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Maitri SanghviAs I open up Instagram, I see another person in their late-20s has been to Japan.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise any more.
“I cannot scroll through TikTok or Instagram without seeing videos of people in [convenience store] 7-11 and trying all the different skincare and trying all the snacks and the viral sandwiches and the viral drinks and going to all the viral restaurants,” says Alex Baker, who has been to Japan three times.
There’s been growing hype about Japan as a travel destination among young British people.
Data from the Japanese National Tourism Organization shows that 483,157 British tourists visited Japan in 2025, up 24.8% on 2024 and up 40.8% on 2019, the benchmark year used by travel companies to compare with pre-pandemic trends. Provisional data for 2026 suggests numbers are continuing to grow.
This reflects the boom in total tourism to Japan since the pandemic, with a record number of foreign visitors in 2025.
The Brits in their 20s and 30s I spoke to gave a long list of reasons for wanting to go to Japan – the cityscapes, food, anime, nature, history, gaming, temples. But they largely agreed that social media was the main driving force behind so many young people heading there.
When Maitri Sanghvi scrolled through TikTok, “Japan just kept popping up,” she says.
It was a big reason why Maitri, 24, and her boyfriend went for three weeks earlier this year. “Seeing [Japan] on social media restarted my urge of wanting to go,” she says.
Search #japantravel on TikTok or Instagram and you’ll see countless videos of Mount Fuji, bowls of steaming ramen, itinerary suggestions, small villages in the Japanese Alps, the Fushimi Inari torii gates in Kyoto, the neon lights of Osaka’s Dotonbori, and the chaos of Shibuya Crossing.
“Seeing other people’s Japan videos definitely influenced my decision to go,” says Aden Ibrahim, 29.
Aden IbrahimSince he went with friends last July, Aden has posted dozens of TikToks of his trip, and he’s still uploading them more than a year later. One captioned “Japan made it out the group chat” has 1.1 million views.
Travelling to Japan isn’t cheap – return off-peak flights with a layover in China start at about £450 with a budget airline. But the yen is weakening, making it cheaper for tourists when they’re actually out there – even as rising prices hit residents. In July, the yen fell to a 40-year low.
“You can literally get a bowl of life-changing ramen for £3/£4 compared to a rubbish one here for like £20,” says Faye Jawad, 26, who reviews restaurants on TikTok and visited Japan last year.
Faye Jawad“When the yen was weakening, I thought ‘actually this is a good time to go, things are going to be cheap’,” says Vivek Haria, 26, who has a trip planned for this autumn. His interest in Japanese culture means he’s wanted to visit for years – he has been learning the language and even sings in the UK-Japan Choir – but he says the value of the yen made it even more attractive.
The low prices have led to many tourists splashing out on souvenirs when they’re out there. Videos of people showing off their Japan “haul” of flavoured KitKats, stationery and clothes have become popular on social media.
When Sam Corbett, 23, was in Japan in May he bought so many souvenirs – including snacks, matcha, clothes and skincare – that he had to buy an extra suitcase, which he stuffed full. Everything was “really affordable,” he says.
Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP via Getty ImagesAlmost all the Brits I spoke to had stuck to the same route known as the Golden Route: Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, often with day trips to nearby destinations like Nara, Hiroshima and Mount Fuji.
It’s easy to see why so many tourists pick this route. These cities are easy to travel between and packed with some of Japan’s biggest attractions.
But complaints about badly-behaved tourists are sparking debate about overtourism.
Chiyuki Izumii, a tour guide for the Japan Guide Agency, feels tourist behaviour has got worse in recent years. She says that while her customers are respectful, she’s seen other tourists jumping queues for buses, blocking space on board with big suitcases, carving their initials on trees in Kyoto’s bamboo forest, speaking in loud voices at night and entering restricted areas to take pictures.
Some authorities are cracking down. Fujikawaguchiko, a town near Mount Fuji, cancelled this year’s cherry blossom festival after repeated issues with misbehaving tourists, while Tokyo’s Shibuya ward, home to the famous Shibuya Crossing, started issuing on-the-spot fines for littering in June.
In July, Japan increased its international tourist tax – typically incorporated into flight and boat tickets for people leaving Japan – from 1,000 yen (£4.60) to 3,000 yen, which it says will be spent on things like improving public transport and restoring historic sites.
Shawn Goldberg/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesSome visitors were surprised just how crowded major cities in Japan were.
“I was prepared for it to be busy but I didn’t expect it to be as busy as it was,” says Millie Dring, a huge anime fan who went in November with a friend to celebrate her 21st birthday.
The DisneySea theme park near Tokyo was so busy that Millie and her friend only went on one ride, which had a three-hour queue, and felt overwhelmed by the crowds.
Millie DringSam blames some of the crowds at tourist hotspots on social media hype and he says he regrets going to some places just because they were popular online. One dessert spot he went to in Kyoto after seeing it “all over social media” was very busy “and there wasn’t a single local person in the queue,” he says.
Sites like the Hakone torii gates and Arashiyama bamboo forest had huge crowds of people trying to get Instagram-perfect photos, he says.
But for some visitors, the hustle and bustle of the tourist destinations are all part of the attraction.
“I think there’s a snobbiness around being a tourist over the past couple of years where people want to avoid looking like one,” says Laura McGregor, 29, who’s spending two weeks in Tokyo and Osaka in November for her honeymoon. Her plans include going to Disney and Universal, attending a sumo event, visiting Fuji and Hiroshima, and hiring go-karts to drive around Tokyo.
“Of course I want to experience an authentic side of Japan but I’m excited to embrace the tourist side too and go along with it,” she says.
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