Japan (Lonely Planet Country Guide)

It was 'good', but not definitive - I would use it to see what direction to head in etc but then usually find something else interesting along the way.

One MAJOR omission is that all of the phone numbers listed for hotels etc do not have the region/city code at the beginning so it is a major effort to sort that out!! So be warned...

Also we found the maps incredibly difficult to orientate ourselves by.

It's very good but ... (17/18 people found this helpful)

The book is of course very good but I have a gripe with LP that they concentrate too much effort on bars and discos (if the word still exists) at the expense of "culture". It's too full of (to me, unnecessary) details on where to get drunk at night. Matsuri - festivals - are what make Japan special. Without them, most of the country is fantastically ordinary; a matsuri in town can turn the very ordinary fanstastic. Some matsuri are included; most aren't, no doubt for reasons of space as there are so many. Maybe also because details and exact dates can be hard to pin down and can require a lot effort for non-Japanese readers. Inclusion of details on matsuri in the book is haphazard. Wakayama doesn't rate mention of any. Kanazawa has a tiny festival in April which gets full publicity. Fukui's enormous parade (Echizen Jidai Gyoretsu), which takes place around the same time not far away, again doesn't rate a mention. Hachinohe has two fantastic annual festivals but the town, which appeared in previous versions of the book, has been eliminated altogether from the current edition. So the festivals obviously don't get a mention. The major Inazawa Naked Man Festival (Hadaka Matsuri) I don't think rates even a mention either. Too many pities. It would be churlish to give the book less than 4 stars (there's so much good information) but I think booze sadly wins over culture. Maybe time to think of separate editions for different demographics?!

The japan bible (5/5 people found this helpful)

Also found this book very useful (can't compare either, still give 5 as I wasn't really missing anything). It has very comprehensive listings with good descriptions of sights, hotels, restaurants and bars in, to name only the places i had been, tokyo, kyoto, osaka and even in koyasan (a little village in the mountains) - it certainly gave me more than enough to cover in 7 days.

The getting around sections were extremly useful (public transport in japan can be a bit of an adventure, the book gives useful tips for example to pay the fare at the end of the journey). Another useful thing were the suggested routes at the beginning of the book.

It didn't even suffer from the usual Lonely planet problem to miss out on more upscale places, the book has all the fancy hotels, restaurants, bars covered. Great buy!

Lonely planet - safe option (19/19 people found this helpful)

I have just come back from a month long trip to japan, This book saved my behind on many occasions, but without any other guide books on japan to compare this to i will have to give it a 4 star, I found the information to be quite accurate... apart form distances and travel time (on foot) it would say 5 mins east... then 25 mins later in the humid heat and with a 20kg backpack on you arrive at the destination wishing you had taken the bus!

most travelers i met were also using the lonelyplanet guide and found it very useful!

there are very few pictures which leaves you uninspired when looking for things to do in each place! so check things out before you leave for japan

lonely planet is always a safe bet so buy in advance of your travels and make a rough plan... I would reccomend a couple of days in Tokyo and as much time as you can spare in Kyoto and Nara - the 2 most interesting places japan has to offer!

in conclusion - buy this book, i think you will struggle to find a better one for japan!
[...]

Chris Rowthorn, Ray Bartlett, Justin Ellis, Craig McLachlan, Simon Sellars, Wendy Yanagihara

Reader Reviews:

Some obvious omissions (0/0 people found this helpful)

It's very good but ... (17/18 people found this helpful)

The japan bible (5/5 people found this helpful)

Lonely planet - safe option (19/19 people found this helpful)

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