What should I pack for Nagoya?

Slip-on shoes are the single most important item for Nagoya. Nagoya Castle dates to 1532. Its reconstructed Honmaru Palace requires you to remove footwear at the entrance and carry it in a plastic bag through polished wooden halls. Atsuta Shrine's crushed-gravel paths will grind through thin-soled sandals by noon. At the Tokugawa Art Museum, founded in 1935, tatami-floored exhibition rooms mean shoes off once more. Get something with a low profile that slides on and off in seconds, with enough tread to handle 15,000-20,000 daily steps across tile, gravel, and asphalt. Fashion sneakers with elaborate lacing will have you stopping to untie and retie 10 or 12 times per day.

Nagoya sits in a basin between mountains and Ise Bay. That geography traps moisture off the Pacific, and humidity stays above 65% from May through October. Late September still registers at 26°C with 72% humidity, which pushes the felt temperature to 29.5°C on bare skin. Pack 2-3 synthetic or merino t-shirts that dry overnight on a hotel bathroom towel rack. One light long-sleeve layer handles the aggressive air conditioning inside Nagoya Station's underground shopping complex and department stores along Sakae, where indoor temperatures drop below 20°C. If you're visiting November through March, swap those for thermal base layers. December mornings near Nagoya Castle hover around 3°C, and the wet wind off the bay cuts through cotton like it's not there. A packable rain jacket is worth its space from April through June, when Nagoya receives 125mm to 200mm of monthly rainfall.

Japan runs on 100V with Type A outlets, the same flat two-prong design used in North America. US and Canadian travelers won't need a plug adapter for phone and laptop chargers, since modern adapters auto-switch from 100 to 240V. European and UK visitors need a Type A converter, which costs less to buy before departure than at Chubu Centrair Airport's convenience stores. Bring a portable battery pack rated at 10,000mAh or higher. A full day of Google Maps navigation, Manaca transit card top-ups, and translation-app lookups at restaurants around the Osu Kannon shopping arcade will drain most phones by mid-afternoon. A collapsible tote saves you the 3-5 yen konbini bag charge that adds up across Osu's 200-plus covered shops.

An umbrella is dead weight in Nagoya. Any 7-Eleven or FamilyMart stocks clear vinyl umbrellas for 500-700 yen (roughly $3.20-4.50 at 157 yen per dollar), and they handle Nagoya's wind-driven rain better than most travel umbrellas. Most toiletries cost less at Nagoya's drugstores than at home. Sugi Drug and Matsumoto Kiyoshi, both within a 5-minute walk of Nagoya Station's Sakura-dori exit, sell Japanese sunscreen at 600-800 yen that resists humidity better than most Western formulas. Japanese deodorant formulations run milder than what most Western travelers expect, so bring your own if you depend on strong antiperspirant. Paracetamol and antihistamines are available at Japanese pharmacies, but dosage instructions are printed only in kanji, and staff at Nagoya's drugstores rarely speak enough English to help you sort dosages at 2am.