Definitely do the luggage shipping thing! It’s amazing.

My recall is there is space for large luggage on the billet trains, but why do it if you can ship ahead!

I took the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto and had one small rolling underseat size luggage and a backpack. I kept these with me at my seat.
Even budget hotel rooms in Japan have washer and dryers that are very efficient, and they’re tiny rooms that will barely fit your suitcase so if you’re moving from city to city, maybe bring fewer clothing items and plan to do laundry.

Enjoy your trip, I’m planning to visit again this year.

Larger luggage and train travel are a bad combination, and not only in Japan. You'll have to negotiate stairs at times, and may have steps up/down getting on/off trains, all apart from where to keep your bags once aboard.

Consider an int'l carry-on suitcase and a travel-type backpack, e.g., https://www.nomatic.com/collections/travel-bags/products/nomatic-30l-travel-bag for each traveler. Bring minimalist ultra-light, packable clothing meant for backpacking, to reduce bulk and weight. For example, I have a rain jacket I only use for travel. It is completely waterproof, but has a single plastic main zipper, only two slash front pockets, compacts down to fit into a very small stuff sac, and weighs almost nothing. It was quite expensive, ironically, given that it has few features apart from being lightweight and packable, but that's typical of clothing meant for a specific application like that. It's not durable or fullly-featured enough for me to use it routinely, but it's ideal for travel. You can find similar characteristics in shirts, trousers, mid-layers, and underwear. Alternate between just two pair of shoes, one of which should be waterproof; you wear one pair on the plane and have just one pair to pack. Etc.

Another vote to the chorus of shipping your luggage. You don't want to be lugging your large oversize suitcase around in a country specifically designed to avoid that. Ship your luggage and take toiletries and overnight clothes in carry-on backpack.

How about leaving your main case in Tokyo in storage and traveling about with a smaller bag.

Anonymous wrote:Hotels will usually handle shipping luggage to the next location (leave plenty of time because it always took a while to fill out the forms). Just take a carry on for things you want to keep with you.

This is true.
But if you insist on moving your own luggage, I think a medium suitcase would fit - but the luggage goes on an open rack above the seat so you'd need to be able to lift it high up and down. Alternatively there's space in the front and back of each train but you'd need to purchase the accompanying seat.

Hotels will usually handle shipping luggage to the next location (leave plenty of time because it always took a while to fill out the forms). Just take a carry on for things you want to keep with you.

Don’t forget you probably will need to use local trains/metro to get from the shinkansen station to wherever you are staying. Those trains and stations can be even more inconvenient (in terms of space and stairs) for large luggage than the bullet trains.

There are some seats you can reserve with “oversized” luggage— you can check on the website what they consider normal size vs over sized (but generally I think an int’l carryon is regular size and your medium might be oversized).

But really my suggestion would be to ship your luggage from city to city. Your hotels will arrange for pickup and hold your luggage if necessary. There’s a small fee and you do probably need to go without for one night when you transfer (e.g. drop it off by 3 pm on Saturday and it gets to the new city by check in on Sunday) but it’s easy enough to carry some toiletries and a change of clothes.

I always use a Rimowa Cabin size just fine.

Traveling to Japan and will be visiting a few different cities via Bullet Train. Are there suitcase size limitations? We have carry on suitcases, but afraid that will be too small for a two week trip. Thinking about buying a more medium sized suitcase, but not sure if storage would be an issue on the train. Any suggestions or info would be most appreciated. TIA.