All guides
Every guide on the site — plan your trip, get around, eat well, and take day trips across Central Japan.
Where to Stay for the Asian Games 2026: A Nagoya Local’s Area Guide
Where to stay for the Asian Games 2026: why the Meijo Line is the key to the whole event, which Nagoya areas make the best base, how many nights to book around the September 10 competition start, and the booking tactics that matter for a big event.
Asian Games 2026 Venues: How to Reach Every Arena Without a Car
Every Asian Games 2026 venue and how to reach it by public transport: the Nagoya arenas station by station, the Aichi cities beyond, the sports held outside Aichi entirely, and why a rental car is the wrong tool for these Games.
Kintetsu Rail Pass Guide: Which One, and Is It Worth It?
The KINTETSU RAIL PASS comes in four versions, and only two of them reach Nagoya. This guide covers the current prices, what each pass actually includes, the break-even maths for a trip to Ise-Shima or Osaka, and the one detail that catches almost everyone: Limited Express trains still cost extra.
SmartEX Guide: Book Shinkansen Tickets from Your Phone
SmartEX is JR Central's free online booking service for the Tokaido, Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen. There is no annual fee, you can book until four minutes before departure, and you can tap through the gate with a registered IC card. Here is how it works, what it costs, and where it bites.
Toba & Shima: Ise-Shima Beyond the Shrine
Toba and Shima are the sea-facing half of Ise-Shima National Park, 1 hour 38 minutes from Nagoya by Kintetsu limited express. This is where you meet ama divers, visit the island where cultured pearls began, eat oysters from a sheltered bay and look out over Ago Bay. It is also where several popular travel-blog claims quietly fall apart.
Arimatsu: Nagoya’s Historic Tie-Dyeing District Guide
Arimatsu is a preserved merchant town on the old Tokaido in southern Nagoya, and the only district in Japan protected as a textile-dyeing town. Founded in 1608, it still makes Arimatsu-Narumi shibori. Come at the weekend: that is the only time you can dye a cloth and carry it home the same day.
Magome & Tsumago: Kiso Valley Day Trip from Nagoya
Magome and Tsumago are two preserved post towns on the old Nakasendo highway, linked by a 9 km mountain trail over the 790-metre Magome Pass. Magome is in Gifu, Tsumago in Nagano. This guide covers the walk, the bus times that constrain it, and how to do it from Nagoya in a day.
Gujo Hachiman Guide: Castle, Water Lanes, Samples
Gujo Hachiman is a small castle town in the Gifu mountains, north of Nagoya, and it is built around running water. The draw is a wooden castle keep rebuilt in 1933, canal-lined lanes, plastic food-sample workshops you can actually join, and about thirty nights of Gujo Odori dancing each summer.
F1 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka: Spectator Guide
Suzuka Circuit in Mie Prefecture hosts the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix under a contract running to 2029, but the next edition had no announced date as of August 16, 2026. This guide covers the Nagoya-based approach: the Kintetsu route to Shiroko, the station your map app will wrongly recommend, tickets and where to sleep.
Nagoya Christmas Markets & Winter Illuminations 2026-2027
Nagoya's Christmas market fills Hisaya-odori Park in Sakae each December, and the city's illuminations run far longer than the holiday itself. As of August 16, 2026, none of the city's 2026-2027 dates had been announced. Here is what actually ran in 2025, and exactly when the new dates appear.