By Declan BarryIf you've ever planned a Japan trip, you know the shape of the problem. There's no shortage of advice - Reddit threads, glossy guidebooks, blog posts written ten years ago, YouTube videos that reuse the same five neighbourhoods - but most of it is list-shaped, not map-shaped. You read about ten incredible places, plot them in your head, and only realise on the plane that they're spread across three regions and you've booked five nights in a city you should have spent two in.
We built Your JP Adventure to fix that. This is a map-first Japan trip planner, paired with a deep editorial guide and a personal travel log, that helps you actually plan the trip - not just dream about it.
This post is both a hello and a tour. If you've stumbled in via Google, here's what we've made and why we made it.
Why a map-first planner
Tabi-Kun says
The Tokaido Shinkansen (Tokyo to Osaka) runs every 10 minutes in daylight hours, but detours like Takayama or Kanazawa can add 3-4 hours each way - most first-timers underestimate the cost of leaving the main spine.
Japan rewards travellers who route geographically. The country is long, mountainous, and built around a few brilliant Shinkansen spines that make some sequences obvious and others nonsensical. Tokyo → Hakone → Kyoto → Osaka → Hiroshima is a beautiful week. Tokyo → Hiroshima → Hakone → Osaka → Kyoto is the same week with twelve hours of unnecessary backtracking on bullet trains. Generic trip planners don't see that - they treat your itinerary as a list. We don't.
When you generate a trip with our planner, every city you pick gets placed on a map and the route between them is built around real Shinkansen and limited-express timings, not a straight line. Cities flow into each other day by day. Pace is yours to choose: pack three big things in or move slowly through one neighbourhood. Edit anything; the map updates in real time.
A guide that has actually visited the places it talks about
Tabi-Kun says
Temple opening hours in Kyoto shift by season - summer sees 06:00 gates, winter closer to 08:30 - and national holidays can close ticket offices even when grounds stay open, so always check the week before you go.
The blog (which you're reading right now) is the second half of why we built this. We started with 50 long-form articles covering everything from the JR Pass arithmetic to onsen etiquette, sushi-counter conventions to the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes. Every article was written with a specific reader in mind - usually a smart traveller who's been to one or two countries and wants Japan to be a great trip, not a confused one.
Each piece has been edited for hedging. We don't tell you a temple opens at 09:00 because temples change their hours and we don't want you to show up at a closed gate; we tell you it typically opens around 09:00 and recommend checking before you go. We don't quote prices in absolute terms because exchange rates and Japanese inflation move; we hedge. The point is to give you a confident base of knowledge, not a brittle script.
Articles also auto-link to the cities and regions they mention, so you can read about Kyoto's three-day itinerary and click through to the city page for things to do, where to stay, and how to get around - all in one place.
Real attractions, ranked by Google
Tabi-Kun says
Our 500-review floor filters out brand-new spots and hyper-local gems that haven't scaled yet - if you want the cutting edge, sort by newest on Google Maps directly and accept the risk of a dud.
We built an algorithm that, for every city we cover, queries Google Maps for its highest-rated and most-reviewed places. It then filters out everything below 4 stars and 500 reviews, scores what's left by a formula that weights review volume and rating, and tags each attraction with one or more of our eight interest categories - nature, culture, food, urban, history, shopping, anime, experiences - using a mix of Google place types and ~50 keyword rules.
The result: every city page now shows a ranked list of things to do that's grounded in what real visitors actually rated, not in what guidebooks list because they listed it last year. You can filter by tag (only show me food spots, only show me history spots) and click straight through to Google Maps from any card.
Practical guides for every city and region
Tabi-Kun says
IC cards work across almost all city transport now, but rural buses and some private railways still want cash - keep ¥1,000 in coins if you're heading outside the big six cities.
Each city page (try Tokyo, Kyoto, or Sapporo) now opens with the city's character, then walks you through:
- Getting around - local transport, IC cards, when to walk, when to taxi
- Best time to visit - best months, what to avoid, festivals to plan around
- Where to stay - neighbourhoods to base in for which kind of trip
- What to eat - signature dishes, food districts, drink culture
The same four sections exist at the region level, scoped to inter-city travel - Shinkansen lines, regional JR Passes, when a rental car beats trains.
A travel log that builds with you
Tabi-Kun says
If you've visited 15+ cities across two trips, the log's suggestion engine starts surfacing second-tier spots like Takayama and Kamakura instead of reheating Tokyo and Kyoto - it's built for repeat travellers.
If you want, you can sign in (free, Google or magic-link email) and log every city and attraction you've visited. Over time the log shapes a personal Japan record - and the planner uses it to suggest places you haven't seen yet rather than ones you've already crossed off. You can keep this private, share it, or export your finished routes as a PDF.
What's next
We have a steady drumbeat of new content planned - seasonal articles for sakura and koyo, more cities (Nagasaki, Kanazawa, Yokohama and dozens of smaller towns are already partially indexed), and a deeper planner that will eventually let the AI riff on day-views (lunch suggestions, half-day options, rainy-day fallbacks).
We'd love your feedback. The site is free to use, and we don't sell your data. If something's wrong, write to us. If you find an attraction we should cover or an article topic we've missed, tell us. We're building this for the trips we want to take ourselves - and the ones our friends keep texting us to plan for them.
Welcome aboard. Now go figure out what week in Japan you're going to take.