How we work

Japan Trip Hub is written from Japan. We are based here, we use these trains and stay in these places, and the site exists because the Japan travel advice we kept sending to visiting friends did not exist in one place.

Most Japan travel content is assembled from other Japan travel content. You can tell, because it goes stale the moment a rail pass changes price or a hotel changes hands. Rail fares in Japan have moved more in the last three years than in the decade before them, and a lot of what ranks well online still quotes the old numbers.

Where our numbers come from

Every price on this site carries the month we checked it. Fares come from the operators' own listings, pass prices from JR's published announcements, and exchange rates are stated with the date we used them. If you want to check a figure yourself, we try to make that possible rather than asking you to take our word for it.

We update guides when the underlying numbers change rather than leaving a stale page up with a fresh date on it.

What we will not claim

When we have stayed somewhere or used something ourselves, we say so and we tell you when. When a guide is built from published pricing, current listings, and reports from other travelers, we say that instead. We would rather show you where the information came from than dress every review up as a personal stay.

Some images on this site are AI generated. Those are labeled as illustrative where they appear. We do not present a generated image as a photograph of a specific room, train, or restaurant.

How the site makes money

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you book or buy through one, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It has never changed a recommendation and it never will.

In practice that means we regularly tell readers not to buy things. Our guide to the nationwide JR Pass concludes that most first-time visitors should skip it, which is the opposite of what pays. We would rather be useful once than earn once.

Corrections

If you find a price, a rule, or a detail that is wrong or out of date, we want to know. Getting this right is the entire point of the site. Send it through ourcontact form and we will check it against the source.