Travel in Japan>General Travel & Hiking

Original articles based on first-hand experiences: an insider's guide to hiking, mountains, national parks, top travel destinations, secret spots and general travel in Japan, based on the personal experiences of a local resident.

General Travel & Hiking

Travel in Japan is the best: safe, delicious, efficient and always fascinating. More people should visit Japan. It's not as expensive as you might think, similar to (if not cheaper than) Italy, France or other popular European destinations. Getting around in big cities and on major train lines is relatively easy, even without knowledge of Japanese, as station names and destinations are written in English and Japanese. Once off the major tourist routes, however, it's a bit more complicated, but with courage, a good guidebook and a phrasebook, it's easy, fun and culturally rewarding. And if you ever find yourself lost or otherwise desperate, someone always stops to help.

Hiking is excellent in Japan—you're never far from mountains or rocky coastline. It's a welcome break from the urban denseness. Great day hikes abound. There a few very nice longer treks, and huts and rustic inns wait at the top of long ascents for those not wanting to carry their bedroom and kitchen on their backs.

Recommended Guidebooks

For general travel, try one of these guidebooks, depending on your interests and financial situation: 

• Lonely Planet focuses on logistics such as hotels and transportation that are especially useful for budget travelers. It has pretty good cultural and historical information but takes few sides about the actual touristic value of a place. The restaurant recommendations are fairly low brow.

• Frommer's is great for the average traveler, especially one with a bit more money, who wants a good overview of the country and is less concerned with how to get around. The shopping and restaurant sections are very good, but the accommodation section is not geared to budget travelers and the culture and history sections are less developed than in other guides.

• Time Out makes an excellent Tokyo city guide (as a one-time contributor, I'm not impartial) written by people who live there. Good for someone who wants an in-depth, real Tokyo experience, especially if you plan to spend more than three days. Another good option for Tokyo is the Luxe Guide, which is a brief overview of all that's classic and of-the-moment.

The best reference for hiking in Japan is the Lonely Planet Hiking in Japan guide by Florence Mason, et al. It has excellent information on how to get around, where to stay, and what's worth seeing. Another useful option, though a bit dated and less detailed, is Hiking in Japan: An Adventurer's Guide to the Mountain Trails by Paul Hunt (published by Kodansha). It focuses on natural history at the expense of logistics, but will get you there and back with some personal initiative.

Getting Around

• Trains: The shinkansen (bullet train) and extensive local train systems cover much of the country. One  indispensable resource for planning is the massive JR timetable book that lists every train and regional bus in the country, along with timetables and phone numbers of local operators. Not ideal if you can't speak Japanese, but it is possible to piece things together with a bilingual map and some sign language.

• Buses: Often connect with trains to take you deep into the heart of nowhere, where inevitably there's great hiking. The schedules of the fragmented system of private lines rarely match, so making connections from one to the other might mean waiting a few hours or even overnight in a provincial town. Some travelers like buses for cheaper long distance. In Hokkaido, buses are more common than trains. Look for regional bus schedules when you arrive in any transit hub.

• Taxis: Good around cities and to take you to remote places buses don't regularly run. Flag drop is steep, but the cars are always spotless the drivers polite.

• Cars: Can be rented, but in most cases trains, buses or taxis make far better options as you don't have to worry about parking, gas, sitting in traffic, Japanese road laws, etc.

• Bicycles: Great in cities where riding on sidewalks is encouraged. Out of the way you damn pedestrians! Long-distance bikers should remember that Japan is a country of mountains.

• Hitchhiking: Can be done, at your own risk. Hitching back from hikes is possible in some mountain communities, but hardly guaranteed. Be prepared to speak some Japanese.

Places to stay

• Hotels: What you might expect, and some things you can't imagine. Reliable service and amenities, but usually more generic and Western feeling than other options below. Some of them are huge, with thousands of rooms.

• Business hotels: Good options in big cities and for those not wanting to go too native, these are are crowded around train stations and business areas. They are also usually reasonably priced, though rooms tend to be a bit small and heavy on vinyl and fluorescent lighting, i.e. very Japanese.

• Ryokan: Refined traditional inns, usually with a high level of service, a garden, dinner and breakfast. Sleep on a futon on a tatami floor and dine in your room. A good ryokan will promise an unparalleled traditional Japanese experience at the risk of financial ruin.

• Minshuku: B&B-style accommodations that are similar to ryokan, but with less service, shared bathrooms (usually) and dinner and breakfast eaten communally. A great way to meet locals. A common conversation starter is for someone to compliment you on your ability to use ohashi (chopsticks). The local tourism office or train/bus station usually has information on local minshuku.

• Buddhist temples: Mainly in pilgrimage areas, such as Mt. Koya (Koya-san), Dewa-Sanzan and the like. Similar to a minshuku/ryokan experience, but often in beautiful old temple buildings. Shojin-ryori (Buddhist vegetarian food) served at meals. Some also have early morning Buddhist ceremonies you can attend, usually involves kneeling on tatami for an hour.

• Yusu hosuteru: Japanese youth hostels can be great, and fairly inexpensive, especially in smaller towns and national park areas. Urban youth hostels sometimes have unwelcome restrictions, such as three-day stay limits.

• Yamagoya or sanso: Hosted mountain huts, often near mountain tops or other places you most need them. A very welcome hot dinner is waiting for you and the 100 other people you'll be sharing the floor/bunkbeds and toilets with (mainly people over 60 who snore like freight trains, bring ear plugs).

• Kyampu-jo: Campgrounds. They have places for tents and perhaps fires. Larger ones also have small cabins or tents for rent and, if you're lucky, public baths.

• Onsen accommodation: Any (or all) of the above may be found in a hot spring town and may include indoor and/or outdoor hot spring baths. Not to be missed.

• Love hotels: Whether you need a two-hour "rest" or an eight-hour "stay," and for whatever reason, you are assured discretion. Just slide your money under the curtain (or into the machine) and choose your room from the picture list. It probably won't have any windows, but will perhaps have a special theme, e.g. Bali beach scene, old Japan, etc. It will almost surely have porn on the TV and vibrators for sale in the minibar.

Places to eat & drink

• Fast food and inexpensive meals: Japanese love to eat, and though Tokyo restaurants earned nearly 200 Michelin stars and $100 melons do exist, they are hardly the rule, especially for everyday meals. For example, many Japanese businesspeople (known locally as either salariman or OL, i.e. office lady) have lunch or afterwork meals of noodles (ramen, soba, udon), yakitori, tempura (Tenya is a popular chain restaurant), donburi at shops like Yoshinoya for gyu-don (marinated beef slices over rice), curry rice (a thick, spicy brown sauce usually with a base of beef or pork plus carrots or other vegetables over rice), yakiniku (marinated beef grilled at your table), tonkatsu (breaded, deep-fried pork served with sauce, rice and shredded cabbage), oden (meat, seafood and vegetables simmered in broth), okonomiyaki (a fried pancake made with flour eggs, cabbage, and a variety of other ingredients, and topped with a sweet brown sauce), hamburgers at popular chains such as Freshness Burger and First Kitchen, even egg sandwiches. An extremely popular option is to buy a bento (a boxed lunch, a.k.a. "lunch box"), which are available at most convenience stores and some restaurants. International chain restaurants and family restaurants  usually offer a mix of Japanese and Western comfort foods. There are an increasing number of chains and small restaurants serving Italian and other Western foods.

• Conbini (convenience stores) and vending machines: In addition to manga and magazines, these ubiquitous shops dispense a variety of fresh and prepared food, as well as grocery items, including bento (boxed meals), cold drinks (tea, fruit juice, soda, milk, etc.), hot drinks (tea, coffee, soup, etc.), oden, white bread, canned food, fresh vegetables wrapped in plastic, fried chicken and French fries, ice cream, Pocky, tofu, eggs, noodles, and so on. Vending machines are on virtually every street. They typically sell a selection of hot and cold drinks, including tea, soda, juice and beer. Some also sell rice, whisky, wine, and other items.

• Izakaya: Though called Japanese pubs, izakaya are really closer to beer halls in size and atmosphere. They generally attract men, college students and large groups of friends interested in drinking of big glasses of draft beer (called "nama"), snacking on small portions of a wide assortment of food (edamame, kimchi, tofu, seaweed, fried chicken, rice balls, takoyaki, etc.), and enjoying a relaxing time. They range from cheap, loud and slightly unsanitary (often the big chain izakaya found around train stations) to upscale and thematic. A fairly recent trend is the "dining bar." Aimed at women, they often focus on wine and higher quality food, and they tend to be calmer. The largest chain izakaya include Tengu and Shirokiya.

• Fine dining (Japanese): Fine dining in Japan can be expensive, but the quality of food and service is among the best in the world. Some of the most popular types of restaurants for fine dining are sushi, sashimi, kaiseki ryori (small dishes based on fresh seasonal products), tempura, robatayaki, shabu shabu, and fugu. The best restaurants usually focus on perfecting only one of these types of cuisine, but some may offer a range of them.

• Fine dining (non-Japanese): French, Italian, Spanish, Thai, Chinese,  American--for almost any type of international cuisine you can think of, an enterprising and curious Japanese chef has spent time in the respective country, learning the local cuisine and techniques before bringing them back to open a restaurant in Japan. Some may alter or enhance the flavors to suit Japanese palates and expectations, but many do not.

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