Let's Go Japan 1st Ed

Three years ago I found myself with a few weeks off and a little bit of extra money, and so I decided to fly to Tokyo. I had taken a few classes in Japanese, and thought that I would have no problem, as I didnt make any reservations the entire trip, two weeks by the seat of my pants. This guide book is the only thing that made that possible. From its advice on getting the right train passes to helping me find a small temple in Northern Japan where I spent then night and woke as the sun rose to meditate infront of a gaint golden Buddha with monks, it was my constant travel companion. I do own other guides to Japan, but no other ones helped me, the 20 something travler as much. Go to Japan, and take this with you!

First off, I'm slightly biased towards Let's Go having traveled with them throughout Europe, South and Central America and a bit of Asia. The benefits of Let's Go are its wide variety of food and accomodation recommendations. It provides restraunts focusing on a wide variety of food at cheap prices. And if possible, it mentions any late night eats too. It also includes phone numbers that are useful to give to a taxi driver who doesn't know where your destination is. One weakness is if you want to stay at nicer places and eat at nicer restraunts (although this book usually gives a couple options in the larger cities). If you want all your hotels to speak English, restraunts to have a true chef and the idea of comfort is significantly more important than price, this is probably not your book. The quantity of maps in Let's Go is better than any other book I've used. They are usually quite complete and accurate (including almost all destinations written in Japanese). However, since Let's Go focuses on less established restraunts, some do go out of business. Usually, I can't find one restraunt every two weeks of travel (even though I do usually find the building). The provided itinaries in Let's Go are usually lacking. They tend to be themed such as "The Beaches of Japan" or "The Zen Tour of Japan" rather than what the average traveler will use. To plan the trip, your best bet is just to read through the book. Let's Go does a great job of telling you what impression a city evokes, so it's easy for one to determine if you want to visit it. One of my favorite things Let's Go does is to give detailed information (bus, train, other) of how to travel between cities. However, this type of information does change often, so occasionally Let's Go has the wrong times. But the frequency of the trains are usually more important than specific times. For instance, if there are only two trains a day and both are in the morning. Even if the exact times are not correct, you can expect primarily morning trains to your destination. To summarize: The book is great for the budget traveler. It is also the most detailed in terms of maps and transportation of other (LP and Frommer's) Japan travel books. For the moderate traveler, if these weaknesses aren't a big deal, I'd recommend this book. If they are, Frommer's book is a good choice.

This was my 1st experience with the Let's Go series. I'd use them again if for no other reason than 99% of those on round the world trips have LP guides under their arms. My only complaint was that I relied on the SPECIFIC directions regarding Narita (the city, not the airport) and it had me on the other side of town wasting precious time trying to find the temple until my flight departed from NRT. Having said that, once I got to the shrine and realized that my luggage had been STOLEN, the vocab in the back assisted me greatly in this very non-English friendly country. Buy the Japan Rail Pass if you go, it's so very valuable. Sayonara.

Let's Go Japan fills the same niche for traveling as Rough Guide Japan (RG), Lonely Planet Japan (LP), and the older Moon Guide Japan. However, it's the smallest and lightest and leaves out most of the higher priced hotels and ryokan as well as out-of-the-way places away from the core areas. It doesn't have as many places as either RG or LP, but it has more than anyone is going to get to in one trip. It also has a few that neither of the others have such as Fukushima City and Nagatoro in Saitama. The maps are on a par with either RG or LP for detail, but these are bilingual; both Japanese and Romaji are on the maps without having to turn to a separate list on a different page. The pages are also divided like LP's with black edges with the name of the region, making finding a section easier. The back page lists all the maps in the book for easy access. The front pages are 2 maps of Tokyo trains/subways and 1 map of the eastern slopes of Kyoto around Kiyomizu Temple to Ginkakuji. Access couldn't be much easier. Information about each place is given but is minimal. This guide is to get you to a place and into a hotel. If you want stories, pictures, and history, buy a Fodors or Frommers. If you're an individual traveler who can pick up this information from the ticket counter or information booth as he/she goes, why carry it with you? However, there are interesting boxes scattered throughout with different factoids about the area that you normally wouldn't come across in any guide or book, such as the "Masters of the Onsen Universe" challenge in Beppu, or the "Sakuda Gold & Silver Leaf Company" in Kanazawa. Of the 3 (Moon apparently gave up) individual travel guides, this is the smallest and most succinct. However, it doesn't lose much, and for anyone briefly heading out to the more distant locations from Narita, and who isn't going on the Tokyo-Hakone-Kyoto 6-day 7-night tour, but is traveling around on a rail pass or an "18-ken," this is a good choice. It's got enough information to get you started until you feel comfortable enough going w/o a guide, which is the goal of any traveler. Hotels and Restaurants listed are the cheapest these folks could find. There are cheaper or other hotels just as cheap that they missed, but there are listings here that are not in either of the other two. In some areas the restaurants are listed by type, with "noodles" being just one category. If you want something else, it's listed, also. If you want expensive restaurants, these are easy to find. Sometimes the cheap ramen shops are not as obvious. I think RG & LP have a great new competitor.

Let's Go's first crack at a Japan guide book leaves all the others way behind crying in their dust. Japan is feared as inaccessible because everyone believes that it is expensive and has a huge language barrier (the lowest English ability in Asia!) which makes it impossible to travel here. This guide solves these problems for the budget traveler! It simply outlines the best way to do Japan on a budget. And with the bilingual maps you can say good-bye to your language barrier. These maps are a 1000 times better than Lonely Planets, Rough Guides and Frommers put together. In a country where very few streets if any have names, and very little is written in english, these maps are like a ray of shining light on the incomprehensible signs that are everywhere in Japan. Don't worry about having confusing conversation with a local to find your way any longer, just show them the detailed map, point to where you want to go, and both you and the local will understand each other completely. If I could... I'd give this guide 10 stars!! It has literally saved me hundreds of dollars in travel and confusion, and I live in Tokyo and can speak Japanese! For non-speakers, do not even think about buying different Japan guide, this is the one you want!