Product Description
America’s #1 bestselling travel series
Written by more than 175 outspoken travelers around the globe, Frommer’s Complete Guides help travelers experience places the way locals do.
- More annually updated guides than any other series
- 16-page color section and foldout map in all annual guides
- Outspoken opinions, exact prices, and suggested itineraries
- Dozens of detailed maps in an easy-to-read, two-color design
Tourism to Japan increased by 12% over the first half of 2007. Half a million tourists were North Americans, of which approximately 100,000 were traveling on business.
From the Publisher
Frommer’s Japan is the premier guide to this fascinating destination, offering an authoritative introduction to the nations culture and history, accompanied by a wealth of logistical advice, etiquette tips, and detailed color maps to help travelers find their way. This new 5th edition provides detailed walking directions to every sight mentioned and a user-friendly glossary of Japanese phrasesaccompanied by a Japanese character guide that helps readers recognize establishment names. In addition to reviewing the top business hotels and expense-account restaurants, our author has rounded up the best affordable and moderately priced hotels and restaurants throughout the country, so there are choices galore for any budget.
Frommers is there every step of the way to help travelers discover the scenic wonders, intriguing cultural experiences, and dazzling cities of the Land of the Rising Sun.
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
I found this book extremely useful in planning my trip to Japan, especially when selecting destinations outside of the obvious Tokyo and Kyoto. In particular this book convinced me to stay over in Miyajima after going to Hiroshima, and to spend a night at a Buddhist temple in Koyasan. These were unforgettable experiences. While this guide does not provide adequate navigational information (I used Lonely Planet and Japan Solo) it is more valuable for itinerary planning. I also found the hotel and restaurant recommendations reliable and interesting.
We recently returned from a 2-week trip to Tokyo and this was the guide we took with us on our trip. We had originally planned to venture outside Tokyo but due to some unforseen circumstances we ended up staying in Tokyo the entire time. So, although I think we would have been better off with Frommer’s Tokyo-only guide this was a solid guide and served us well on our trip.
The guide has a large amount of information about Japanese customs, food choices (which we referred to often, sometimes to figure out what it was that we had just eaten!) and transportation options in Japan. The sections on transportation are invaluable; we were able to get from Narita to our hotel using the Limousine Bus service recommended by the book and had no trouble figuring out Tokyo’s metro system after reading the guide’s information.
The “walking tours” the book provides in Tokyo are excellent and we had fun following the Asakusa and Omotesando/Harajuku walking tours. Shopping in Japan is world-class and the book has a huge amount of info about where to go depending on what you’re shopping for. We and our travel companions found great deals at one place in particular recommended by the guidebook, Oriental Bazaar on Omotesando-Dori, which was also recommended to us by an American living in Japan as the place he goes to shop for Japanese gifts.
I have two quibbles with the book: a. The author glosses over the offerings in Ueno Park and the Ueno Park area of Tokyo which are staggering. You could spend 2 or three days just in the Ueno area, there is so much to see. Maybe she goes into more depth in the Tokyo-only book, but I felt the Ueno information in the Japan guide was really weak. 2. The restaurants recommended in the guide are extremely expensive. Everyone talks about how expensive Tokyo is and if we had eaten exclusively at places from the guidebook we would have come back very poor indeed. But we ate at the same places Japanese office workers and housewives ate and had great meals at low prices. The book glosses over Japanese chains like Mos Burger, First Kitchen and TNT where you can get a great Japanese-influenced meal at a low price in favor of highlighting Western-style restaurants. Maybe the author has to include so much info about Western-style restaurants to appeal to the people who want to avoid eating “weird food” in Japan, but if you are scared of “weird” things, my recommendation is don’t go to Japan in the first place, because even in mainstream-style restaurants the food is not wholly Western and very picky or finicky eaters will have a very hard time finding things to eat.
Overall, though, this guide is excellent and was definitely worth the money we paid for it. Some great tips in here no first-time visitor to Japan should miss.
Whenever I travel abroad, I usually buy at least two travel guides to pore over before I leave, but I travel with only one. This is the one I took with me to Japan because it seemed the most practical and comprehensive for its size. Although it doesn’t have the depth and the off-beat information of the Lonely Planet series, the Frommer provides solid paragraphs about the attractions as well as reliable recommendations for dining and lodging (though I wish they provided longer lists.) The walking tour sections are well-planned, and the cultural details are accurate. Because of the size of Tokyo, the guide divides the city into neighborhoods, a feature you’ll welcome when you’re there but which makes for difficult planning beforehand, as you have to page through the various areas to find all the hotels in your price range.
I have never found a single guidebook to meet all my needs, but, if you can only buy one, this would be a good choice.