Japan 2026 - I had sooo many regrets after my 2023 and 2024 trips to Japan. This year's trip was absolutely perfect. The first time I went with people I'm great friends with but we're not compatible to be travel partners and actually ended up splitting off from them on the later half of the trip due to behaviors I wasn't vibing with. On the second trip my husband didn't come because he had summer semester at school but I went with my friends and we had an amazing time it was just hot as hell in June but this years trip my man got to come with this time and we did everything. From Fukuoka back to Tokyo, there were no friends invited along, one of our friends from San Diego met us there and we went out to drink a few times, other than that we kicked it with our friends that live in Japan a few times and spent the rest of the time exploring on our own. The influencer thing is making the bigger cities a hassle to enjoy because they're so overcrowded but venturing out to Kyushu, Northern Osaka, completely avoiding Kyoto other than Biovortex and then getting out there and seeing areas outside of center Tokyo like Chiba reallllly helped to keep us engaged and not overwhelmed with crowds of people. I've decided that my next trip there I'll spend most of it in Kyushu and visit our friends on the last few days of the trip but this time I have no post Japan depression. We did so many activities, museums, hikes etc. Shopped and thrifted, drank all the lemon sour and ate all the sushi. Theres nothing to be depressed about upon returning home.
