Comment by timr
1 day ago
Yes, I agree that it's a better way to travel if you can do it, but most people can't [1].
That said, even for short-term tourists, Japan used to be kind of a miracle in terms of the quality and service you would get for the money. I know it sounds like hipster whining, but that time is in the past.
[1] My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all, unless it's to go to a luxury hotel and sit on a beach or something packaged like that. But I realize that this will not be a popular opinion.
I used to live in Japan in 1999-2001, and I was just there again for a month this summer.
Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.
Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.
The article mentions Yamaguchi, Toyama, Morioka, etc., and I definitely agree -- there are tons of places off the tourist beaten-track, and any of them is worth a visit.
On my recent trip I was in Kobe, which unlike Yamaguchi etc. I expect the average HN reader has heard of. But even there, there was little trace of overtourism.
Alex Kerr lamented all the way back in 1993 (in his book Lost Japan) that Kyoto had essentially lost its soul. And if you go to the areas most commonly seen on Instagram and TikTok, that's probably partially true. But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you!
> Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.
I assume you mean "relative to other places" here, and in that sense, I agree. Japan is not yet entirely Epcot Center.
> Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.
Right, exactly. Except that I'm seeing this spread like cancer -- which it always does. Sort of like gentrification, the "authenticity seeking tourist" leaves Senso-ji a few blocks, and then before too long Kappabashi is no longer a functioning street of restaurant supply stores (instead becoming a dead zone of "japanese knife" and matcha retailers), and so on.
> But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you
Yeah, I lived in Kyoto a decade ago, and I say that to my Japanese friends, too. The thing is, even vs. 2-3 years ago, the number of those authentic places is dramatically fewer. People have been complaining about tourism in Kyoto forever, but they're also not wrong.
So is the advice "do not visit Japan, learn about it from books and the internet"? Or just pretend it doesn't exist? Maybe do the same with all other countries?
The Japanese in turn do a lot of tourism abroad, to the point the "Japanese tourist" is as much a stereotype as the American one. Should they stay put and not leave their home towns?
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> Perhaps not in... whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.
When I went last year, two of the random places I went because they got featured in some anime were some of the most authentic-feeling experiences I had.
One was a small town on the east coast near a beach; a lot of it felt like a ghost town (I barely saw any locals, let alone tourists). I was able to go and respectfully visit a really nice shrine while being able to keep my distance enough that I knew I wasn't bothering anyone. I also found a cool aquarium I didn't know was there, and I'm pretty sure I was the only foreigner I saw/heard while visiting it.
The other was a less-deserted but still small area outside of a less popular city. There was an island I wanted to go onto that I couldn't, but I improvised and found a beautiful hike to a summit overlooking it instead. While I was walking up, I had at least two elderly folks say hello to me in Japanese, and a pair of young children walking with their mom say hello in English (way more unprompted interaction than I got just walking around in any of the cities, aside from employees advertising things).
So just because a place was featured in an anime doesn't mean it's necessarily a tourist trap. Just don't go in expecting the place to be entirely defined by that (and it also helps if it's been at least a few years since said anime was popular).
> But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you!
Extremely true. I just got back from Japan and I was very pleased by how little effort it took to get off the tourist trail, even in Kyoto. Of course some popular attractions are still worth seeing and for those, visiting around opening is usually enough to avoid the worst of the crowds. (If you're flying in from the US there's a good chance jet lag has you up at 5am anyway, so this is an effective strategy even for non-morning people.)
The time of the year probably matters too. I didn't find Japan to be terribly overcrowded when I went this February. Certain areas (and the minuscule Kyoto buses) were, but that happens in every tourist location.
I also went to places like Beppu or Kagoshima where I barely saw any tourists.
Yes, Shikoku and Kyushu are both very pleasant from my experience. Shikoku felt the least visited. In Matsuyama, I saw only a handful of western tourists and even those were mostly blended families probably visiting relatives.
It was really pleasant. I keep trying to move farther off the beaten path on each trip.
In Beppu you’d mostly find Korean tourists who come by ferry, rather than the wrecking ball tokyo-osaka-kyoto tourists.
I fully agree, whirlwind "see the major tourist attractions" sort of travel where you visit someplace for a couple of days or a week is not very interesting to me.
Honestly travel in general is not very interesting to me. It's expensive, inconvenient, commoditized, cliche. But especially that sort of travel.
I can see taking a break to go somewhere warm if you live in a place with long gloomy winters. Or going somewhere to visit family, or to do something that just isn't available where you live (skiing or fishing trip or something like that). But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me.
Even if you're only going somewhere for a week, you don't have to see all the major attractions. You also don't have to plan every moment and research what restaurants to visit etc.
You can set out to discover cool stuff on your own. Walk around a non-touristy neighborhood until you see a restaurant full of locals dining and eat there.
It's nice to break out of your routine and experience something new for a few days.
Just hanging out in a walkable city for a few days is nice change from driving everywhere in the suburbs. I couldn't live in a city though.
Cool! So when will most jobs give you month-long (or more) vacations so that we mortals can do "proper" tourism?
> But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me
What is there in life but looking around, learning new things and experiencing new stuff?
You’re basically saying that only extroverts are allowed to be tourists.
Fuck that.
> My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all
That's a bad take, because it means if you're not rich or a hippie backpacker without attachments, you cannot do international travel.
What's worse, many of these issues affect local tourism within your own country as well (ruining places for the locals, lots of tourist traps sprouting, etc).
So effectively the advice becomes "stay at home, don't vacation, or if you do vacation stay at some prepackaged place".
Which I frankly disagree with.
> So effectively the advice becomes "stay at home, don't vacation, or if you do vacation stay at some prepackaged place".
I didn't expect it to be a popular take, but I feel like the "sightseeing travel" model is varying degrees of bankrupt, and I'm not apologizing for my opinion.
Having lived in a number of tourist hotspots in my life, I've come to the conclusion that almost nothing one encounters in a tourist setting is authentic. Therefore, you're engaging in very expensive cosplay, erected entirely for your benefit, and almost always at the expense of the culture of the place you are visiting. However fun it may be for you or I, it's still just Disneyland. And while Disneyland may be of net economic benefit to the local people who live near Disneyland, let's not get hoity-toity about it and pretend that we're discovering deep truths of the universe by going to Angkor Wat and snapping a photo.
You don't have to do a "prepackaged vacation", but do something more substantial than moving around constantly and looking at stuff through a camera -- volunteer, take a course, attend a conference, teach English...whatever! Just go there for a reason other than "being a tourist".
It's not Disneyland, what's with the mania of taking everything to extremes?
> You don't have to do a "prepackaged vacation", but do something more substantial than moving around constantly and looking at stuff through a camera -- volunteer, take a course, attend a conference, teach English...whatever! Just go there for a reason other than "being a tourist".
The hell? We're discussing vacationing, not volunteer work. Teaching English? It's not my native language, why would I? I already have a job where I live, and I responsibilities here. Volunteer work? My country needs it way more than wealthy Japan, why would I go there?
What's wrong with tourism, seeing Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto? I don't get more than 2 weeks vacation where I work, I should use them to volunteer according to you?
I swear, the first world entitlement in some of these comments... like yours...
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