A country where a train five minutes late hands the passenger a written delay certificate
Japan is a trip planned with numbers rather than impressions: the distances are longer than they look, the trains are accurate to the minute, and the most expensive decision is made before departure — whether to buy a JR Pass, which since the last price rise pays off less often than people assume.
The first thing to grasp is the scale. Tokyo to Kyoto is about 450 kilometres, two hours fifteen by shinkansen; Hiroshima is an hour and a half beyond that. The country runs over three thousand kilometres from northern Hokkaido to southern Okinawa, so a ten-day trip covers one band of it — usually Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, with Hiroshima as an extension.
Each place has its own page — what makes it worth the detour, and how long you need.
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The JR Pass is the largest single cost and the most common mistake. The ordinary seven-day pass is about ¥50,000, and from 1 October 2026 it is ¥53,000 through overseas agents — buy on the official JR site and you still pay the old price. The classic Tokyo–Kyoto–Hiroshima–Tokyo route, paid ride by ride, comes to about ¥45,000, below the pass. The pass only wins if those seven days really are full of travel, or if you head further north and south; on a standard first visit it usually does not pay. Run the sums for your actual plan, on a calculator, before buying.
Of Tokyo's two airports, Tokyo airport (HND) is 18 km from the centre as the crow flies and Narita (NRT) 64 km.
The shinkansen has run since 1964, and average delay on the main line is measured in a minute or so, weather stoppages included. When a delay passes five minutes, the station hands out a written delay certificate that passengers show to an employer or a school.
Official figures said 6,852 islands for decades. When the Geospatial Information Authority remeasured on digital maps in 2023, the answer came out at 14,125. The land did not change — the resolution of the map did.
Japan has one of the densest networks of street vending machines in the world, roughly one per thirty people. In winter the same machine sells hot tea and hot canned coffee, which is the only reason the blue and red buttons differ.
Kongo Gumi was founded in 578 to build the Shitenno-ji temple in Osaka and stayed a family construction firm until 2006, when it was absorbed by a larger group. Fourteen centuries in one line of work.
Most public onsen still refuse guests with visible tattoos, because of the historical association between tattooing and organised crime. Some places have relaxed and only ask that the tattoo be covered with a patch — but you check that in advance, not at the desk.
Public bins were removed en masse after the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway and never came back. Rubbish is carried to your hotel or to the convenience store on the corner; it is the one thing that makes a visitor feel, on day one, that something is missing.
This isn't a ranking — it's a route. Any one of these could carry a whole trip.
Fuji is better looked at than climbed, and Hakone is where you look at it from: Lake Ashi with a torii in the water, a ropeway over a sulphur valley and a little train that zigzags up the hill. About ninety minutes from Tokyo by rail. The mountain shows itself roughly every other day — more often in winter than summer, and almost always in the morning.
The mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu in the mountains north of Tokyo, UNESCO-listed since 1999. The Yomeimon gate is so densely carved that it has been known for centuries as the gate where a day gets lost. Two hours by train from Tokyo; done as a long day trip or with one night.
A city the 1945 bombing never touched, so whole samurai and geisha quarters still stand. The Kenroku-en garden is counted among the three finest in the country, and in winter its pines are roped into cones so the snow cannot break them — the image Kanazawa is remembered by.
A mountain monastery complex south of Osaka, founded in 816. You sleep in a temple, dinner is vegetarian and morning prayers start before six. The Okunoin cemetery is two kilometres of path between cedars and over two hundred thousand memorials — walked in the evening, by lantern.
The northern island, climatically a different country: cooler than the rest of Japan in summer, and in winter the kind of snow skiers travel for. July lavender fields at Furano and the February snow festival in Sapporo are two reasons to come, and they rule each other out.
Japan has more people over sixty-five than under fifteen, and over ninety thousand who have passed a hundred. Sales of adult nappies overtook sales of baby nappies in 2011.
Japan feels around fifteen hundred earthquakes a year. Buildings are therefore set on sliding bearings with dampers, and the 634-metre Skytree has a concrete core that sways in the opposite direction to the tower.
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
Not if you hold one of the passports on Japan's visa-exemption list — EU, UK, US, Canada and Australia among them — for stays up to 90 days. The exemption is set per passport, so check your own before booking.
For the standard Tokyo–Kyoto–Hiroshima–Tokyo route, usually not. The seven-day pass is about ¥50,000, and those journeys bought individually come out cheaper. It only wins on a dense plan or longer distances.
In Tokyo and Kyoto usually late March and the first week of April, but the date shifts by up to a week. The blossom forecast is published in winter and watched close to departure, not a year ahead.
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All photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under the licence stated beside each one.
