Maybe I just travel light, but how is this more convenient than taking your luggage with you in a taxi/Uber to the hotel you are staying at? Waiting hours for luggage to show up seems pretty inconvenient?
I just got back from Japan ~48hrs ago, and I would’ve agreed with you before the trip - we did take a taxi to the hotel from the airport with our luggage. It seemed easier.
In Japan, taxis and road travel are VERY expensive (2x big American cities?), and they have amazing transit infrastructure. We took trains from city to city, exploring and staying at different hotels. In America, this would have required driving. japan has amazing transit, so we wanted to avoid getting extra taxis when the trains go exactly where we need. BUT lugging big bags on trains is a massive PITA for everyone, especially when it’s crowded. The trains are great, and they’re desirable if you didn’t have luggage.
Yes, it seems inconvenient, except the framing is bad. We didn’t wait for the bags. We just went about our day, and they showed up in our hotel room when we got back. We took a backpack with one change of clothes, laptop, etc, and the rest of the luggage just showed up later. When it’s time to go to the next hotel, you just pack tomorrow’s clothes, give the concierge your suitcase and start walking. Sure enough, your bag will be there tomorrow when you get back from being a tourist. Until reading this article, I didn’t know they’d hold your bags too, which seems great if you wanna see the city for a few days on a ski trip or something similar where you know you don’t need all your luggage at once.
Isn’t this normal around the world? I left 2 large suitcases at my hotel in Dubai for a month before returning.
Even if you don't buy stuff when traveling, if you would want certain gear for some legs but not others, you can use it as a locker, i.e. moving the hiking boots into your carry-on before the Mt. Fuji leg, putting the heavy winter clothing in after you leave Hokkaido, etc.
And in contrast to luggage handling in the U.S., Japan's luggage handling is quite cheap, usually on-time, and always handled delicately with very little risk of loss or theft.
So there wasn’t a lot of taxi usage but a lot of (busy) street walking and (busy) public transit use. Plenty of people did successfully haul their stuff themselves, but luggage forwarding saved us a lot of headache. Felt very worth the price.
e: There wasn’t a lot of waiting either. We shipped our stuff 1 full day ahead of time (so if we were checking into our next hotel Wednesday we sent our bags Monday afternoon-ish). Maybe it can seem annoying to keep a day or two of clothes with you in a backpack, but cramming into a packed bus in Kyoto with two roller bags seemed like a far worse bargain to us.
e.g. you check out at 11am, but you need to get on your flight at 8pm. you either leave it at the hotel, they might hold on to it, but you still need to go back for the bag. or you lug it around for a day. or you stay in the airport way too long.
also it sounds like you can do it a few days in advance, in which case your bag just goes without you on your travel, before you show up.
Sure, if your only travel in Japan is a single trip from the airport to the hotel, you won't need this.
Taxis are slow, expensive, and worse ride quality than a train, and you'd still have to carry your luggage.
> Waiting hours for luggage to show up seems pretty inconvenient?
You don't wait for it though - it's usually there in your room when you check in, or at worst you have to collect it from the front desk. It's similar to the best part of being on a cruise - you can just go around whichever city you're visiting today, and at the end of the day all your stuff is in your room without you having to worry about it.
If you're going by train, the train from the airport to the hotel may be cramped and standing the whole way and involve going up and down stairs or pulling the luggage along streets. If it's $13 to ship it to the hotel, that's a pretty good deal.
Note that Haneda and Narita are both ~1 hour away from Tokyo so a taxi can be pretty expensive especially if you're alone.
Subway? I'll agree with your there.
A group of Vietnamese joined my train last week having just got off a flight from Da Nang to Osaka. They didn't have a luggage reservation, they couldn't fit their medium size cases overhead. They had to store it in their legroom for three hours. It looked pretty uncomfortable even for a 5ft3 Viet woman. I have long legs, I ain't doing that.
Our definition of medium size may differ :)
Yeah, you've also not ridden a fully booked Shinkasen wit a non-reserved ticket...