Editorial team

How we work

Most Japan itineraries are written once and never priced again. Fares move – JR East raised its by 7.8% in March 2026, its first rise in thirty-nine years, and the Japan Rail Pass rises again on 1 October – and a route page carrying round numbers is a route page nobody can use.

So each writer owns a beat and the records inside it. A travel leg is stored with its fare, the company that charges it and the date we checked; a place is stored with its admission, its hours and a verdict with a reason. The pages that compare things are computed from those records, which is why the JR Pass verdict on every route shows its arithmetic instead of asserting a conclusion.

Where a figure is not published – and a surprising amount is not – the page says so. Tōfuku-ji has not announced its 2026 night illumination, so we do not reprint last year's dates as though they were this year's.

What we do not do

No paid placements. A hotel, a restaurant or a tour appears here because a writer decided it belonged, never because anyone paid for the mention; where a link earns us a commission we say so on the page, and the rail pass guide concludes against buying one on both of our own routes. No anonymous copy: every page has a byline you can follow to the work behind it.

The editorial standards page has the rest of the rules, and the privacy page covers how the bylines and the pictures work.