Japan Trove exists to give you trustworthy, up-to-date answers about traveling in and buying from Japan. This page explains how we research, write, and maintain our guides — and how we handle money and mistakes.
How we research
- Local-first sources. We cross-check against Japanese-language sources — official sites, local blogs, reviews, and forums — rather than simply rewriting other English articles. The goal is the answer a local would give.
- Primary information where it matters. For rules that affect your trip or purchase (tax-free thresholds, rail passes, region locks, voltage, seasonal timing), we go to the source and state the practical takeaway plainly.
- We flag the catches. Hidden fish stock in “vegetarian” dishes, tattoo rules at onsen, Japan-only warranties — we call out the gotchas most guides skip.
How we keep guides current
- Prices, rules, and openings change quickly in Japan. We revisit and update guides as things shift, and we prefer durable advice over numbers that go stale.
- When something is seasonal or changes yearly (like cherry blossom and autumn leaf forecasts, or Mt. Fuji climbing rules), we tell you to check the current-year details rather than trusting a fixed date.
- Found something out of date? Tell us via our Contact page — reader corrections genuinely help.
Our recommendations
- We recommend what we’d honestly tell a friend, and we explain trade-offs instead of hyping everything.
- Recommendations are based on usefulness and value — never on whether a product has an affiliate program.
- We aim to be genuinely helpful first; the guide has to earn your trust before it earns anything else.
Advertising & affiliate links
Japan Trove is free to read. To support the site, some pages contain affiliate links — if you book or buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This never changes our recommendations or where a link points. We may also display third-party advertising. Full details are in our affiliate disclosure and privacy policy.
Accuracy & corrections
We work hard to get details right, but Japan is a big, fast-changing place and no guide is perfect. If you spot an error, please let us know and we’ll review and fix it promptly. We’d always rather correct a guide than leave a reader with the wrong information.
Who we are
Japan Trove is an independent, reader-focused project run by a small team with a long-standing interest in Japan, its media, and hands-on experience navigating the country and its shops. Learn more about us.