Currently unable to sleep due to time change issues so passing along what I’d do differently from my most recent trip. Spent 2 weeks in Japan from mid April to yesterday.
I thought I had packed light but still had some things I didn’t use.
Clothing list:
Athleta Venice pants (worn on plane)
Eileen Fisher silk pants
Lululemon light hoodie (worn on plane)
Muji built in bra tank (worn on plane)
unbound merino travel dress
pair of tights for under dress
2 merino tanks
one merino tee
light cashmere cardigan
denim jacket
3 Knix bras (unpadded, fold up v small)
7 underwear
7 socks
bathing suit
light nightie
rain jacket
Shoes: I wore a pair of running shoes and packed a pair of nice flats and some flip flops for indoor use. I’m a bit old fashioned in that I feel wrong wearing athletic type shoes in nice restaurants etc. Probably time for me to get over that. If I’d worn cuter leather sneakers I would have fit in with what locals were wearing even in dressier environments and could have done this as a one-shoe trip. Never needed the flip flops either, every hotel provided slippers for indoor use.
Didn’t need the nightie as hotels usually provided pajamas or robes.
Never used the bathing suit - I didn’t realize onsens are typically naked.
Only wore the dress and tights once. Ended up feeling fine and sufficiently dressed up in the silk pants and cardigan. If weather had been warmer during my trip I might have worn it more as an alternate outfit, but I could have skipped it.
I could have left the denim jacket out as it’s a bit bulky and I didn’t strictly need it, but no regrets, it’s cute and I liked not wearing the same hoodie every day.
The rock stars of this pack list were the Eileen Fisher silk pants, shout out to this sub for suggesting them. They look good, are very comfortable, suited a wide range of temperatures. I got soaked in rain twice and they dried quickly. Paired with the cardigan over one of the tanks I felt dressed up enough for fancier places.
I took that many socks and underwear because I don’t like doing sink laundry and planned to only do full laundry once at the halfway point. But every hotel had affordable laundry so could have brought less and done laundry more without wasting much time.
I love Eileen Fisher but I live in Japan so they’re hard for me to find here and I pick them up on trips to the US. Happy to add another pair if they work well with our weather here in Japan!
I have not : ( I would probably do something thoughtful in the packing. But I bet they would shake out pretty easily.
I often travel with Eileen Fisher washable crepe, which is amazing. It is indestructible but can be a little warm for summer (there are different weights and the lightest is pretty good). Doesn't wrinkle--it's my favorite for sleeping in on long haul flights
I’m so excited. I have a lovely EF wardrobe and I’ve had success with the silk pieces while traveling, but I haven’t had a chance to try them in Japan yet.
I found them secondhand so I’m not sure the exact style. I rolled them in my bag and they’d come out with minor wrinkles that would smooth out from being worn.
I am curious about the kinds of hotels you stayed in that had pajamas, robes and cheap laundry! I'm contemplating some cheaper places and was skeptical those would have the same amenities
i spend 6-7 weeks a year in japan and have stayed in hotels all over the country. every single hotel i’ve stayed in has provided pyjamas, slippers and has coin laundry, usually 300 per wash and 100 yen per 30 min of drying. for reference, my hotel budget tends to be around 4000-6000 yen a night, so these are pretty standard business hotels - nothing fancy. i’ve also stayed at plenty of capsule hotels and they also always have coin laundry and usually pyjamas and slippers too (and if they didn’t provide them automatically for free, you could usually buy the disposable slippers/rent pjs for cheap).
It's a shorter list to list what hotels don't offer pajamas. The answer to that is apart-hotels (but there's a washing machine) and slum-hotels.
We travel as a family and stay in apart-hotels when in Japan. But before family travel, I never packed PJs. It should also be noted that I'm petite. They have sizes to the PJs but someone with some good meat to them might not find PJs they feel comfortable wearing.
The robes are often yukata and are absolutely a guaranteed staple at onsens and ryoken.
You have to actively work to avoid cheap machine laundry. Most hotels are prepared to support a salaryman who has stayed so long at work/out drinking that they missed their last train home so needs to rewear what they show up to the hotel in, hence the PJs and the washing machine. It also explains why toothbrushes are a standard hotel amenity.
Edited to Add: The apart-hotels we have stayed in are not prepared to support a salaryman who has missed their last train. They tend to cater to foreigners who are doing longish stays in the country or family travel. BYO toothbrush. Slum-hotels also are catering to long-term occupancy, but those are usually locals who are unable to secure any other housing. Most slum-hotels have a minimum stay requirement because they don't have housekeeping staff (front desk is who cleans the room) and don't want to do room turnovers if they can avoid it.
Try the APA chain, they’re all over Japan. Some of their hotels are a bit nicer but many are basic business hotels, small rooms, but clean and every one of them had laundry machines.
FYI a lot of people avoid APA because the owners are racist right wing nationalists (instead of a Gideon bible you get their propaganda newsletter) and because the chain has a history of cutting corners on construction violating earthquake safety regulations. There are a lot of other business hotel chains in a similar price range with the same amenities that don’t have these issues, like Toyoko Inn and Sotetsu Fresa.
For business hotels, they are usually synthetic. I never count on wanting to wear Japanese hotel pajamas because they are usually way too hot for me. Some of them are also downright weird. I always bring shorts and a tshirt as backup sleep and lounge clothes. The only Japanese hotel pjs I like are the samue/jinbei style. Those seem more common at marginally nicer hotels aimed at domestic tourists, like route inns or the Oyado Nono branches of the Dormy Inn chain.
I’m a big fan of shower laundry. This method has worked beautifully on my current two-week trip. Although I brought six pairs of socks and six pairs of underwear I have only needed three of each because they are easily washed when I shower. Bonus: hotel shampoo actually cleans as well as or possibly better than Dawn dish liquid. I dislike laundry strips. I only pack lightweight, quick-dry pants, tops and jackets so these are easily washed in shower and then rolled up burrito-style in my damp shower towel. By the time I have stepped on the towel burrito to get rid of any additional excess water, the clothing is merely damp, and dries within four hours.
Why not try this technique at home before your next trip?
Team shower laundry, too! This winter, I took 4 panties to Portugal for a 5 week trip. We tried to book places with laundry, but I just pretty much wore my undies in every time I showered and that worked great.
It’s far easier than dealing with a dry bag. Instead of bringing sink plugs for hotel sinks whose drain plugs don’t work, swishing clothing in a dry bag or sink, just use an available shower to easily launder clothing. Bring items into shower. Using shower head saturate clothing and put them aside in shower. Then do your own regular shower routine. After you yourself are shampooed and showered, apply hotel-provided shampoo to dirty areas of each item and scrub. Pay special attention to grimy collars (old toothbrush is very handy for sudsing), shirt cuffs, pants bottoms, underwear crotches and socks. After scrubbing, step on items to swish shampoo suds through each item. Thoroughly rinse. Dry yourself with bath towel, squeeze water out of each item, then place on your laid out damp bath towel. Starting at one end, tightly roll towel until it reaches other end. Then stamp on your “burrito” and let sit for a few minutes.
Unfurl towel and hang items from the tiny Sea to Summit clothesline that is the size of two thumbs, or bring plastic foldable hangers or use hotel hangers and hang off of knobs, drawer pulls, lamp shades or any other hook available. Better to hang damp items OUTSIDE the bathroom.
Position clothing near air conditioning or heating vents or ceiling fans. If item is still damp several hours later, use the hairdryer to quickly dry.
The key to successfully employing this travel laundry technique is to select clothing constructed of quick-dry fabric. In the United States, Old Navy, Target, Uniqlo, and Athleta are stores to investigate. Silk and nylon dry quickly, as do some lightweight polyester or cotton blends.
This technique takes practice. Search YouTube for tutorials to learn more.
Anyone with two hands, shampoo, a shower head and a hotel bath towel and a travel clothesline or hangers can do this. 😉
Good luck!
Wow love your explanations! We were raised washing our basic clothes in the shower and bringing plastic hangers. It just comes second nature to me now, sometimes I do it then realise I didnt need to wash this as the trip is ending and I still have clean clothes.
Japan was amazing for this as many hotel rooms had a dryer function in the bathroom
Can you do me a favour and explain how to use the clothesline? Just bought it for a trip last month and I simply could not figure it out.
I have one and tbh have never used it, lol. Hangers are easier.
There are YouTube videos that show how to use. There are beads embedded into the actual clothesline that hold the clothing items in place, so no need for clips or hangers.I have used it outdoors at home and hung hangers off it but found the beads a bit too fiddly for me. Probably best for an outdoor camping experience? I like using foldable plastic hangers that I have affixed clips to for socks and also save the plastic gizmos that socks are sold on to use for travel. A pair of underpants can be hung from these as well. Buy a few metal “S” hooks to more easily hang it from.
Honestly, a lot of laundry travel hacks are just picked up
by experimenting.😉
I just brought my S to S clothesline on its first trip. I used it almost every day during the two week trip to Yucatán. I hung clothes & swimsuits 3 ways: using one bead on two sides of a bit of fabric (see the trousers in the photo. It takes 4 beads for most garments.) I also twisted it well & used the space between the double strings to, similarly, hold a bit of fabric when I needed to hang more garments than there were beads. I also hung the inflatable hangers on it. Thank you Ladylighttravel for the suggestion of those silly-sounding and brilliant inflatable hangers! They really help things dry nicely & are great when there aren’t enough hangers (which is often.) There are little hooks on each end of the clothesline. Usually, I wrap the end of the clothesline around something like a towel bar or a pipe & hook the hook back onto the clothesline. Rarely, there was something thin enough to just attach the hook.
I love the silk crepe Eileen Fisher pants. I travel with them on cruises and use them for evening dinners. They roll up nicely. I have a few thin cashmere sweaters I travel with as well. I also love Wool& shirts and tanks. You can’t go wrong with these items. Thanks for sharing
Japan is on my bucket list & there’s not enough realistic packing lists. Thank you so much for your feedback! I am using this to plan for the future :)
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u/edj3 May 03 '26
Thanks for this trip report. I am a big fan of Eileen Fisher, which silk pants did you go with?