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…
Travel style: Budget
Plan Your Trip
Where to Stay in Tokyo: Which Area, and What a Night Costs
In Tokyo you are not choosing a neighbourhood so much as a station. Six areas that work for a first trip, what…
Japan Column
How Much Does Life Cost in Japan? A Local’s Monthly Budget
Rent, electricity, a supermarket shop and a phone bill, for three real households. Japan is cheaper than visitors expect for daily life…
Eating in Japan
Konbini Food: What to Buy at 7-Eleven, Lawson and FamilyMart
A 250 yen rice ball that is better than most restaurant food anywhere else. What to buy at each of the three…
Destination Guides
Fukuoka: Kyushu’s Gateway and Its Yatai Streets
Japan's most liveable big city, with an airport five minutes from the centre, the country's last real street-food stall culture, and the…
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…
Plan Your Trip
Where to Stay in Japan: Hotel, Ryokan, Business Hotel or Minpaku
Six kinds of Japanese accommodation, what each actually costs, and why the cheapest chain hotels are better than the international brands at…
Plan Your Trip
Staying Connected: eSIM, Pocket Wi-Fi or Roaming?
You will use maps and translation constantly, so this is infrastructure rather than a convenience. Four options compared on real prices, with…
Plan Your Trip
Money in Japan: Cash, Cards, ATMs and Tax-Free Shopping
Japan is far less cash-dependent than its reputation and still more than northern Europe. Where cards work, where they do not, which…
Plan Your Trip
What to Pack for Japan — and What to Buy After You Land
Pack for 15,000 steps a day, small hotel rooms and a lot of taking your shoes off. Half the list everyone tells…