Books on Japan: Travel in Japan

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JapanVisitor has the largest collection of independent reviews of Japan-related books on the Internet: travel guides, Japanese fiction and fiction with a Japan setting, books on Japanese history, Japanese politics and society, Japanese food and cuisine, books on learning the Japanese language, books on Japanese art, design and photography, the nature and environment of Japan as well as books covering manga, anime and music. If you wish to have a title reviewed on JapanVisitor.com please see the contact details at the bottom of this page.

Kodansha International

ISBN: 4770016212
128 pp

Another member of the Kodansha bilingual-map series (see also Japan: A Bilingual Atlas, and Tokyo City Atlas: A Bilingual Guide). At 264 by 138mm, folding up into a fraction of the size, this mid-sized map is equally good for the apartment wall or the casual trip around Japan, though the detail is not sufficient for the serious explorer (Japan: A Bilingual Atlas is more likely to help there). On the back are 11 maps of the main urban centres, including Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto and Nara. Its handy folder comes complete with a reasonably extensive index of grid-referenced place names. Some may not appreciate the rather dark green that colours flat areas of Japan, as it tends to obscure place names; and purists may object to the fact that the publishers have decided to cut off Hokkaido and stick it on the left side of Honshu to save space. But the map is reasonably priced and covers enough bases to make it useful for the average person living in or travelling through Japan.

Richard Donovan

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ISBN: 174104085X
234 pp

The latest version of Lonely Planet Kyoto is updated and as comprehensive as previous guides. Author Chris Rowthorn has a keen eye for both the large picture and the small details that make up the great and terrible of Kyoto.
The guide features sections on culture, how locals eat, history, excursions in and around the city. There are sections on flower arranging and tea ceremony, and, for foodies, a food glossary.
Kyoto is chock-a-block full of temples and shrines, museums and shops, fine hotels and ryokan. It is also a city built on a human scale and meant to be seen on foot. Lonely Planet Kyoto has a section of Walking Tours suitable for any traveler. Clear, well-done maps accompany these.
This text is both portable and comprehensive. An invaluable guide to a priceless city.

C. Ogawa

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Kodansha International

ISBN: 4770023383
96 pp

Juliet Carpenter has managed to go over well-trod ground without seeming trite; quite to the contrary, the photos and text in Seeing Kyoto make even a long-time resident realize anew how much beauty is compressed into one city. Flipping through the book, one can imagine the days of old when aristocrats and samurai lived in Kyoto. Juliet Carpenter goes into the cultural history of Kyoto, as well as its artistic, culinary, and historical treasures. In addition, Carpenter introduces nearby Nara, the capital prior to Kyoto. There is a wonderful foreword by tea master Sen Soshitsu. Seeing Kyoto is an introduction and overview of one of the world's finest cities. From ancient palaces to sacred temple grounds, classic Japanese gardens to treasured artworks—a great work.

C. Ogawa

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Lonely Planet

ISBN: 1741041767
128 pp, 31 maps

Tokyo is an intense city. It is LA in scale, NY in population density. It is a sprawling messy city that also happens to be a total blast. If you know where to go, what to do, how to get around. Tokyo is the hippest city in Asia, a techno-consumer paradise of music and fashion and food. It is also a city blessed with massive parks, great museums, a zillion dining options, very little crime, and some of the best shopping in the world. Without language skills or local knowledge, what to do? Lonely Planet’s latest edition of Best of Tokyo is a pocket sized guide that will get you around the city and into the best restaurants, clubs, and cultural venues. A great buy.

C. Ogawa

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Oxford University Press USA

ISBN: 4770018738
288 pages

For Margaret Price, author of Classic Japanese Inns & Country Getaways, traditional Japanese inns (ryokan), are not just a place to stay while traveling the country, but a destination in their own right. The Japanese have a proud inn keeping tradition that dates back to the Edo period. Staying at a traditional Japanese inn is like immersing oneself into a facet of traditional Japanese culture that foreign travelers seldom see. Entering a classic Japanese inn is like stepping into a an oasis of tranquility, soothed by the soft light seeping through paper shoji screens and the elegant minimalism of tatami-floored rooms. The ryokan experience is worlds away from the staying in sterile, concrete block hotels with flickering fluorescent lighting that mar the landscape of modern Japan.
Almost all ryokan include dinner and breakfast along with the price of lodging, and many of the inns featured in the book are notable for the quality of their cuisine as well as their charming atmosphere and refined service. They are the perfect getaway destination for intrepid travelers searching for something off the beaten path, residents in Japan looking for a retreat from the hustle and bustle of urban life, and for adventurous epicureans in quest of local delicacies in lush surroundings.
Classic Japanese Inns & Country Getaways contains a brief history of Japanese inns, a short introduction to inn architecture and gardens, and a good guide to inn etiquette and protocol. The book profiles inns across Japan in both urban and rural settings, and indicates whether or not English is spoken at a given inn. A handy list of Japanese phrases is included, but it might be easier to solicit the help of a Japanese-speaking friend when making reservations. All in all, Classic Japanese Inns & Country Getaways is a solid primer to the enchanting world of traditional Japanese inns.

Lee-Sean Huang

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by David Else, Don George, Charlotte Hindell

ISBN: 0-8644-2742-5
272 pp

With the Rough Guide series having already broken new ground in what a guide book is and can be (Rough Guide to Bollywood anyone?) it was perhaps only a matter of time before Lonely Planet took one step further and post-modernised itself. Here we have the first guide for travellers who want to write guides for travellers - Lonely Planet: Travel Writing.
Now, for many of us the idea of sailing off to the tropics pen in hand, musing over ancient cultures while sipping the local nectar - and, critically, being paid for it - is something close to the best we might expect from the afterlife. One spoiler I can give you now (which might just save you the price of this book) is that it' s not easy to be a travel writer.
In no uncertain terms, Lonely Planet: Travel Writing tells us that the market is flooded with wannabes, the secure jobs are rarer than toucans' teeth and that even the best paid writers can find it hard to make ends meet. What hope it gives you is that by reading it and learning its lessons you are less likely to make the basic mistakes that result in 90% of budding writers hitting the bin before the paperclip is off the proposal. Interviews with writers and editors tell the same story over and over again. Tired clichés, no knowledge of the publication, factual errors - even spelling errors - all of these mean instant doom and quite apart from avoiding the simple mistakes, good travel writing (of which a number of examples are included in the book) has to be original, engaging, structured, informed and above all , evoke a sense of place. The number of times this book repeats these fundamental points cannot fail to make an impression - in fact, editing out the repetition could well have meant 50% less pages for your money.
And even if an article from your trip does get published this might only be the first of the four you need just to cover the costs of your trip. Travel writing is about a lifestyle as much as a writing style and making it as a travel writer (not easy - did I mention that already?) certainly means a different kind of travelling and may even mean serious life decisions for those who want it to be a career. What comes across very strongly from this guide is that travel writing is not just a by-product of taking extended holidays.
But at what point do we catch a whiff of irony? When we suspect that we are hearing the voice of the industry exercising a bit of pre-emptive quality control? Maybe it' s when we read for the third time in an interview with a writer that they broke into the field at a time when it wasn't nearly as saturated as it is now. What are the ethics of selling a guide to joining a club where it has become harder than ever for a larger than ever number of competitors to score a smaller than ever number of prime jobs? Especially when the authors, interviewees and, indeed, publishers are themselves those who are already on the inside toasting their success? Lonely Planet: Travel Writing might well appeal not only to travel writers in the making but to anyone who sees the humour in post-modernity.

Will Yong

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ISBN: 4-925080-45-8
207 pp

The "Honorable Visitors" in question are a dozen or so famous personalities from the West that have visited Japan since its "opening" in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Visitors to Japan usually either love it or hate it, and what they love or hate is that which is different in Japan, the exotic, the "other", and Richie's Honorable Visitors are no different. Some, like Aldous Huxley really disliked the place, and others, like Angela Carter, loved it, but they all left a record of their impressions, which Richie takes and weaves into a narrative of the West's encounter with Japan, and Japan's reactions to the West, a narrative not by historians or anthropologists, but by people. The Honorable Visitors are Isabella Bird, Ulysses S. Grant, Pierre Loti, Henry Adams, Rudyard Kipling, Aldous Huxley, William Plomer, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Cocteau, William Faulkner, Truman Capote, Angela Carter, and Marguerite Yourcenar. Overall a nice little book packed with gems and insights about Japan.

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Phaidon

ISBN: 0714846996
103 pp, 20 pp for notes

The Wallpaper City Guide Tokyo at a Glance may offer a glance, but what a tantalizing one! The easy-access thumbtabbing of this almost pocket-sized 103-page guide makes for instant delving into the finer, and finer aspects, of Tokyo's landmarks, hotels, 24-hour facilities, urban life, architecture, shopping, sports, and escapes (i.e. within an hour or so of Tokyo, including Naoshima Island). It maintains a balance of concise text and tasteful, professional photography, letting the pictures speak at least as loudly and eloquently as the words.

Describing Tokyo as one of "the world's most intoxicating cities," the Wallpaper guide to Tokyo proffers just enough of Tokyo's 'intoxicants' to get the urban connoisseur more than just started. As a kaleidoscope of Tokyo's attractions from the perfect massage to the most avant-garde building design, to the chic-est bars, and much more, this slightly left-of-center booklet is as essential a guide to Tokyo for the resident of this vast metropolis as for the visitor. The perfect antidote to staying at home or in the hotel room.

Includes a summary of general tourist information at the front, color coding on the pages of "the city’s hot "hoods," a list at the end of addresses and websites of all the institutions listed, about 20 blank and lined pages of "Notes" at the end for "sketches and memos," and a fold-out back cover outline map of Tokyo.

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Tuttle

ISBN: 0804836841
159 pp

The prolific author of various handbooks for East Asia, Boyé Lafayette De Menthe, has produced another, the Subway Guide to Tokyo. The subtitle modestly states: 'Take the right line, get off at the right station, and find the best exit!'. However, there is a lot more to this attractively designed, 160-page resource than that.
All the basic information is covered in very easy to follow and meticulously researched full-color graphic-interface detail, complete with a few passages of introductory information and advice for the Tokyo subway user. Particularly useful is information such as which cars are the closest to platform exits at connecting stations.
The next section devotes a page each to 12 of the most important stations and their environs (very considerately treating Shinjuku East exit and Shinjuku West exit in separate entries). A brief overview is given of the character of the area, places to eat, drink, and sightsee, how to get there and, if applicable, when.
Part 4, ‘Destinations Listings’ is, although included in the nature of an appendix, in many ways the handbook’s most valuable section. From Acupuncture Clinics, to Embassies, to Ice Skating, to Restaurants (organized by genre), to the Zoo, there are 97 pages of places to go that will make life in Tokyo that much more livable and enjoyable.
If the book has a minus, it would be its somewhat limited scope for the Tokyo commuter who often uses a combination of both subway and JR. As a subway guide it includes information on only a few ‘relevant’ JR stations. Also, since publication the Passnet card mentioned in it has been replaced by the Pasmo and the Suica. However, for the price, this is a handbook that neither visitor, newbie, or even old hand, should be without.

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Travelers' Tales Guides

ISBN: 1-93236125-1
411 pp

Travelers' Tales Japan is an impressive collection of true stories written by a variety of authors including Alan Booth, Susan Orlean, Dave Barry, Robert Whiting, and Leila Philip. The collection, as a whole, paints a tantalizing picture of the Japanese people and culture. The book creates the illusion of walking down a long hallway and opening doors to have a peek at a sumo tournament, bashful students in an English lesson, the décor of a love hotel room, an old man groping a woman on a crowded train, and many other topics of various types of interest. Although some of the stories can be slow reading, the pace is appropriate for the subject matter of each story.
The editors have added side notes or attached further reading recommendations to the ends of stories to clarify and aid understanding, perhaps to show a different point of view, or to add mentions that tie into the subject. The book consists of six parts: "Essence of Japan," "Some Things to Do," "Going Your Own Way," "In the Shadows," "The Last Word," and, finally, for advice on going to Japan, "The Next Step."
Travelers' Tales Japan will add an extra dimension to the Japan experience for anyone: residents, tourists, those who have been there, those who hope to go, and those who prefer to do their traveling through reading alone. Colorful, expressive, and with a truly distinctive Japanese flavor, this collection will not disappoint.

Jennifer May

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Lonely Planet

ISBN: 1-74059558-0
216 pp

Lonely Planet has just published a Tokyo guide that isn’t for the backpacker. Tokyo Encounter, gives the young tourist with time and money to spend a concise, intelligent, colorful, and easily searchable bird's eye view of the city in a glossy, pocket-sized 200 pages.
The first section of Tokyo Encounter has 16 “Highlights” - not-to-be-missed shopping and drinking spots, temples, parks and the like - followed by a very brief calendar of once-a-year things to be seen and done. The main body of the book, "Neighborhoods," features ten Tokyo neighborhoods, handily color-coded, with a short overview, a map, and "See," "Shop," "Eat," "Drink," and "Play" listings, each with a fifty-or-so word description: stylishly and thoughtfully written. Few pages are without an artful photograph, or an extra-info box.
Following "Neighborhoods" are "Snapshots": 16 little overviews of accommodation, anime and manga, architecture, food, galleries, gay and lesbian, kids, live music, markets, and more.
Next is "Background": some "textbook" stuff about Tokyo; and, finally, "Transport" and "Practicalities" (climate, discounts, emergencies, health, holidays, language, etc.) In the inside back cover is a pull-out map of Tokyo and the subway system.
Tokyo Encounter is a user-friendly, up-to-date and attractive-looking guide that, if you are visiting Tokyo, is guaranteed to steer you where you want to go with a minimal amount of homework.

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By Ruth Kanagy

Avalon

ISBN: 1598800914
328 pp

If you are thinking about relocating to Japan, planning on studying in Japan, are already there but struggling a bit, or even a long time resident―this is the book for you.

Author Ruth Kanagy was born and raised in Tokyo. She knows Japan from the inside out. She has worked in travel and now has written a wonderful book full of gems. 

Living Abroad in Japan is full of practical information that will help in
with among other things getting started. This includes getting visas, opening a bank account, finding work, getting health care, and more.

The book starts off with concise, easy to read sections on Japanese
history, geography, and the people.

Then there are pages and pages of detailed advice.

Kanagy then ends her book with sections on six "prime living locations":
Tokyo, Hokkaido, the central mountains, Kansai, Seto Inland Sea area, and
Kyushu.

A very useful work.

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