The 1st step is to get a detailed map of Japan. Now you probably could use google maps to plan but while your on the road you may not have internet access so next best thing is these books. Touring Mapple series Map is updated every year and its been written for motorcycle touring but if your planning on biking in japan its is a great guide. There are 7 in the series and each book covers an island or a section.
The sections are:
- Kyushu/Okinawa - 九州沖縄
- Chugoku/Shikoku - 中国・四国
- Kansai - 関西
- Chubu/Hokuriku -中部北陸
- Kantou - 関東
- Touhoku - 東北
- Hokkaido - 北海道
The books go for about 1600 yen. The cheapest way to get them is to order them through your local Japanese book store. If there aren't any near by my next suggestion is to purchase them through Amazon japan. Click on the links above to go amazon directly. But be warned they do charge an arm and a leg to ship to USA. Typically you will pay double the retail price. On the positive side you will get them in 2 days. (next day air is the only option..the sea shipping option is no longer available unfortunately)
There is an Touring Mapple "R". The difference that I can figure out is the physical size of the books themselves. They are the same as the normal version but they are printed to the typical photobook /map books you see in the states. I personally like the smaller size (approx 6"x8") of the normal version better.
What makes these books great is that if you can read Japanese they have a lot of useful info in them. They have campgrounds and hotels marked off, they tell you where the hot springs are and also mark off which routes are more scenic or congested with traffic. They also got some interesting tid bits of info like this tunnel is known by locals to be haunted.
About the maps themselves:
- Mostly the scale is 1: 140,000 (so 1" = 3 Km = 2 miles)
- Major city area are scaled to 1:50,000
- There are Ferry route info
- The Map Key is extensive (will save that for another post)
Anyway thats it for now. too much info to sort through!
Post up more info later on the maps.
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