Everyone says Japan has an overtourism problem.
Truth be told, it actually doesn’t.
The trouble is that a handful of places absorb most of the demand. Meanwhile, much of Japan still struggles to attract international visitors.
Just like Wikipedia, almost everywhere worth visiting in Japan already has something written about it online in English. But people can’t Google what they don’t know exists.
For the past decade, I’ve been on a publishing crusade to close that awareness gap. The goal has always been simple. Help travelers find the sides of Japan that aren’t on the normal circuit.
But let’s be honest. Nobody a few weeks out from a trip is going to read ten years of backlog, especially when much of it runs well past 3,000 words a pop.
If a place hasn’t crossed their radar by then, it probably won’t during the planning process.
And so the awareness problem goes unsolved…
Enter My AI-Driven Trip Planner
Seeing as you can’t search for what you don’t know exists, I designed a handy AI-powered trip planner that introduces people to destinations they would probably never discover on their own.
Rather than asking you to name places in Japan, it starts by learning about you: your tastes, constraints, past travel experiences, and what you actually want from the trip.
From there, it works toward the parts of Japan that actually fit you instead of defaulting to the same places everyone already knows.
This is critical because if you just ask ChatGPT or any other AI where to go in Japan, it’ll hallucinate wildly, recommending routes and itineraries that fall apart once you’re actually on the ground.
Mine won’t do that. Here’s what it does instead:
- Surfaces the places you’d never know to look for without extensive research, drawing on years of my writing and editorial judgment
- Points you toward places with enough meat on the bones to build several days of your trip around, rather than a checklist of the usual sights
- Primarily stays within the places I’ve personally covered or selected, rather than inventing recommendations to fill the gaps
- Steers you toward the emptier sides of Japan, where you can go days without seeing another foreign tourist
Think of it as my editorial brain, shaped by a decade of writing about Japan, rather than a machine churning out generic AI slop.
You don’t need to know anything about AI to use it either. Just answer its questions naturally, and it’ll guide you from there.
Support How You Want
The Our Japan trip planner is completely free and, like all of my content, always will be. I don’t plan on pocketing a single yenny from it.
What isn’t free, though, is letting other would-be travelers know about it through ads. So there are two ways you can chip in and support the cause.
One directly finances getting the word out to the next guy or gal. The other grows an audience that I can monetize on the back end through partnerships.
Both ways of supporting help more than you know. Choose whichever feels right…
① Buy Me a Coffee
Your yen goes directly toward funding the promotional efforts that let the next person know this planner exists. Getting the word out is the one part that isn’t free.
Anything beyond break-even goes toward funding the pro bono consulting I do to help Japanese craftsmen and SMEs survive the shift to the digital age.
As readers know, I’ve been at this for a while, but the in-person face time it takes to earn their trust racks up a lot of travel costs. This helps offset those costs.
Donate whatever feels right, and an email with a link and simple instructions will land in your inbox moments later.
② Follow Me on Instagram
You can support that very same mission of connecting people with the other sides of Japan just by following me on Instagram.
It also helps me find high-intent travelers and, in turn, offset the costs of my consulting work with craftsmen and SMEs through direct partnerships with local tourism boards.
Here’s all it takes:
- Follow my main account on Instagram
- Send me a DM with the keyword “OUR JAPAN”
- Check your inbox for the next steps
Whether you Buy Me a Coffee or follow me on Instagram, both options help me connect more people with the other sides of Japan.
Until next time travelers…