Japan - help

[louisebirkemose]

Hey

 

I am going to Japan on my honeymoon in May/June and I'd rather not miss anything.

I'm new to this place, and ... Japan is Japan... Do I plan to by a internet hotspot to carry around with me, and with Geocache turned on it'll just beep if I'm near a cache?

 

And what kind of caches are they? Are they like the ones recommended we see, or are they less famous and more like hidden treasures?

 

Anyone been to Japan who can give me pointers?

 

Thank you in advance

[BlueRajah]

Moved to Asia forums.

[+mullyman]

Hi, louisebirkemose,

I've been living in Japan since 1991 and geocaching since 2011. My first question is where are you going to be in Japan. Japan may be a small country, but it's big enough to make a difference for your geocaching experience. I'm going to assume that you will be in the Tokyo area. If so, there are tons of geocaches to go after, BUT, you have to remember that Japan is very small, and packed together. You will mainly be going after urban nano's, micro's, and small's. That really shouldn't deter you from having a good time though. Some of the Japanese geocachers are very creative in their hides. As far as I know, they don't use lamp post skirts. haha!!

 

Yes, you'll need to get a pocket wifi unit if you plan on being out caching. There are hot spots all over the city, but not as many as you would imagine there to be.

 

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.

MULLY

[+Bear and Ragged]

Find some around home, before you go!

 

With wifi you can save caches direct from the phone when in Japan, depending on phone network coverage.

 

Premium Membership will allow you to do Pocket Queries, so you could save the caches to your phone (using wifi)

You could also set up a Bookmark of 'Must do' caches, and run a PQ of them.

[+SageTracey]

Hope your hubby-to-be is also into geocaching!

[+Mauison]

Even though this is an old thread, I figured I'd let you know my experiences geocaching in Japan earlier this month, in case others traveling to Japan in the future might have questions.

 

I geocached in Japan using my Explorist GC as well as my iPhone 5s. After the first couple of days using the Explorist GC, I switched to using my iPhone since that was one less thing I'd have to carry around.

 

Before going to Japan, I researched sim cards for my iPhone and found that getting a data-only Sim card was the way to go. IIRC, either the voice cards were very expensive or they don't offer voice cards to visitors. I ended up getting this one:

 

http://www.bmobile.ne.jp/english/product.html

 

It cost around $33 USD and is good for 14 days. I had them (I ordered 3, since there were 3 of us with iPhones) delivered to the first hotel we stayed at in Japan. When I checked in, the front desk employee told me I had a delivery and gave me the packages with the cards.

 

I switched the Sim card and followed the instructions on the website to set up an APN profile. I set up the APN profile while I was still at home but found out that by doing so, cellular data wouldn't work. So I deleted the APN profile and when I got to Japan, set it up again.

 

I had no problems with the card at all during the 12 days we were in Japan. I used it for everything from geocaching, munzee, mapping, etc. I received a signal almost everywhere, even in the subways, etc.

 

We found multiple geocaches in Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Tokyo, etc. using our iPhones and had no problem doing so.