Japan

Japan runs about three thousand kilometres from the subtropics to the subarctic and holds a hundred and twenty-four million people, most of them along one side of one island. For a first trip, almost none of that matters – the Japan you are going to fall for is a corridor between Tokyo and Kyoto with a bullet train down the middle of it, and that corridor is one of the most rewarding stretches of travel anywhere in the world.

What I will gently push you towards is adding one place that is not on it. The small cities – Kanazawa, Takayama, Nara – are where a trip stops being a greatest-hits tour and turns into an actual holiday. They are also, happily, where the crowds are not.

So this is the whole Rolodex: where to base, what to eat and how to get a table at the good places, what to do in each city, and the handful of things worth going properly out of your way for. The practical side – seasons, trains, cash, luggage – lives in the Primer.