Japan Winter

Japan is Australia's third-biggest destination and the fastest growing, and the winter version of the trip is the one people get wrong.

It is colder than the forecast suggests

Tokyo in January reads as 10°C, which sounds mild written down. It is not mild when you are standing on a platform at Kyoto station at seven in the morning, and it is nowhere near mild in Hokkaido.

The mistake is not bringing a thin coat. The mistake is bringing no base layer, so the coat is doing all the work.

The adapter is a genuine problem

Japan uses flat Type A pins at 100 volts — the lowest mains voltage in the world. Two things follow. Your Australian plug does not fit, and Type I to Type A adapters are hard to find at airports outside Australasia, so buying one when you land is harder than it sounds.

The voltage matters separately: an adapter changes the plug shape, not the voltage. A hair dryer that is not dual-voltage will run weakly or not at all.

Shoes come off constantly

At temples, at ryokan, at some restaurants, and at the entrance to some museums. Socks without holes matter more here than anywhere else on earth, and shoes you can slip off save a genuinely surprising amount of time.