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Product Description
Daily Telegraph, London, UK
Full of practical advice.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Review
The holiday-makers' favourite guidebook series (The Sunday Times Travel Magazine )
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In the past I have found it both a bonus and a sadness that the excellent Rough Guide books do not seem to be well known outside of Britain. It is sad because their books are generally excellent - not only are there guides to destinations but a superb Rough Guide to World Music,guides and CDs on different world music types, a guide to world cinema, to the millennium, etc- but it is a bonus also because when you are travelling you don`t find yourself drawn to the same places as all those other Lonely Planet and Fodors users.
This is not simply because of their users rarity, but because the coverage seems to be so much more in depth. I have just moved to Japan and in my first 6 months here I have been as much a tourist as a resident and a travel guide has been useful. What I do now have though is a local knowledge of my part of Japan (Southern Kyushu) that goes beyond a travel guide so I think I have a good perspective on guides` coverage of this part of Japan.
I have to say that Lonely Planet is a little too trendy for its own good. It seems its coverage of the big cities is pretty much spot on, but get beyond the suburbs and it starts to become scanty. Rough Guide on the other hand maybe fails a little in the cities, but comes up trumps in the `real` areas of Japan.
I live in one of the more remote, traditional and frankly bizarre areas in Japan (Kagoshima) but LP has hardly any coverage of this area. A good example of Rough Guide`s superiority is its entry on an Island near me called Yakushima. It has been declared a world heritage site because of the `Land That Time Forgot` style rain forests and cedar trees several thousands of years old. LP has only a single paragraph while RG stretches to a few pages with travel and accomodation hints.
I can not comment on RGs coverage of the rest of Japan, but I know that for Kyushu it is the best guide. I really appreciate RGs straight forward, unpretencious and holistic style (buy the RG to Japanese Music CD- weird and wonderful); I recommend you give it a try.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the best of the major guidebooks on Japan. Much more information than Lonely Planet and the DK Guide, and better all round, too, than Fodor's. What's here is first class, solid, useful, insightful stuff. A new editon has since been published.
59 of 66 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Without a shadow of a doubt, the best and most authoritative guide available on Japan. TRG won the Travel Guidebook of the Year Award, and for good reason. Like all TRGs, the Japan edition is broken down into several logical and intuitive sections, beginning with 'the basics' (getting there, climate data, health, insurance, sports, etc.), going through all the various regions of Japan and finishing with a section called 'contexts', which deals with history, religion, arts, environmental issues, language and so forth. Like the majority of guidebooks, there is a large emphasis on the capital, with a good chunk of the book devoted completely to Tokyo, but unlike other capitals, the megapolis of c.23m people probably deserves the treatment and still not everything is covered. Unlike its poorer cousin, the Lonely Planet series, the Rough Guide doesn't go in for scorning attractions or areas, but the text is laced with good advice and enough value judgements to help you spend your time wisely. The authors have done a splendid job of rooting out some real gems and are not obnoxiously opinionated, something which always grates when one is reduced to referring to Lonely Planets. TRG has surveys of accommodation, restaurants and entertainments for each area; it covers the whole price range but in doing so can become scanty if you are always, for example, on a low budget. The text is dense and stuffed with maps which come in very handy indeed. My only criticism of TRG is that, like all products that have to be commercially viable, it doesn't really cater to minorities, e.g. gay and lesbian travellers/residents. This is - to an extent - understandable, but no excuse not to provide better links to alternative sources of information. Otherwise, a thoroughly-researched and comprehensively accurate tome (in 4 months I have found only 4 inaccuracies in it, two of them numerical and of no significance, one a outdated phone number and one an inexistant website). If you are visiting Japan for any significant length of time, buy this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Excellent guide book
This is an excellent guide book and I thoroughly recommend it. I have just used a copy on a ten-week tour of the country. Read more
Published 14 days ago by Mark Kirsh
Layout makes it hard to use
We didn't like using this book at all. It broke areas down into sections so it was difficult to see the bigger picture. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Anthony
Excelllent guide, but e-version has problems
I went to Japan for the first time so I needed a good guide. I had actually both this and the Lonely Planet guide, and they are both good, but this is better. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jippu
Don't go to Japan without this book!
An absolute must for anyone going to Japan. Good up to date information, clear maps and accurate descriptions. Even if you pay full price, it's worth it!!
Published 3 months ago by LS London
Up There with Most Rough Guides
We have about 20 Rough Guides in our collection and will always consider them first when exploring other countries. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Greg Scowen
As good as Rough Guides always are
Very informative with good background information, history and a useful language guide (but could be more extensive). Read more
Published 8 months ago by Thomas Swade
Rough Guide Japan 2011
In my opinion, The rough guide to Japan 2011 gives a great snapshot of the whole of Japan. If you intend on travelling around Japan then this book is a great source to start with. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Tom
Good companion
This book was extremely useful in educating us before and during our trip. It kept us up to date with what to expect and it never let us down. It is well worn now!
Published 10 months ago by syntaxss
Lots of very bad things about this book
I'm in Japan and feel moved to tell other potential readers about problems we've had with this guide. Read more
Published on 17 May 2005 by Giles Hogben
Good general info but starter reference only
As it's names suggests, this book is a good comprehensive and readable rough guide to Japan. However, if you want a more in-depth source of info you'd be better off contacting the... Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2003
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