About Japan Unlocking

Japan Unlocking is a practical travel site for people visiting Japan. The goal is simple: give you the specific, money-saving, stress-reducing advice a friend who lives here would give you — not a rewrite of the same ten articles everyone else has read.

Who's behind it

I write under the name sasoli, and I've lived in the Tokyo area for more than five years. I've taken dozens of day trips and short trips around Kanto, and the places I write trip reports about are ones I keep going back to: Yokohama six or seven times, Kawagoe about four times, Hakone twice.

The day trips on this site are the ones you can reach from Shinjuku or Tokyo Station on a single direct train or bus. I check each one against the operator's own timetable and note the date I checked, so you can see how fresh the numbers are. Not sure where to start? See which day trip to pick.

Living here is the whole point of this site. It means the guides come from real, current, on-the-ground knowledge — how the trains actually work, where prices really sit, and which "must-see" spots are worth your limited time and which aren't.

How we write these guides

• We check the facts. Prices, opening details, and access are verified against official sources or current booking pages. If we can't confirm something, we don't state it as fact.
• We show our dates. Every guide carries a "last updated" date, and we note when prices were last checked, because travel info goes stale.
• We're upfront about money. Some links are affiliate links, and any article that uses them says so at the top. A commission never changes what we recommend. See our Affiliate Disclosure.
• We fix mistakes. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us and we'll correct it quickly.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections, or partnership enquiries are all welcome — head to the contact page. To start exploring, browse our destinations or the practical travel tips.