We had a blast! However, the Japanese culture and way of life is distinct from our ordinary American life. That meant that we had to think a little differently about how we packed.
RELATED POST: 10 Unforgettable Experiences in Japan with Kids
Our family visited Japan at the end of summer and beginning of fall. That means that we had some scalding hot days and some chilly mornings and evenings.
In addition to packing for transitioning seasons, we found that we needed a few other items to make our trip more enjoyable.
However, before we get to what we actually packed, I want to take a brief minute to prepare you for the trip with kids in general.
Packing list for flying to Japan with kids!
Chances are that if you are reading this and preparing for a flight to Japan with kiddos, then you are also looking at a 12-15 hour flight. You might not even be able to think about what to pack for Japan because you are too worried about what to do on a plane with kids for that long.
(If you aren’t worried about flying with your kids, skip to the packing list in the next section!)
(If you are concerned about flying with kids, be sure to check out our entire flying with kids post for our tried and true method for hassle-free flying with kids.)
Well, let me first assuage your flying fears. My kids have flown across both oceans and through a couple of hemispheres on multiple occasions. They started flying before they turned 1, and we have learned a thing or two about traveling on planes with kids.
Our first tip is always to relax a little. Don’t let the anxiety of a trans-pacific flight ruin your trip.
You are taking a trip to Japan! You aren’t booking the trip to go on a plane ride. Focus on the main thing—the destination and all the fun you are about to have!
The 15, or so, hours you spend traveling should not ruin your entire experience, nor should they overshadow your trip.
That being said, we do have a few tips for making your long-haul flight with kids much easier!
Tips for Your Flight to Japan with Kids
For your flight to Japan with kids, we have a few tips. First, we recommend that you pack light. Take only what you absolutely need and those few items that will make the trip and flight easier.
You have enough to take care of –flight details, luggage, children, travel details—without adding unnecessary and superfluous stuff.
Second, we recommend these top items that are actually worth taking up space in your personal item or carry-on on the plane.
Top Items to Pack for Long-Haul Flights with Kids:
- Travel Bag or Backpack (size and age appropriate).
- A complete change of clothes in each bag (including yours!).
- Water bottle or sippy cup (fill after security)
- Mess-Free Art
- Snacks
- Headphones
- Screen/ Tablet/ electronic devices
- Sanitizer or wipes
- Chargers
- Lovies
- Compact travel car seat, booster seats, or infant car seat
- Toothbrush
- Extra wipes and diapers (for diapered children and wipes for all children!)
- Patience
For our Tried and True Method for Hassle-Free Flights with Kids, check this out.
You won’t find goody bags, snackle boxes, or even crayons in our no-hassle list! Moreover, in our experience, we have rarely needed all of those items in a single flight. These are simply the items that have proven time and time again to be worth their literal weight on a plane with kids!
But, what to pack for the actual trip to Japan? Check out what we packed for our family adventure!
Japan Clothing Packing List for Kids
If you want every picture and outfit to be insta-worthy, then skip to the next section for our Japan-specific items that you will want for kids. However, if you want a packing list that maximizes space and simplicity then keep reading!
As a preliminary matter, I always plan on using a washer and dryer at an AirBnb or hotel. We found coin laundry at every hotel we visited in Japan. Moreover, our AirBnb had a washer and drying line to make traveling and packing even easier.
Planning in advance to do laundry, I only pack 7-10 days of clothing in our luggage to limit laundry to once a week.
For each person in my family for late summer and early fall in Japan, we packed:
- 10 pairs of undergarments
- 4 pairs of durable, neutral colored pants such as jeans or black joggers
- 7-10 t-shirts that match at least 2 pairs of pants
- 2 neutral sweatshirts or cardigans to layer over t-shirts
- no-iron dress, skirt, or collared shirt outfit
- 10 pairs of thick, durable socks
- 2 comfortable pairs of walking shoes
- hiking pants and boots if you plan to hike Mt. Fuji or Mt. Inari
- personal toiletries
- swimsuit
- pop up laundry hamper
- packable down coat
Our family was able to pack all of these items into one carry-on bag each with some extra room for souvenirs. Plus, we would have had even more space without hiking boots and down coats. However, our hiking family wasn’t going to miss a day on Fuji!
We had plenty of clothing for all of our activities and made sure to pack some character-specific clothing for Universal Studios and Tokyo Disney! For example, we packed Harry Potter robes for each child, and a princess costume for my daughter.
Even with all of the extras, we managed to travel carry-on only –a major space and headache saver for airports, taxis, and hotel rooms when traveling as a family.
RELATED POST: DisneySea vs. Disneyland Tokyo
Surprising Things to Remember to Pack for Japan with Kids
Despite our attempts to pack light and keep our items to a minimum, there were a few things that came in handy or we wish we would have packed for Japan. Here are our Japan with kids packing suggestions!
ID Bands, Airtags, or GPS watches
Safety first. Anytime we travel with our kids, especially internationally, we take some precautions to prevent our children being separated from us.
ID BANDS: We always make sure that our children wear these simple ID bands. They come in large packs and are disposable, so I keep several stowed in our luggage for each leg of our trip.
Each ID band has space for the child’s phone number (or international number if applicable), and the parents’ names. This way, in the horrible event that our children are lost, separated, or injured, authorities have a way to contact us.
Despite the fact that our older children know our phone number and how to reach us, they can get overwhelmed. The band is a simple way for them to present their contact information to an authority-figure if they are lost or separated in some horrible incident.
AIRTAGS: Airtags are a great travel hack for tracking suitcases. But, don’t underestimate them for tracking your children as well.
Our children always travel with a backpack that they are responsible for carrying. We simply put the Airtag in the backpack and can track our children (or their lost backpack) and keep a little more peace of mind.
I even keep an Airtag in our family passport case just for additional security.
GPS Watch: My real favorite travel safety item for my kiddos are GPS watches. However, we have found out the hard way that these devices have limited international coverage, and are unreliable.
We have reviewed watches from Garmin, Apple, and Verizon, but none, so far, will cover all the countries we are visiting without special service plans, multiple devices, or reliable signals. So, you won’t find me recommending them here.
Therefore, I am hopeful that someday soon, I will be able to travel with GPS watches for my children, and in the meantime, some of these brands have limited coverage that might be right for your trip!
First Aid Kit
You can find every bit of first aid that you might need in Japan. However, if your child is bleeding from a skinned knee or motion sick, then you don’t want to have to wait until you find the next pharmacy.
Our family always travels with a couple of simple first aid kits.
Purchase this simple, ready first aid kit, or add these items to your homemade kit:
- Fabric bandages
- Antibiotic ointment
- Pain reliever such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or aspirin
- Motion-sick bands or pills
- Allergy medication
- Small breakable ice pack
- Extras of our children’s regular medication
- Bite, itch, and burn cream
Having these simple items on hand take up almost no space, and give you peace of mind.
Disposable bags
Japan has very few public garbage cans. Even so, the streets and sidewalks are very clean.
After our kids had a snack or conbini lunch, we stashed their wrappers in a disposable bag ready for the next trash can we found.
A roll of disposable pet bags are a simple add to your Japan packing list. Simply stash a roll of disposable bags in your daybag for collecting trash.
Lanyard
Our family spent a great deal of time in Japan navigating the country’s amazing train lines. If your family plans to see lots of Japan in a short amount of time, we highly recommend booking a JR pass before you go.
A lanyard would have been a helpful way to keep track of our pass.
RELATED POST: Is a JR Rail Pass Right for our Family?
Despite the convenience of the pass, the actual tickets and vouchers can be difficult to keep track of especially for the family.
At any given time, I was carrying between 8 and 12 tickets and passes for myself and my children. Continuously remembering what pocket they were in and which pass matched which voucher was a major stressor.
One item we wish we would have had was a lanyard for keeping our JR Pass and our tickets safe and organized.
If you don’t want to wear a lanyard, I highly recommend one of these family passport cases that have multiple interior pockets. I didn’t go anywhere without this passport case safely tucked in my cross-body bag.
The passport holder fits inside the hidden compartment on this convenient bag.
Coin Purse
While Japan widely accepts many major credit cards, we found that most of Japan was cash-heavy. Most stores, attractions, transportation, and restaurants preferred cash.
Also, much of Japan’s cash is coins! These coins can get too heavy for your pockets and too big for your ordinary wallet.
For that reason, our family was glad that we packed a couple of simple coin purses (you can also purchase cute designs in Japan). The coin purses were easier to collect the large and varied coins instead of losing thousands of yen at the bottom of my purse!
Nicer Clothing: Less Athleisure, more business casual
While the United States is swept by athleisure fashion –joggers, leggings, t-shirts, and sneakers –Japan’s unspoken dresscode is far more formal.
In our experience, most women wore slacks, dresses, and skirts, while men wore button-up, collared shirts and slacks. While we saw plenty of people wearing jeans, it was highly unusual to see anyone in leggings and short sleeve tops (even when the weather was sweltering!).
Tourists get a little bit of a pass on the Japanese dresscode! Jeans and sweatshirts were quite commonplace in touristy areas. However, our family did try to pack plain, clean, neat, and nice-looking clothing for our Japan trip.
For the most part, we wore dark pants or jeans and sweaters or long-sleeve shirts. We were far from blending in, but we did try to be respectful and not show our arms, shoulders, low neckline, or legs.
Slip On Shoes (and Socks)
You will be doing tons of walking in Japan. Our family averaged more than 20,000 steps each day while touring the country. Therefore, you cannot skip out on good, walking shoes.
However, we also had to take off and put on our shoes repeatedly throughout the day.
Scene: Walk up to Edo period castle, take off shoes, walk through castle, put back on shoes, walk to next building exhibit, take off shoes, walk through exhibit, put shoes back on. Repeat ad nauseum.
While you might be excited to wear those fancy new, adorable shoes, you will get tired of relacing, or manuevering them 10 times while 100 people behind you try to find their shoes too.
Moreover, each time I had to take off my shoes, so did my children. This meant finding my shoes and making sure that each of them had their shoes back on.
Therefore, make sure that those good, walking shoes are also slip-ons.
My 4-year-old was not big enough to manage his own laces in a reasonable amount of time, so we made sure to pack good walking, slip-on shoes for our trip. I think it goes without saying to leave the sandals at home. They might be cute, but you don’t want to walk around all those attractions barefoot!
Wear thick walking socks with your slip on shoes so that your bare feet don’t touch those public floors!
Pocket Flatware
Our family spent some time accustomizing our children to some things that they would see in Japan that they weren’t quite used to. This included practicing with chopsticks.
We purchased each of our children his or her own set of chopsticks with trainers so that they were not overwhelmed by chopsticks when we arrived.
However, their little fingers were not adept enough at chopsticks to eat all of their meals, and not every restaurant offered spoons and forks. Therefore, one of the items that might make your trip a little more convenient for your children is a set of reusable pocket flatware.
A simple traveling fork and spoon can make slurping ramen less stressful for little fingers and eating spicy karaage a little less messy!
We slid a plastic spoon and fork into our kids’ travel bags to keep things a little more convenient around the dinner table!
Portable Fan
Even if you are generally a cold person, our family was surprised to find just how comfortable Japanese people are with hot weather.
One day we boarded a train on a nearing 90 degree Fahrenheit October day, and every single person on board was wearing long sleeves and pants. Some of the passengers were even wearing insulated coats.
Our family stood sweating in t-shirts and jeans clearly not accustomed to such heat, close proximity and people, and the unspoken October dress code!
Further, air conditioning was not as prevalent in hotels, restaurants, and stores as in the United States. Therefore, a simple portable fan for long lines, crowded trains, or hotel rooms would have been a nice addition to our packing list.
Simple, battery powered fans can be quiet and discrete but save you sweating in a sea of people on a train, bus, or attraction!
Layers
Japanese summer/fall weather from the north to the south can change radically during the day. One morning we started with sweatshirts, lightened to t-shirts in the afternoon, and wore insulated jackets when the sun went down.
Contrastingly, some days started cool and comfortable and radically shifted into hot by the afternoon.
Moreover, spills and stains were sure to happen as we tried new street foods and traveled by bus, train, and subway.
Simple layers: jackets, long-sleeve shirts, sweaters, cardigans, etc. made Japan travel much more comfortable for all of our kids.
Sticky Notes
Japan toilets live up to their hype! However, they can be noisy, confusing, and even overwhelming to children. Especially to children who not only don’t speak Japanese but are jumpy around auto-toilets anyway.
I can’t tell you how many stalls I had to enter before my children so that the toilet didn’t jump, shoot, or talk at them!
Take a simple pack of sticky notes to cover sensors and avoid some of the bathroom drama for kids!
Plain Colors
Ok, this suggestion isn’t necessarily a packing suggestion. Instead, it is a how-to-blend-in-in-Japan suggestion.
That unspoken dresscode I mentioned?, it also has a color scheme. Black, white, beige, and other neutral colors were the almost-exclusive clothing color palette in our experiences.
Loud colors, bold patterns, and even not-so-bold patterns made us stand out even more than we already did!
Therefore, if you care about looking a little less like the tourist you are, then I can also recommend that you pack simple, neutral colors for your kiddos.
JR Rail Pass
Available only to non-residential foreign travelers, the JR Rail Pass can be a great cost-saving Japan travel hack. This convenient, unlimited train pass (for specific classes of trains) was not only convenient for our family but a major money saver.
However, you cannot purchase this pass in Japan. You must order it before you arrive in Japan and switch your vouchers for tickets at an airport or major train station.
(For some tips on how to exchange your voucher for tickets, check this out.)
Our family saved hundreds upon hundreds of dollars by taking advantage of this convenient travel hack. We saw more of the country, didn’t worry about missing trains or connections, and experienced more culture with the JR Rail Pass than we could have otherwise.
Disney Tickets
Another important pass to have before you enter the country is your Tokyo Disneyland Resort pass. These tickets often sell out, and are available on a rolling basis.
Our family was able to purchase our resort stay and pass 60 days in advance, and we were sure to be online as soon as the window opened.
The website can be difficult to navigate for English speakers, so be sure you get your passes well in advance and have them loaded into the app for convenience on your trip.
Tokyo Disneyland Website Tip: Our family had more success with Mastercard on the Tokyo Disneyland website than American Express or Visa.
RELATED POST: DisneySea vs. Disneyland Tokyo
Despite visiting Tokyo Disneyland on an off-peak week, tickets were still completely sold out the day of. Don’t wait to get your tickets!
Pocket Wifi
Another must-have for Japan is a pocket wifi or travel wifi system. These simple, convenient, portable devices are easily rented online and picked up at your airport.
Our family carried an unlimited data, pocket wifi with us throughout Japan and had plenty of connectivity for all of our devices. This made navigating, accessing our tickets and passes, and even making reservations a breeze.
We had no need to book an international phone plan, purchase a SIM card, or even buy a local plan. Instead, we simply connected our personal devices to the portable wifi and had connection everywhere in Japan.
Our family used Pocket Wifi with our JR Rail Pass and had no trouble picking it up at the airport or getting it started.
Japan Packing with Kids
Even with three small children, Japan was a great family adventure. We navigated castles, ruins, theme parks, and heritage sites.
Our children played with local children, ate new foods, and even stretched their hiking skills on Mt. Fuji.
While Japan had everything we ever needed and more, there were a few items that made our trip even easier, and a few items we wished we had packed.
Stick these few extra essentials into your carry-on bag for an even more enchanting Japan experience with your kids.
JAPAN WITH KIDS QUICK PACKING LIST:
- ID Bands or Airtags
- First Aid Kit
- Disposable Bags
- Lanyard
- Coin Purse
- Slip On Shoes
- Travel Flatware
- Portable Fan
- Layers
- Sticky Notes
- Plain Colors
- JR Rail Pass
- Disney Tickets
- Pocket Wifi Rental