- ADDress — what it means
- ADDress is a lodging subscription in Japan that lets you live anywhere in the country. Since a service revision it is no longer unlimited nights but a ticket-based system. Every house has Wi-Fi.
Here is the answer to that worry. Hi, I’m Masato, and from April 2022 to April 2023 I traveled around Japan using ADDress, the lodging subscription.
Note: this article is a first-hand account of using ADDress between 2022 and 2023. The plans and prices described are those of the time. Check the official ADDress site for current pricing.
This article covers what you need to pack for a trip around Japan by car using the ADDress lodging subscription. What to bring and what to leave home, from a fresh, first-hand year on the road.
Let’s get into it.
- The ADDress coupon anyone can use is here. →ADDress Japan Referral Coupon: How to Claim Up to ¥15,000
What to pack for a trip around Japan on ADDress: the essentials
Here is what you need to live house to house on a subscription. With these alone you can get by without much inconvenience.
- An ADDress contract
- A smartphone
- A PayPay account
- A wallet and cash
- Loungewear, clothes and underwear
- A suitcase (depending on how you travel)
- Shampoo and conditioner
- An Anker power bank
Essential 1: an ADDress membership
ADDress is a lodging subscription that lets you live anywhere in Japan. There are similar services such as HafH and HOSTEL LIFE, but for keeping costs down ADDress wins easily. You can claim a referral bonus (up to ¥15,000 as of August 2026; it used to be up to ¥20,000). Update: after a revision it is no longer unlimited nights but a ticket-based system.
- The ADDress coupon anyone can use is here. →ADDress Japan Referral Coupon: How to Claim Up to ¥15,000
Essential 2: a smartphone — shopping and memories in one device
Nobody sets off without one, but forgetting it would be a disaster, so it goes on the list. Google Maps for navigation, of course, and cashless payment is a traveler’s best friend. Not carrying a wallet alone makes sightseeing and wandering feel lighter. Swapping social accounts with the people you meet, taking photos and video — it is barely an exaggeration to say a smartphone replaces your camera, your wallet and your business cards.
Essential 3: in rural Japan, many shops take PayPay and nothing else
It is not quite a possession, but PayPay is enormously useful. I only set it up once I had started traveling around Japan. At first I was using Rakuten Pay and Mercari Pay, but out in the countryside there are a huge number of shops that say “we take PayPay”. There are genuinely many places that do not even take credit cards but do take PayPay. Sending money to a friend takes a second, and there is no more “I have no change on me, I’ll pay you later”.
The one thing I found annoying was topping up, so I issued a PayPay Card at the same time as I downloaded PayPay. Which meant that partway through the trip around Japan I had to go home once to collect the card.
Using PayPay together with the PayPay Card raises the reward rate, and topping up can be done entirely in the app. It even pays taxes. I am pushing this so hard I sound like a PayPay employee, but PayPay is genuinely useful for traveling around Japan, so set it up together with the card.
Essential 4: wallet, cash and ID — you need a minimum of cash
PayPay works at most places to eat, but there are still shops that take no cashless payment at all: ramen places with ticket machines, long-established restaurants in Kyoto. Cash is also what you throw into an offertory box at a shrine. You cannot solve everything with a cheerful “PayPay!”, so a small wallet with a small amount of cash is the easiest arrangement. Carrying a credit card and ID is the safe choice too.
Essential 5: loungewear, clothes and underwear — pajamas are not provided
Outside hot-spring inns and similar accommodation, nothing in the loungewear category is provided as a rule. A few places offer it as a paid extra. If you want to travel without paying more than you have to, bring your own.
Laundry costs money at some ADDress houses, and at others you cannot do laundry at all, so being able to let underwear and shirts pile up before washing saves money. Too many and your luggage gets heavy, so I cycle through about four nights’ worth.
Essential 6: a suitcase (depending on how you travel)
“There is no parking near the house, and the coin lot nearby is too expensive to use.” What would you do? I would park in a cheaper lot a little further out, where the total stays lower even including the train fare. A suitcase makes carrying everything from there much easier.
The pitfall is that cheap suitcases have flimsy wheels, which makes them hard to move. If you are buying one anyway, buy one good enough to take abroad. I bought a suitcase for about ¥50,000, intending it to be the first and last one of my life.
The one I bought straight out of high school and have used for over ten years is an AMERICAN TOURISTER. A solid brand at a reasonable price. Ten years of use for ¥50,000 feels like a cheap purchase, and I am happy with it.
Essential 7: chargers — one for out and about, one for the car
Chargers are an everyday essential, and no less important on the road. Carry a portable one so you never hit “I shot too much video and now I have no battery”. A cigarette-lighter socket charger for the car is handy too, and essential if you navigate on your phone.
What you can actually leave home on an ADDress trip around Japan
- Towels
- A hairdryer
- Seasonings
- Detergent (both laundry and kitchen)
- Guidebooks
- A spare anything
Leave home 1: towels — most ADDress houses have them
Almost every ADDress house has towels. Some change them daily, some lend you one for the whole stay, some lend both a body towel and a face towel — the charges and rules differ by house. When there are none, picking some up at a nearby hundred-yen shop is an option.
The service has been revised year by year, and I hear towels have recently disappeared as standard. Buy your own.
Leave home 2: a hairdryer — six months in, every single house had one
So far, 100% of the houses have had a hairdryer. Some have two or more. Unless you are particular about yours, there is no need to carry one.
Leave home 3: seasonings — the basics are already there
Salt, sugar, pepper, soy sauce, cooking sake and so on — the basic seasonings are provided. If you are traveling by car, carrying your own favorites is a reasonable option.
We keep seasonings and rice in a cool bag of the kind Uber couriers use, and only bring it in when we can park near the house.
Leave home 4: laundry detergent, shampoo and the like
Where there is a washing machine, there is basically detergent. Some houses let you use it free, and where there is a charge it is around ¥100. A dryer is usually ¥100 per load.
Leave home 5: guidebooks — your phone is enough
The houses have guidebooks, so there is no need to buy and carry one. There is also plenty of information on each house’s social accounts. The interesting one is LINE OpenChat. It helped me enormously during a stay in Niigata: ask the Niigata residents’ open chat for restaurant recommendations and everyone answers kindly. Even “I have just arrived at the station, what do you recommend?” gets an instant “that place inside the station has a great sake list”. Traveling light while using tools like that is a new shape of travel.
Leave home 6: a spare anything
“Never” may be too strong, but as a rule you do not need spares of things. When you run out and you want one, you buy one. With ADDress you can even have parcels delivered to the house you are staying in that day. I ordered contact lenses and a car accessory set on Amazon and picked them up at the house.
Things that are genuinely handy on a trip around Japan
- An EPOS Card
- An ETC card
- Comfortable footwear
- Earphones
- An Uber Eats bag
Handy 1: an EPOS Card
Holding an EPOS Card makes ADDress up to ¥30,000 cheaper. On top of that you get discounts at hot springs, free overseas travel insurance and plenty of other perks.
Note: the benefits change from time to time. Check the official EPOS Card site (Japanese) for the current terms and conditions.
I actually only hold the card and never pay with it, but the perks are good enough that I carry it anyway.
Handy 2: an ETC card — for the toll roads
If you are traveling by car, an ETC card is indispensable. ETC is Japan’s electronic toll collection system, and even people who stick to ordinary roads end up on an expressway somewhere. An ETC card discounts expressway tolls considerably, so carry one and spare yourself the hit.
An ETC card can be issued free if you issue it alongside the EPOS Card. Since you are applying anyway, do both at once.
Handy 3: comfortable footwear — your feet deserve a stress-free trip
Long drives leave your legs and lower back tired. Bring footwear you can relax in to take some of that load off. Personally I recommend sneakers or sandals with a strap. Four-hour drives to the next house do happen, so take them on in the least punishing footwear you have.
Handy 4: earphones — for working and for sleeping
If you are the type who cannot concentrate when noises around you get in the way, at work or at bedtime, having a pair is reassuring. Sometimes your room is hard to work in and you use a coworking space instead. Plenty of houses also have thin walls. Being kept awake by the sounds from the next room is a real problem. One pair of earphones lets you focus on work and helps you sleep well.
The pair I actually use and recommend is the Soundcore Liberty 4.
As the image above shows, I bought them in December 2022. A year and a half on, they are still in active service. I am satisfied with both the sound quality and the noise canceling.
The noise canceling suppresses sound fairly strongly. It does not make everything silent, though, so keep that in mind.
Handy 5: an Uber Eats bag
An Uber Eats bag is useful for both income and storage.
When work is irregular and the month is looking tight, a few days of Uber Eats deliveries earns you cash quickly. And the bag itself is handy well beyond the job: seasonings, the supermarket shop, whatever you need to carry. Seasonings are provided at the houses, but if you want your own, bring them.
An Uber Eats bag is useful for deliveries and for storage alike. Having one widens what you can do day to day. Sign up for Uber Eats on the official site.
Traveling around Japan on ADDress with barely any luggage, for ¥80,000 a month including food
Using the companion system
There is a way to get unlimited nights on ADDress for ¥22,000 a month: use the companion system. A companion can use the service free. So two people together is ¥44,000 a month, and dividing by two gives unlimited nights at ¥22,000 a month each. The companion system was revised recently — the definition of a companion is broader and more people can be registered at once — so check the official site for details.
- The plan above has changed with the service revision. To get the best deal today, use the referral coupon.
- →ADDress Japan Referral Coupon: How to Claim Up to ¥15,000
Monthly living costs of about ¥80,000 (before the revision)
Here is my monthly spending while traveling on the ADDress companion system.
- ADDress, covering lodging, utilities and internet: ¥22,000 a month
- Mobile data: ¥2,000
- Food and sundries: ¥50,000
- Fuel: ¥2,500
- Total: ¥76,500 a month
We eat out a lot, so our food costs run a little high. If you cook for yourself as a rule, you can bring it down further. Fuel depends on how often you move and what you drive, so it may not be much of a guide. (We lease an Aqua.)
Every house has Wi-Fi, so you never struggle for connectivity. Work, of course, but also YouTube with no data cap to worry about.
In summary: the full packing list for a trip around Japan on ADDress
What to pack for a trip around Japan on ADDress: the essentials
- An ADDress contract
- A smartphone
- A PayPay account
- A wallet and cash
- Loungewear, clothes and underwear
- A suitcase (depending on how you travel)
- A charger
Things that are handy on a trip around Japan
- An ETC card
- Comfortable footwear
- Earphones
- An EPOS Card
- An Uber Eats bag
That is the full list of what you need and what you can leave behind. The cheaper you can live, the lighter you feel.
If ADDress has caught your interest, use the article below to start it at a discount. It is described as a one-year contract, but there is no cancellation fee, so plenty of people apparently cancel sooner than expected.
Why not start with a trial? I look forward to meeting someone out there who says “I started because I read your blog”.
FAQ
Do ADDress houses have towels and hairdryers?
So far, 100% of the houses have had a hairdryer. Towels were provided at most houses too, but the service has been revised year by year and I hear they have recently disappeared as standard, so buy your own.
What does it cost to live while traveling around Japan on ADDress?
In our own case, using the companion system: ADDress ¥22,000 (lodging, utilities and internet included), mobile data ¥2,000, food and sundries ¥50,000, and fuel ¥2,500 — about ¥76,500 a month. Calculated on the plan before the revision.
Is there a way to start ADDress at a discount?
A referral coupon anyone can use gives a bonus (up to ¥15,000 as of August 2026). Holding an EPOS Card also makes ADDress up to ¥30,000 cheaper, and brings perks such as discounts at hot springs and free overseas travel insurance.
Do I need cash for a trip around Japan?
You need a minimum of cash. PayPay works at most places to eat, but some shops still take no cashless payment — ramen places with ticket machines, long-established restaurants in Kyoto — and offertory boxes at shrines need cash. A small wallet with a small amount of cash is the easiest arrangement.
Do I need a suitcase for a trip around Japan?
It depends on how you travel, but it makes carrying your things much easier when there is no parking near the house and you have to use a lot further away. Cheap ones have flimsy wheels; I have used an AMERICAN TOURISTER costing about ¥50,000 for over ten years.
