JPY in JP
Traveling to Japan without any Japanese yen is really not a problem. I remember having a difficult time before I came here for the first time as I could not find a way to get Japanese yen easily in Belgium. The only bank which offered currency exchange from Euro to JPY in Belgium was a bank that you needed to be a member of else you could not use that service.
But after having traveled to Japan 9 times in total, I can confidently say that you really don’t need any JPY as you’ll be just find exchanging your money in Japan. 😉 Let’s talk about the different ways of how to get Japanese yen, inside and outside Japan. Please read to the end so you know which way I recommend the most as it is the cheapest and easiest way.
In your home country
Your local bank
Chances are, if your bank is big enough, that you’ll be able to exchange your money to Japanese Yen at your bank. If you are unlucky like me and all the banks you have your hard earned money on can not provide such service, you are a bit out of luck. This exchange service is in many banks an existing customer service. Unless you’ll open an account with them, you won’t be able to use this way of getting Japanese Yen.
Exchange rates really depend on your bank, but these exchange rates should be somewhat reasonable.
Online exchange
There are online services for exchanging money, I haven’t had a good experience with them, so from my point of view: Don’t trust them. That’s basically all I have to say about them, their rates and extra fees are really not worth it, and there’s a big chance that you will just lose your money anyway.
Exchange offices
Exchange offices can be a great way, however there exchange rates can be very expensive. You can find these places in bigger cities and at airports. Only use these in emergencies or if there is no other choice. It’s not a secret that they are quite bad. Sadly enough, in many countries, they may be the only safe and secure way pof exchanging your money. ^^”
Ask friends
Ask your friends if they have some money left over from trips to Japan. Exchange rates will be based on how good your friendship is. This is probably the most difficult one for many people as most people probably don’t have that much foreign money laying around. Also, for this to work you need friends … so this never really worked for me. ^^”
The Japan method
And now the best solution for getting Japanese Yen. For this you need to be in Japan already. I always recommend this method as it is probably the safest, easiest and least expensive way. Landing in Japan without any money may sound scary and you might think this is a problem, however all airports in Japan have banks and/or convenience stores available. Those places have an ATM where you can withdraw money. My recommendation is using the convenience stores ATM’s as I found that they take a smaller cut then some of the banks.
The ATM’s even accept maestro, so no Credit cards needed! Maestro is widely used in Belgium and many people don’t have a credit card so this is very helpful for us Belgians. But don’t just go to any convenience store … Because of the recent visit of my family, we were able to test 3 convenience store ATM’s and found that seven eleven and lawson are quite expensive. The cheapest way to get Japanese yen from a convenience store ATM is to go to Family mart. They offer decent exchange rate with the smallest fee.
Don’t stress about it!
So when you are going on your trip to Japan, don’t stress if you don’t have any Japanese yen before arriving in Japan. You’ll be fine as long as you have a debit or credit card. Withdraw from any of the convenient ATM’s and you are good to know.
Just remember to go to your bank and notify them that you’ll be going abroad to Japan so they don’t block your card for suspicious activities when using abroad. And maybe check to see if your withdrawal limit is high enough.
That’s all my advice on getting money in Japan for traveling, I hope you’ve learned something and enjoy spending your money in Japan, BYE-BYE!