Booking procedure for accomodations

[TravelChamp]

Hello forum,

a friend of mine and myself will travel to japan from 22th april to 8th april this year. We'll make a roundtrip, starting and ending at tokyo. We gonna visit takayama, fuji 5 lake area, hakone, area osaka / kyoto / nara, hiroshima, nagasaki. We will book hotels at tokyo and very probably at kyoto.

We've never beed before in japan and don't speak japanese. We'd like to try to see as much as we can of course. If possible, we'd like to reserve the right, to stay at a area longer as planned. But, to arrange an accomodation for a night as a non-japanese speaking person seems to be very difficult to us

So, here's my question:

Can / should we book accomocations now and confirm / cancel them just one/few days before? What is in common? Are there geographical differences to consider for this questions, differences between hotels, ryokans, minshukus? Something special?

Many thanks for answering / Danke
TravelChamp

 

[Glenski]

Unless your stay on a particular day is on festival, I'd say don't bother making reservations. No real need. If where you go is a hot spot for cherry blossom viewing, then perhaps do.

You can make reservations at information centers (which usually have English speaking people). Or you can attempt a call yourself on the day/night you arrive, as long as you speak slowly and clearly and assume the person has limited language skills.