Destination Guides
Universal Studios Japan: Tickets, Express Passes and Nintendo World
The entry ticket is the easy part. What decides your day is whether you have Nintendo World entry and whether you bought…
Region
関西
Kansai
Travel guides for the Kansai region of Japan.
Prefectures
Where to go in Kansai
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Reading list for Kansai
Plan Your Trip
Where to Stay in Kyoto: The Five Areas, and the New Lodging Tax
Kyoto is a city you see before nine in the morning, which makes where you sleep matter more than it does in…
Destination Guides
Wakayama: Koyasan and the Kumano Kodo
A monastery town of 117 temples on a mountain plateau, a pilgrimage route walked for a thousand years, and a night sleeping…
Destination Guides
Hyogo: Himeji Castle, Kobe and Arima Onsen in Two Days
Japan's finest surviving castle, a port city rebuilt after an earthquake that changed the country, and a thousand-year-old hot spring twenty minutes…
Destination Guides
Nara: The Day Trip Everyone Rushes — and How Not To
Most visitors see Nara in three hours: the Great Buddha, some deer, and a train home. The other two-thirds of the park…
Destination Guides
Osaka: Eating Your Way Through Japan’s Kitchen
Kyoto is where Japan keeps its manners. Osaka is where it eats, argues and laughs at itself. Two days, the food that…
Destination Guides
Kyoto in 3 Days: The Route That Skips the Crowds
Kyoto's problem is not that it is crowded. It is that it is crowded between ten and three, at eight specific places.…
Plan Your Trip
14 Days in Japan: Getting Past Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka
Two weeks is enough to leave the golden route and still see it. A rail-based loop through Kanazawa, Takayama and Hiroshima that…
Plan Your Trip
The Classic 7-Day Japan Itinerary (and How to Stretch It to 10)
Two cities, one Shinkansen, three day trips and no repacking after day four. The route that works for a first week in…
Getting Around
Kansai Transport: Which Pass for Which Trip
Kyoto is a bus city, Osaka is a subway city, and the fastest train between them is not the one you would…