Lonely Planet's Japan is our most comprehensive guide that extensively covers all the country has to offer, with recommendations for both popular and lesser-known experiences. Summit Mount Fuji, pay your respects at Buddhist temples in Kyoto and have your fill of sushi and sake; all with your trusted travel companion.
Or for those who prefer to have a comprehensive guide in one place to read offline, without having to wade through swamps of search results, blogs, forum discussions and deal with cookie windows and ads on every single website they open?
Wikivoyage?
Lonely Planet is not the same since the Wheelers sold it in 2007.
It was essential for backpackers back in the day, from Angola to Venezuela.
I agree. Recently bought Greece and Spain for a recent trip and barely looked at it, it was barely any better than the free Kindle Lonely Planet guidebooks. It is definitely not as good or useful as it used to be.
And you can’t search this book like you can websites or pdfs… just saying
This was my go to website back in the days https://www.japan-guide.com/
I'm sure there's 100's of websites now day's even YT channels are pretty good for info.
In the old periods you couldn't even download a offline map from Google Maps onto your phone.
If this is from the TV show of the same name from many years ago, I used to enjoy the episodes with Ian Wright as the presenter the most. Very entertaining and down to earth guy. You can still find some of his episodes on YT.
If you are interested in travelling to Japan, perhaps have a look at Chris Abroad & Only In Japan on YT. Both are worth checking out. They are a both a little eccentric, but are informative in their own ways.
Almost makes me want to go there. Too old and broke now though:)
Has been fascinating to follow Chris over the years from his humble beginnings to purchasing that massive studio to produce his videos and now his weightloss and fitness training. He's definitely living the right journey.
party like its 1999
$24 of ads
I'm surprised they are still around.
Lonely Planet guide books are re-issued every year it seems, and they vary HUGELY from year to year.
I have previously used a Lonely Planet Japan guide book to plan a Japan holiday, and the book was wonderful, listing loads of things to see in every locality I was visiting.
I was considering another Japan holiday, so I borrowed from the library the edition in this deal. It's not nearly as good! Not nearly as many "things to see" as the book from a few years ago. I went back to the library, found the one I had previously read, and dumped this one.
Here's the good one, it's longer too at 928 pages instead of 768 pages:
https://booko.com.au/9781786578501/lonely-planet-japan-trave…
Sorry OP, it's a good price, just not as good a book as it was previously.
I keep hearing that Japan has now become overrun by tourists. Can anyone recommend a guide that's "off the beaten track"? Places that are not so convenient to get to, and places you need to drive yourself? And activities where you get mixed-in a little with the locals?
Plenty of places aren't "overrun with tourists". Last year I want to Mt Mitake for the "Autumn Leaves festival", about 3 hours by train west of Shinjuku in Tokyo, and I saw more Japanese schoolkids on tour than I saw tourists. But if you go to such locations, double-check your return transport, I recall the day I went the last train was about 6pm. You could be stuck in a tiny village with 50 houses and no accommodation!
I can also recommend the Hokuriku area. Not many tourists there except in the tourist-trap locations, and there's an excellent value rail pass that will let you explore much of the area, including using most of the Shinkansen trains. Jump on a minor train line and explore, for example I went on the train line to Himi, got off at Fushiki because I could see an interesting temple on Google maps, and visited Shoko-Ji temple. A stunning temple, and when I got there, there were only four people in the temple, and they were the temple's cleaners!
Maybe I was lucky, because I also stumbled across lots of interesting places just by walking around in Takaoka, where I was based.
Fantastic info, thanks!!
I'm looking at starting my next holiday in Nagoya, and then moving eastwards, ending in Tokyo. That area isn't listed in any guidebooks until the Mt Fuji/Hakone area. Hoping to find interesting things in the Aichi and Shizuoka prefectures, maybe with a side trip into the southern part of Gifu prefecture.
When in Tokyo, I'm hoping to visit Mt Takao, which I read is a favourite get-away location for people living in Tokyo.
Also, here's the railway map that most tourists use to navigate Tokyo. Tokyo is a lot larger than than, have a look at the full map of the Greater Tokyo Railway Network, I suspect once you go outside the smaller map, the number of tourists will drop dramatically. I might visit Tsukuba Science City, about an hour northeast of Tokyo by train, I'll have to see what is open to visit.
@Russ: Cool thank you. We've been to Japan before, Tokyo and Kyoto, and a few day trips on trains farther out from those cities. It was around 2016. Google Maps was invaluable in making sense of the train network. Thinking to hire a campervan next time for part of the trip, and maybe make use of those "rent a Japanese person for a day" services to get a bit deeper into things in the cities.
For those who don't have the internet??