Lonely Planet Discover Japan 1st Ed.: 1st Edition [Paperback]

I lived in Japan for quite a few years, and while I don't need a travel guide to the country anymore I am always curious on how well new travel guides highlight all the madness and charm that can be found there. Consequently, I own a lot of travel guides to Japan. I have also hosted a lot of visitors in Japan, and have learned over the years what works and what doesn't.

I admit that I have never been a huge fan of the Lonely Planet series, as their books tend to be just lists of places with tongue-in-cheek humor but not a terrible amount of depth. I have the previous Japan (Country Guide) and this "Discover Japan" volume covers much of the same information, only updated with color photographs and some flash and pizzazz.

Right from the start, I had some problems with "Discover Japan." First off, it touts Japan as "one of the cheapest countries in the developed world" which is simply wrong. Japan is incredibly expensive to travel in, with Tokyo being one of the most expensive cities on the planet. Consider that this is a country whose smallest paper currency is equivalent to US $10 (1000 yen), and dollar coins (100 yen) are just chump change. I lived in the Kansai area, which is not as expensive as Tokyo, and even then it was hard to step out your door for less than a hundred dollars a day.

Along with this, it says that Visa and Mastercard are "widely excepted," which is completely untrue and a dangerous thing to say. Japan is an almost entirely cash-based society, and I have had to pay for more than one visitor who blindly ordered at a large restaurant just assuming they could pay with their credit card and being shocked when they are told "cash only." Even the ubiquitous convenience stores don't always take plastic, and the cash machines close at normal bank hours so you have to get used to carrying large sums of cash around with you.

Next, we are presented with a "Japan's Top 25 Experiences" list, with "Kyoto's Temples and Gardens" being in the number one position. (The photo included is actually the Torii path at Fushimi Inari Shrine, made famous in the film Memoirs of a Geisha but located outside of Kyoto city, so don't look for it there.) Probably my number one advice to visitors is "don't waste too much time in Kyoto."

Don't get me wrong, Kyoto has some beautiful areas, but the dreamy city sold to you by guidebooks simply doesn't exist, and those pockets of cherry-blossom lined streets are carefully tucked away in concrete urban sprawl. On top of that, some of Kyoto's most famous buildings, like the Golden Pavilion Kinkakuji, are nothing more than modern replicas of older structures. (The modern Kinkakuji was built in 1955, for example) The nearby Nara Park, on the other hand, with its sprawling wilderness, tame deer than can be hand-fed, and giant Todai-ji temple with the massive Great Buddha statue, is always much more of a crowd pleaser. There is decent coverage of Nara Park in the book, but it deserves more attention than its more famous neighbor Kyoto.

Temples and Shrines are very much the focus of "Discover Japan," and almost every regional chapter highlights the local version. This is the book for what we call the "green tea and onsens" traveler who wants to step back into Japan's past that they see in samurai films rather than the modern country. I love shrines and temples probably even more than the next guy, but every visitor I have had to Japan gets "templed-out" pretty quickly, and has more fun standing in the busy street of Dontonbori Osaka with the mechanical signs waving tentacles at you and pumping out steam and every street hawker shouting for your attention. Yet Dotonbori gets little more than a brief paragraph. I was happy to see the Osaka Aquarium get a mention on the "must see" list, but I have to admit that the Osaka Aquarium is nothing compared to the much-larger Okinawa Aquarium which deserves the spot instead.

There is a lot more that could be done here. For example, every area of Japan has its own regional food which could have been mentioned, or even cool things sake brewery tours or some of Japan's more unique attractions like the Studio Ghibli museum or the Instant Ramen museum or even some of the amazing roller coasters that Japan is famous for like the terrifying Eejanaika "4-D" roller coaster at Fuji-Q Highland amusement park near the base of Mt. Fuji. From reading this "Discover Japan" guidebook, you get the idea that Japan has not changed for a thousand years and you could expect to encounter shaven-headed men walking around in kimono and geta and white-faced geisha blushing around every corner.

The benefits of "Discover Japan" is that the book is really well put-together and visually beautiful. The pages are color coded for easy reference and the full-color pictures make a difference. There is a feature I really enjoyed, where a professional guide from each major region gives their personal "Top Ten" list of what to see. Also, the place names are written in the Japanese language, which is essential as the further you get away from Tokyo the less English-language signs you will see, especially on menus and in train stations.

My favorite Japan guidebook remains Gateway to Japan, which is admittedly out-dated and not ideal for a casual tourist but it is by far the most informative. Some of the local city guides, like Old Kyoto are also worth it and I have found some hidden gems there like the Japanese print dealer Nishiharu. If you plan on stepping into the steaming water of an onsen (and you are a fool to travel all the way to Japan and miss out on that!) then you will need How to Take a Japanese Bath. For visual splendor and to get you excited, the Japan (Eyewitness Travel Guides) is a good investment.

For me, even though it was well designed this "Discover Japan" book was just lacking too much, and only showed one face of the multi-faceted culture of Japan. Anyone planning a trip is better off picking up a few different books and making their own plans rather than following Lonely Planet's pre-set itineraries and experiences.

Disclosure: I have owned and used only one other travel book in my life, so I don't have much to compare this one too. I am simply giving my impressions as a novice travel planner.

First off, I actually went to Japan!! This year! I spent 6 weeks in the Kansai region for a language program, and I traveled to Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Tokyo, Shirakawa-go, Takayama, Gifu, Inuyama, Hiroshima, Himeiji, Sekigahara, Mt. Koya, and Mt. Hiei. I got this book before I left, but unfortunately forgot to take it with me. I did read the entire section on the Kansai region and some highlights of Gifu prefecture before I left. So as you might guess, my review will focus heavily on the section of the book featuring the Kansai region.

The book is nicely arranged: it starts out with some important things to know, gives some suggested itineraries, and then presents places to visit divided by region. Each region contains a regional map and a list of highlights of the region. It is then divided into cities in the region, giving some history, maps, and general information, before listing the attractions.
At the back of the book is a valuable little section called "Japan in Focus". It explains some about the history of Japan, the food, and various aspects of travel that are useful to know (such as explaining ryokan and onsen). I missed this section the first time I went through the book (I thought it was just another region section). I think it would have been much better placed at the beginning of the book.

I do agree with some other reviewers; some of the attractions given prominent positions should have been smaller, while some of the attractions shoved into the background should have been brought forward, but I am sure not everyone would agree with me and you can't please everyone. I don't believe that anyone should rely on a single source of information when planning their trip. I used this book to get an idea of what was out there and places I might want to visit, then I did more extensive research online. This book isn't all that big, and that is one of the things I like about it - it is very portable. And for its size, I think that it did an excellent job of choosing which attractions it included. One thing I do concede is that it spent too many pages on Kyoto. Of the number of pages devoted to the Kansai region (home to tons of famous and beautiful historical sites), more than half is focused on Kyoto. I had mixed feelings about Kyoto. It did have many interesting places to visit, but after all the idealistic pictures I saw before going, I had expected a bit more. I think that if I had actually stayed in the city itself rather than take day trips from Osaka, I might have enjoyed it more.
Note: Kinkakuji is beautiful, but if you've seen a picture of it, then there isn't really much of a reason to see it in person. It looks just like its pictures - from all angles. It does have nice grounds though. Instead, visit Kiyomizu-dera!

If you plan on spending a few nights in the Kansai region, the Kansai Thru Pass is a must. The three day pass (currently 5,000¥, also available as a two-day pass for a little less) lets you ride trains and buses unlimitedly (though not JR lines) for approx $17 a day (and the days do not have to be consecutive!). The JR pass is awesome (must be purchase outside of Japan!), but only if you intend to do long distance travel. The book covers the JR pass quite well, but I had to scour the internet to find the KTP. WHY?! To get anywhere in Japan you have to take a train, but for some reason the only train pass that is advertised anywhere is the JR pass, which is a little over $300 for one consecutive week.

I loved the Kansai region, but my favorite part of Japan was the Central Honshu area, specifically the areas in the Japanese Alps. Takayama and Shirakawa-go (and Inuyama) were the highlight of my entire 6-week trip. The book's section on this area is not very long, but it contains the good general information, and the information on the bus from Takayama to Shirakawa-go was accurate.

One reviewer complains that the book inaccurately represents Japan as a inexpensive place to travel. I agree with them (though $100 is ridiculous), but I can also see why the book might make that statement. Admissions were generally below $5, if you stay in a youth hostel (pretty nice actually) it is about $35 a person, and if you get the train passes you can get all over the place for a relatively cheap price. Don't think that it will be cheaper to travel in Japan than it would be in America, but remember that America also doesn't have nearly the amount of cool stuff to see! My lodging was paid for by the program I was with, but outside of that I spent about $1200 the entire trip (6 weeks or 42 days), which averages a little under $30 a day. This includes all transportation, admittance, food, and souvenirs.

The last thing I have to say is that the color really mattered! I didn't think that it was all that important that a travel book have colored pictures (the last one I used didn't), and admittedly the color didn't reveal any missing details, but seeing the images in color just made it seem more real and made me much more excited about going to the places pictured. I also think that it made the maps easier to read.

I purchased this book in advance of a 1-week trip to Japan. I decided to take this over the thicker, more expensive, "classic" Japan guide, because I thought it might be a more focused, lighter option for a short trip.

It seems that a lot of good content was edited out in favor of glossy photos and top-ten lists. The lists are fine by themselves, but most repeat content from elsewhere in the book, resulting in a lot of duplicated information, which is not always located where you would expect. For example, try finding the best Onsen (or Sentoh) in Kyoto, and you'll need to find the "Best Onsens" list, far away from the Kyoto-specific section...

By giving so many pages over to lists and photos, the city pages suffer, and a lot of what i'd consider must-see sights are left out... Ultimately, I was disappointed, and ended up using printed pdfs from a downloaded copy of the original Japan guide over this attractive but frustrating guidebook.