In general, I do a lot of research on the internet, using Tripadvisor, the Japanese tourism sites, tour agency brochures for highlights of any locality, personal experiences by internet users on walking trails, and many others.
The rule of 3
Japan is a heavily populated country, so you will not really see much of rural country as you drive. It's highly urbanised and sometimes the suburbs spread far and wide. It's natural for the Japanese to own cars (they are a car-manufacturing country) to commute. It's therefore impossible to drive at high speeds, due to the number of cars, the high suburban density(many traffic junctions) and the car speed limit (max 50 km/hr) imposed on national expressways.
So as a rule of thumb (for non toll roads) :
- In Australia, you need 1 hr to travel 100 km (driving speed at 100km/h).
- In France, you need 2 hrs to travel 100 km.
- In Japan, you need 3 hrs to travel 100 km.
Weather forecast
Whenever possible, we check the weather forecast on TV or internet. This is to enable us to plan outdoor activities like walking, cycling and taking good photos on sunny weather days.
Duration of stay
We do not like to move around from accomodation to accommodation, as we hate having to pack and unpack. We would therefore pick a location as base to stay for several days, and move around from the home base.
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