🚅 Suica and Icoca Cards

These things are honestly the easiest way to get around in cities. We've always flown into Tokyo, so get Suica, but if you fly into Osaka, Icoca is the same thing. They are rechargeable travel cards (like everywhere else in the world), but you can use them for vending machines and all sorts of places as well!

The major drawer card, from my perspective, is you can just get on basically any train or bus with ease. You don't have to worry about if it is a private line with different ticketing or not, because they all accept these.

There may be cheaper ways to do things, like tourists can get multi day unlimited metro tickets, but they do have some limitations. Personally, I think the convenience wins out over any small potential savings.

You can get the Welcome Suica card, which is valid for 28 days. Advantage here is no deposit taken that you would get back when you return the card. For a while this was the only option because of a microchip shortage, but that seems to have ended now!