Hello, I need a little help!

[jankarlo]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this community and I was wondering if any of you could give me some advice please. I'll try to keep it short, haha. (and I'm sorry if this is not the right place to post this..)

Basically, my dream as a child has always been to visit Japan...ever since I was in the 2nd grade. I'm 23 now and finally getting the chance to go next summer in August of 2011 with my best friend. But we're at loss about whether to do a travel package/guide or just book a flight on our own and try to get around.

I somewhat understand the pros/cons of both ...and I know that Japan has somewhat of a high difficulty rate for tourists getting around. I also know that tour guides/package are pretty expensive....and by the summer time I'm only going to have roughly $4000 to my name for the flight, hotel, food, etc.


What should I do? and is $4000 enough? Thanks!