Prefecture-by-prefecture guides, plain-English train instructions, and honest notes on how people actually live here — written for first-time visitors who want to travel Japan like a regular, not a tourist.
Two separate places, 350 kilometres apart, with two separate ticket systems and no tickets at the door. Both release on the 10th of the month — here is what each one costs and how…
Japan is not only Tokyo and Kyoto. Pick a region and find out what a place is actually like, how long you need, and how to get there.
The Shinkansen is the right answer for almost everyone: 2 hours 15 minutes, about 14,000 JPY, no check-in. Here is what the…
You will miss a connection, feed the wrong ticket into a gate, or look up at 11:40pm and realise the last train…
Japanese trains were not built for suitcases, so Japan moves the suitcase separately. How luggage forwarding works, what the 160cm rule means,…
The permit you must get before leaving home, why an ETC card matters more than the car, and the parts of Japan…
Japan welcomed record visitor numbers and then started introducing tourist taxes, screens over viewpoints and residential no-go lanes. The honest version of…
Closed schools, unstaffed stations, and a taxi driver in his late seventies. Japan's demographic shift is not an abstraction — it is…
A noodle bar under a flat, a car park where a house was, wires overhead and no street names. Japanese cities look…
Children clean their own classrooms, walk to school in groups from age six, and stay for club practice until six in the…
Two separate places, 350 kilometres apart, with two separate ticket systems and no tickets at the door. Both release on the 10th…
An hour from Tokyo Station: a bronze Buddha from 1252, temples in the hills behind the town, and a tram that runs…
Nikko is two day trips in one place: gilded shrines in the town, and a lake and a waterfall an hour above…
Two parks, neither of them in Tokyo, and a ticket system that prices every date separately. Which park to choose, what a…
The entry ticket is the easy part. What decides your day is whether you have Nintendo World entry and whether you bought…
Tokyo has two teamLab venues, they are a 25-minute train ride apart, and people routinely book the wrong one. What each is…
