Pedro Ivens

Is it difficult to find a usable free toilet in Japan? No, free public toilets are very easy to find throughout Japan. Where can you find toilets in Japan? Drinking water and other liquids is essential to keep hydrated in any travel. However, it can be a reason for concern if you keep keep drinking water and not have a toilet nearby! The good news is that in Japan you can always find a toilet nearby. Every train or subway station has a public toilet which you can use for free. Also, shopping centers and museums all have free toilets you can use. Cafes and restaurants also have available toilets, which are free, but please keep in mind that is polite to buy something. It is also possible to find public toilets in many random places in most of the major cities I visited (like Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya, or Hiroshima). So drinking water in Japan is not a problem, you can easily find a toilet for free in most of the places you visit.   How clean are the toilets? In most of the places I visit...

Does bundling clothes save space for packing? Yes! Putting clothes together reduces the volume of each garment allowing to optimize the space inside the bag. I like to roll all my clothes and pack them inside my bag. However, when I roll the clothes, each garment has it's own volume, which ends up taking space inside the bag. Just by rolling clothes I think we can get an excellent optimization for the space inside our bags, but I do think we can take a step further by bundling clothes together, and then, rolling them. This is the technique I use most of the time when I pack for travel. If you keep 2 or 3 pieces together in one roll it really maximizes space, because each roll takes less volume, when comparing to the more traditional folding method that everyone uses. This works very well with a bundle of t-shirts or a bundle of underwear. Another option is to bundle and roll together daily outfit changes. For example, a t-shirt with socks and underwear in just one roll.  It not...

The quality of hotels is different from country to country and region to region. There are regions in which hotels are generically bad, other in which they are generically expensive, and others generically good. In Japan, is it worth spending extra money to sleep in better hotels? No. Let's discuss further, why I have this opinion. When I visited Japan, I opted to book hotels through booking.com and airbnb.com . Some of the hotels were cheap but had good reviews and excellent pictures. So I thought: "there must be a catch here!" Turns out, there wasn't one. All hotels and apartments were exactly what was described and promised. Even though I was visiting in peak season (August) and there are many hotels sold out, the ones I was staying in, were very good. My experience One of the hotels I picked, was a cheap ryokan in Hakone, in the region of mount Fuji, called Ryokan Oyado . Ryokans are usually more traditional hotels, some of them you even sleep in futons (mine was...

Is it comfortable to sleep in a Japanese capsule hotel? Yes.   It is not a hotel where you will spend a week in - it's more of a one-night hotel, but I enjoyed the experience which allowed me to stay in the center of Kyoto for a very affordable price What is a capsule hotel? A capsule hotel is a place where you can sleep, just like any other hotel. However, instead of renting a room with a bed, you just rent the bed! Sleeping in a capsule hotel is a little bit like going to space. There's a wall filled with tiny spaces that have no more than a bed. You climb to your space and sleep. Capsule hotels only have individual spaces where you can spend the night. Each individual space includes the basics needed for an overnight stay: bed and sheets, power sockets and some include TVs. These hotels were invented in Japan but the concept has outgrown the nationality and you can find other hotels in many places of the world. Why sleep in a capsule hotel? I was traveling in Japan, and sta...

Is it possible to travel only with a 20 liter backpack? The answer to this question is a clear Yes . I usually travel with a 20 liter backpack, but because I started to get comfortable with that bag size, I started asking myself the question: Is it possible to travel with a smaller bag? like a 10 liter backpack? and would that be comfortable or just a proof of concept? So, I decided to pack a 10 liter backpack that would allow me to travel indefinitely and see if I could make it work. This is key when we travel in low-cost airlines. You'll be able to go into any airline with such a small bag.   The Bag I picked a very cheap backpack that anyone can buy: a €4 Decathlon 10 liter backpack. The bag form is not optimal, but cost-benefit is almost perfect. There are no bells and whistles in this bag, just a very simple backpack with no pockets inside. Source: 10 liter backpack decathlon website How to make 10 liter backpack viable for a long travel? I explained my technique to travel onl...

    In general, for a trip, we tend to carry at least a carry-on trolley bag, which is often paired with a backpack that we use as a day pack. These day packs backpack are usually used to carry random stuff like water bottles, jackets, cameras, etc. So these are quite useful. But I usually don't carry one with me when I travel. Why don't I carry a day pack? I visited Japan in the summer (check my post here ) and I had some challenges in adapting to the heat and humidity. At the time, I made the decision of taking a cabin-size wheeled trolley with me plus an almost-empty 20 liter backpack. The plan was to carry the trolley with me to the aircraft, put it in the overhead bin compartments and store the 20 liter backpack with essentials (like a book or a jacket) under the seat. Then, arriving in Japan, I would leave the trolley at the hotel and use the 20 liter backpack as a day pack. I would then use the backpack to carry water, a jacket, swim shorts and put souvenirs in. However...

  Drinking water is a very important advice in life in general, and particularly while traveling. I visited Japan in the summer (August to be more precise) and one of my biggest mistakes was not to drink more water. Drinking water is very important since we walk a lot in the heat, which makes us lose water and minerals through our sweating. However, it is always a pain to either keep buying water all the time or to carry the weight of a water bottle. To drink regularly while traveling, we can opt for 2 strategies: 1. Buy water as you go and carry less stuff   In almost every place we visit, there will almost always be places to buy water so you don't really need to be carrying a bottle with you.  The downside of this strategy, however, is that you spend more money and risk going to a place where it might not be that easy to buy it immediately. 2. Carry a water bottle with you   This is an excellent option since you have water on you all the time and you can drink ...