The ultimate guide to exploring a new prefecture, Jonah-style
Jonah Meggs, Fukue
Jonah-style: avoiding all major cities, expensive hotels and crowded places as much as possible. Involves renting a car.
This is just a short writeup on my process for planning a holiday. Enjoy!
Step 1: Choose a prefecture.
The reason I say this is because I value spending a longer time in a smaller area over rushing around all over the place. If you’re not sure where to go, don’t worry, I have you covered. You know on a Windows 10 computer how the lock screen features a constantly changing beautiful picture? I found them all, got all the photos taken in Japan, and put them on a map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1TzDNnA74edFqOxGHz4Qn0jQb4jAZBMw&usp=sharing
I’ve been to about 8 of them now, and I love trying to find the exact spot the Windows 10 picture was taken at! Here’s my favorite, in Shimane (left is the screensaver, right is mine):
Step 2: Find cool places in said prefecture.
I think that if you don’t do a little bit of research, you’re going to miss a lot of really cool things. That being said, most English websites won’t point you to these hidden gems either. So how do you find cool places to visit?
It turns out that every prefecture has a ‘navi’ website, or in other words a domestic tourism site. These sites list a lot of the awesome places in that prefecture, and include popular places as well as out-of-the-way places. The number of places listed varies but can be in the order of thousands, so you can also choose a region in the prefecture to narrow your search. To find these prefecture websites, I typically search the prefecture name in Japanese, go to the prefecture site, and find the link to their navi/tourism page. For example this is the kumamoto page: https://kumamoto.guide/spots/
One of the hidden gems found in Kumamoto:
Step 3: Make a map!
All this information can be overwhelming, and of course you’re going to eventually want to know how to get to all of these cool places, so make a map! You can make custom maps in Google’s “My Maps” tool (https://mymaps.google.com/). Create a new map, and for every place on the prefecture navi website you think looks cool, put it into the map! This can be time consuming, but I assure you it is worth it. The map allows you to effectively plan where to start and finish on each day. Here are the maps I’ve made so far:
Kumamoto: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1IDAgM2EUkuhi2duO04umtrT5TXOBQ6s&usp=sharing
Shizuoka: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1tjdH6MQaOZpb0KzG6mg_fO4OVeyKz8k&usp=sharing
Yamaguchi + Shimane: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1uS2MtLaxaAoA-RviHlipiEuDtlW5OJg&usp=sharing
On each map I put the navi website in the description so it’s easy for me to find again. One more thing about adding stuff to the map – I strongly advise you to add pictures. This is because when you look at the map a week after you made it, you aren’t going to remember what all these cool places are, especially if the names are in Japanese. So when you add a place to the map, click the picture icon, and then I choose “Image URL” and copy the url of the image from the prefecture navi site.
Step 4: Find places to stay
You may have already found some cool lodges from the navi site (if I have time I’ll do a writeup of the sick bungalows I’ve stayed at in Japan) but if not, no stress. Have a look at your map, and try to connect the dots to give yourself a rough plan of the route you’ll take. I rarely go to all the dots on a map. Based on this, look for places to stay in convenient locations. You can mark options on your map with a little tent symbol to help visualise.
Step 5: Rent a car + book things!
Now that you know where you’re going, figure out a start and end point for car hire. Most big rental companies will let you pick up the car in one place and drop it off at another, for a small extra fee. Though, you can also do a circuit trip if you like. I usually use Nippon Rent-a-car. Book your car, hotels/lodges/campgrounds and anything else you need to book.
Step 6: Have a beer to celebrate
Self explanatory 🙂
Hope this helps you, the main takeaway is to have a look at the prefecture navi website to find cool things. The regions within a prefecture may also have their own navi site that I’m sure is worth checking out, but I’ve never done so.
Happy travelling!
Jonah
