27 curated cities, every region.

Japan's capital holds 23 distinct wards ranging from neon shopping districts to quiet residential lanes lined with shrines and kissaten.

The former imperial capital preserves over 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines across a compact grid of wooden machiya townhouses.

A commercial port city famous for takoyaki and okonomiyaki stalls clustered along the Dōtonbori canal beneath towering animated signboards.

A volcanic mountain resort area ninety minutes from Tokyo known for hot spring ryokan, Lake Ashi cruises, and clear-weather views of Mount Fuji.

A port city rebuilt after 1945 around the Peace Memorial Park, with a distinctive noodle-layered okonomiyaki and ferry access to the floating torii of Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima.

Japan's first permanent capital, founded in 710, with about twelve hundred wild sika deer roaming the parkland around Todai-ji temple and its fifteen-meter bronze Buddha.

A coastal former shogunal capital an hour south of Tokyo, known for the thirteenth-century bronze Amida Buddha at Kotoku-in and a cluster of Kamakura-era Zen temples tucked into wooded valleys.

A mountain town north of Tokyo built around the heavily ornamented Toshogu shrine complex — where Tokugawa Ieyasu is buried — and the waterfalls and cedar forests of Nikko National Park.

Japan's fourth-largest city and an industrial hub on the central coast, known for miso-forward local dishes like miso-katsu and miso-nikomi udon, the rebuilt Nagoya Castle, and the headquarters of Toyota.

An Edo-era merchant town tucked into the Hida mountains, with daily morning markets along the Miyagawa river, six active sake breweries, and Hida-gyu beef raised in the surrounding valleys.

A coastal castle town known for Kenroku-en garden, a preserved samurai district, and fresh seafood pulled from the Sea of Japan each morning.

Hokkaido's grid-planned capital, home to the February Snow Festival in Odori Park, a dense cluster of miso-ramen shops in Susukino, and the Sapporo Brewery, founded in 1877.

A ski village on the flanks of Mount Annupuri in western Hokkaido, receiving about fifteen meters of dry powder snow each winter and opening up to rafting and alpine hiking in summer.

Kyushu's largest city, a harbour port known for yatai — the open-air food stalls that set up along the Naka River at dusk — and for the pork-bone tonkotsu ramen that originated in its Hakata district.

The main island of the former Ryukyu Kingdom, a subtropical chain six hundred kilometers south of Kyushu, with coral reefs, a distinct cuisine built on pork and bitter melon, and the rebuilt limestone walls of Shuri Castle.

A compact port city pressed between Mount Rokko and Osaka Bay, known for the marbled Wagyu beef that carries its name, the cluster of sake breweries in Nada, and the Nankinmachi Chinatown.

A 3,776-meter stratovolcano and the Fuji Five Lakes at its northern base, where the climbing window runs from early July to early September and the clearest views tend to come in the cold months.

An onsen town on the east coast of Kyushu sitting on over two thousand registered hot spring sources — more than any other municipality in Japan — including the vividly coloured 'hells' of Kannawa.

A small island in the Seto Inland Sea covered in contemporary art museums, outdoor sculptures, and Tadao Ando architecture.

A mountainous island off the southern coast of Kyushu, home to yaku-sugi cedars over a thousand years old — including the Jomon-sugi, estimated at more than two thousand — and the moss-covered rainforest that loosely inspired Princess Mononoke.

A farming village of steep thatched-roof gassho-zukuri houses in a mountain valley, built with roof angles sharp enough to shed the heavy snow that buries it each winter.

A mountaintop temple complex founded in 816 by the monk Kukai as the center of Shingon Buddhism, where about fifty of the remaining temples take overnight guests and serve the vegetarian shojin-ryori cuisine developed by the monks.

A small city at the foot of the Northern Japanese Alps, anchored by one of five surviving original castle keeps — a black-lacquered tower built in the 1590s — and a downtown grid of galleries, bookshops, and coffee roasters.

Tohoku's largest city, founded by the one-eyed warlord Date Masamune in 1600, now known for charcoal-grilled gyutan beef tongue, the August Tanabata festival, and the pine-covered islets of Matsushima Bay an hour up the coast.

A pair of farming towns in central Hokkaido, known for patchwork hillsides of lavender, sunflower, and potato fields in summer and deep dry powder at Furano Ski Resort through the winter.

A hillside port town on the Seto Inland Sea and the mainland starting point of the Shimanami Kaido — a seventy-kilometer cycling route that crosses six islands on dedicated bike lanes to reach Shikoku.

A hot spring town on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula, with the black volcanic cliffs of the Jogasaki coastline, daily catches of kinmedai snapper, and a long tail of ryokans stretching from Ito Station along the shore.