Library Reviews
LONELY PLANET
A pair of Japan travel guides featuring Lonely Planet’s updated styling. Each one outlines targeted, conveniently bundled experiences. Also arguably still retaining the traditional benefits of zero power consumption and wifi independence.
Starting as kind of a homebrew in the 1970s, The Lonely Planet guidebooks became indispensable companions for generations of travellers and backpackers. Despite such a beloved heritage, editions from the late 2010s started to receive pushback around shrinking page counts and picture proliferation. Accordingly, be aware that neither book has the old directory-like compilation of addresses, contacts, pricing, hours, etc for every attraction and low level maps are also absent. No doubt expecting such lifting to be outsourced to Google and GPS.
These guides are geared towards presenting an array of pre-crafted, parcelled travel ideas. As opposed to a shotgun of attractions for a DIY itinerary. The amount of photos are perhaps bowing to visual expectations conditioned from social media. However, the images are varied, and make it clear at a glance what is the main appeal of a particular site.
Journey
SHIKOKU PILGRIMAGE
Japan’s Sacred Temple Walk
There are 88 official temples on the 1200km loop and the course is associated with a Buddhist monk, Kōbō Daishi, from the 8th century. Though he walked the circuit, this guide isn’t expecting purely the same. There are notes on travelling to and from each of the sites and the notes sometimes mention cycling in addition to rail and car. Besides the intrinsic qualities of each site, part of the allure is the progressive achievement of collecting a complete set of temple stamps as proof of visitation.
Both of these two guides lack direct ancestor editions and are part of new, book families. To partially breakdown the cover text; “Journey” has been used for a handful of books that each covers a famous path or route from a single country.
Best Road Trips
JAPAN Escapes on the Open Road
Contains 36 driving routes that are mostly multi day adventures but also has some as short as day trips and some as long as a week on the road. Trips exist for all home islands plus Okinawa. Itineraries for Honshu make up about half of the combined content while Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku each are roughly equal with one another for routes. Despite the overnight durations, there is little coverage of accommodation. Mainly only a paragraph of general information under the subheading of “Where to stay” that is found in the overview for a regional grouping of routes.
Both of these two guides lack direct ancestor editions and are part of new, book families. “Best Road Trips” has cousin titles in Japan for “Best Bike Rides” and “Best Day Hikes”.
