Review
“Lonely Planet’s Japan is thorough, precise, and consummately useful.” — Conde Nast Traveler, October 2005
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Nobody knows Japan like Lonely Planet. With more maps and language content than any other guidebook, this 11th edition unveils the very best of shopping in Tokyo, skiing in the Japan Alps, soaking in idyllic onsen (hot springs), trekking to Kansai’s feudal castles, slurping soba at Kyushu food stalls, and so much more.
Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.
In This Guide:
Architecture chapter leading you from ancient temples to modern towers
Reliable advice from resident and specialist authors – and locals!
Japanese script in text and on maps makes navigation easy
Japan (Country Guide) (Paperback)
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One thing you find about being in Japan for awhile is that no guide book can read your mind – you have to discover your favorite places for yourself. However, a book like this can be very helpful no matter how familiar you are with the country, and for newcomers it’s indispensable. Here’s why:
Lonely Planet does a good job of packing as much detail as possible into each section. Beyond the typical hotel and restaurant listings, they mention a wealth of transportation options in even the most remote areas of the country, they include cultural anecdotes about each region, and -most importantly- include plenty of Japanese script to help you find your way around, especially on rural rail lines.
They have a good sense of humor without being haughty (as many other travel guides on Japan do – such as Frommer’s), although one of their best quotes – the suggestion that the resort area of Hakone can seem like ‘a conveyor belt designed to strip you of your cash’ is nowhere to be found.
There are plenty of listings for bargians both in eating and accomodation – Lonely Planet has never been the wealthy man’s guide, although if you *are* swimming in cash, it will do you just fine.
Extensive maps with good detail. You might think this would be standard for all travel guides – but this is a detail that many of them overlook.
Lonely Planet is very good about warning you of potential tourist traps. This is especially important in Japan, where if you decide to sightsee in the same location as everyone else, you’ll feel like you’re heading to the bathroom during halftime of an NFL game. LP advises you of peak travel seasons to different areas of Japan that you may want to avoid to save money and beat the crowds. In Japan, fellow tourists in most cases will be other Japanese – lots of them.
LP has consistently produced the best guide to Japan out there and works hard to ensure its info is up-to-date. Other travel guides, for example, have STILL not noticed that a new shinkansen (bullet train) line was built from Kagoshima to Yatsushiro in Kyushu, shaving hours off the trip to Fukuoka, and that the name of Kagoshima’s central train station changed as a result. LP is the only book I have seen that noticed this major transportation development – in place for almost two years now.
Big sections on Japan’s most visited cities (Tokyo and Kyoto), with good suggestions for side trips for those on a tight schedule.
So why only three stars? First, there isn’t THAT much new material in this guide. If you are familiar with Japan and keep up with the news in the country, you can probably rely on older editions of this guide – there isn’t anything crucial meriting a purchase, unless you want a few more restaurant suggestions. If Japan is new to you, you need this most up-to-date edition, which will be your best friend – especially outside of Tokyo.
Second, LP’s editors sometimes seem to have a hard time making up their mind as to what parts of Japan are interesting and worth a look: in the last edition, the small northern city of Aizu-Wakamatsu was mentioned only in brief as a drab industrial city, but here it is covered in pretty extensive detail. Who suddenly decided to put Aizu on the ‘cool’ list? As I said above, only you can decide in the long run what things in Japan are best for you, but I think Aizu’s worth a visit (just don’t go in the fall unless you want to see the entire population of northern Honshu there with you).
Third, although I enjoy LP’s sense of humor, any guide that uses “frisky” and “volcanoes” in the same sentence is automatically disqualified from a five-star rating. Also, I can do without the left-wing rah-rahing that pops up in some places (though many ‘progressive’ world travelers enjoy that sort of thing, so it shouldn’t hurt sales). Finally, I would prefer that LP limit its use of the word ‘vibrant’ to 50 instances per edition. On a positive note, the horrible Sailor Moon inspired ‘anime’ drawing in the ‘Culture’ section, so obviously wrought by someone not Japanese, is gone.
All that aside, any visitor to or resident of Japan ought to have a copy of this guide. It’s a valuable resource and one of the few travel guides that -if not perfect- does everything right that it needs to and beats out the competition. If you’re considering a visit to Japan, this book should be your first reference.
For years, Lonely Planet’s Japan guide has been the benchmark among the many books available on the trendiest country in East Asia. The latest edition of their Japan guide continues to provide the high quality their readers have come to expect.
High points of this edition include:
- LP’s authors seem to have found something to do in nearly every corner of Japan. While I still believe that to enjoy Japan best you must find your own places to enjoy – not just the ones within walking distance of a Starbucks – LP will help keep you from getting lost as you make your way from the train station to the twice-daily bus on the way to the Onsen In The Middle Of Nowhere (and if there is a Starbucks nearby that onsen, they’ll tell you about that, too).
It’s especially helpful that they list smaller diversions like the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum right along side of more famous attractions such as Yokohama’s Chinatown – these are very helpful for people with a couple of hours to burn while they wait for their train.
- Restaurant suggestions. I don’t use LP’s restaurant choices religiously, but they are extremely helpful if you’re unused to Japanese food (or with someone new to it); LP lists everything from high-end kaiseki restaurants to railway-station ramen stands to chain izakaya (pubs) with English menus – the last are an excellent way to try out different types of Japanese food without the guesswork.
-Lodging. LP shines here in their recommendations of ryokan (Japanese style-inns) and minshuku (pensions), most of which don’t appear on Expedia or even Japanese-language websites. These are great places to enjoy real Japanese hospitality, and LP knows which ones are welcoming to foreigners, which have the best food, and which have the best onsen (hot springs).
-Japanese text. I can’t emphasize this enough – it’s absolutely critical to have Japanese translations of city names, train stations, attractions, and other important locations (hospitals, anyone?) written in Japanese as well as English. If you speak little or no Japanese, the text not only helps you read most signs outside of the major metro areas, it helps you to ask for directions, navigate restaurant menus, and maybe even learn some kanji.
Here are a few things I took issue with in this edition:
-Inaccurate transportation information. Don’t worry, LP is generally reliable throughout the book and won’t steer you wrong. The problem is what gets left out, particularly in the airport transportation category. For example, nobody bothers to tell you that Keikyu Railways provides service to Haneda Airport from Shinagawa for less money and in a shorter time than the Tokyo Monorail, which is silly because the last edition of the guide didn’t make this mistake.
LP also heartily recommends taking the Keisei tokkyu limited express service from Narita Airport instead of the all-reserved Skyliner. Don’t even *think* about this if you have heavy baggage or are unused to crowds in Japan. The tokkyu is a commuter train and you’ll be riding with several hundred close (literally) Japanese friends by the time you reach Ueno.
-Toyoko Inn. LP directs budget travelers to this chain of cookie-cutter business hotels several times in this edition. Although Toyoko Inn is very popular among foreign travelers in Japan because of their English website and free rice-ball breakfasts, the chain is often more expensive than hotels with better service. Toyoko Inn’s “Flintstones-tech” beds (my term) are my archenemy after repeatedly messing up my back. Do yourself a favor and make reservations at Toyoko’s rival, Route Inn. Route Inn hotels have a free full breakfast for those who book online, often include a free onsen in the hotel, have more comfortable beds than Toyoko, and have rates that are often lower.
In addition, Tokyu Hotels, Sunroute Hotels, Solare Hotels, Washington Hotels, and other business hotel chains have English websites that deserve your attention before Toyoko.
-The “Safety” section lists what to do in case of fire and earthquake, but doesn’t mention typhoons. Although most modern Japanese buildings are safe refuges in a typhoon, LP ought to devote at least a paragraph to safety precautions to take if you get stuck in a city in a typhoon’s path – and several hit Japan every summer and fall.
-LP’s traditional wittiness is lessened somewhat as their writers turn over. Last edition’s clever description of active volcano Sakurajima was: “Looming over Kagoshima is the brooding cone of this decidedly hyperactive volcano.” The new authors call it “frisky.” Say it with a knowing smile, folks: “Frisky” does not go in the same sentence as “volcano.”
Although again there isn’t a overwhelming amount of new information in this book, LP’s guide fits into the travel plans of just about anyone: Hardcore backpackers, exchange students, couples and even business travelers will all find the something useful in the guide for them.
As always, the LP guide remains your best bet for exploring Japan.
I highly recommend checking out the Amazon reviews written about the previous edition of this guidebook. Most of the negative reviews still apply to this version, which I recently used on a 3 week trip in Japan. While the book did manage to help me find many of Japan’s main sights, that is hardly a major accomplishment for a book like this. I expected it to provide me some in-depth “off the beaten path” knowledge about the places I was visiting, and on this mark it fails.
The book places a heavy emphasis on listing Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines as sights. However, the book only provides a one page, very uninformative description of what Buddhism and Shinto are. The only way I eventually learned enough about these religions in order to better appreciate the shrines and temples the book sent me to, was to go to an Internet cafe and read some Wikipedia articles about the subject. All it would have taken was a well researched 1 page essay on the subject. The fact that Lonely Planet was unable to even provide that minimal content speaks volumes about the failings of this book.
The book is even more useless when it comes to providing insight into modern Japan. Pachinko parlors, for example, are so ubiquitous that they are obviously a major part of Japan’s culture. However, the book doesn’t spend even one sentence talking about the activity.
Such omissions are quite a big deal for this country, for even at the biggest temples and shrines, English language descriptions are generally very unclear. In many cases, the guidebook was the only source of English information I had available. It became frustrating that the heavy book I was carrying around was such a poor source of answers to my questions.
On a practical note, the book’s lodging listings are too often very small bed and breakfast style places. While these are certainly nice if you get a reservation, they unfortunately fill up very quickly. More than once we ran into problems, because every single reasonable (<$125/night) lodging listed in the book was fully booked. What would have been more helpful were a few phone numbers for some generic business hotels. Throw in the fact that the maps are abysmally vague and that the wordy writing style makes the book about 25% bigger than it needs to be, and it becomes very difficult to recommend this guidebook.