A travel site is only as good as its sources. The shortcut most English guides to Japan take — paraphrasing each other until everyone agrees on the same out-of-date facts — is exactly what Beyond Kansai tries not to do.
The five source tiers
Every fact on the site is tagged with the tier of the source it came from. Higher tiers are more authoritative; lower tiers are more honest about being opinions.
T1 — Official bodies
Government tourism boards (JNTO, prefectural offices), city halls, and the venues themselves. Used for hours, fees, addresses, and policy changes. Most rigorous, but not always the most up to date — venue websites in particular can lag reality by months.
T2 — Established media
The Asahi Shimbun, Nikkei, NHK, BBC, The Japan Times. Used for context, cultural background, and verifying claims that reach the news cycle. Cited by name and date.
T3 — Specialist outlets
Niche publications with real expertise — onsen guides, ryokan associations, cycling magazines, food critics. Used where a generalist source would miss the point.
T4 — Traveler communities
Reddit (r/JapanTravel, r/Kyoto), TripAdvisor, Google Reviews, Lonely Planet Thorn Tree. Used as a sanity check against the official story and to surface issues — long lines, closed days, transit problems — that official sources rarely mention.
T5 — Local blogs and word of mouth
Japanese-language personal blogs, note.com essays, X/Twitter threads from locals, and conversations I've had on the ground. The least verifiable, but often the only source for the most interesting places. Anything from this tier is flagged plainly.
Confidence grades
Each entry carries a single-letter grade based on how independently the information has been verified:
- A — Three or more independent sources, or a first-hand visit by the editor.
- B — Two independent sources.
- C — One source, used because the place is too obscure to corroborate any other way. Treated as provisional.
Grades are visible on each spot page. If you only trust A-rated places, you can filter for them.
Quoting travelers
Direct quotes from Reddit, TripAdvisor, or local blogs appear in a few feature articles, typically under a "Voices from travelers" heading. Three rules:
- Quotes are reproduced verbatim, with the source linked.
- Quotes used to support a claim are balanced with quotes that disagree, where they exist.
- Usernames are not included unless the platform's terms require attribution.
Photos and rights
Photos on Beyond Kansai come from one of four places:
- My own camera — most images, especially in feature articles.
- Public-domain or Creative Commons sources (Wikimedia Commons, Japan Search, official open data) — attributed in the caption.
- Venue press kits — used with written permission and credited.
- Unsplash and Pexels — for generic illustrative shots only, never as evidence that I've been somewhere.
If you see a photo that looks misattributed, tell me.
Corrections
Anyone can report an error. The fastest way is to email [email protected] with the page URL and what you saw.
When I update a page based on a correction, the change goes in the page's last verified date and, for substantive edits, a one-line note at the bottom of the page describing what changed and when.
Partially generated with AI assistance and editor-verified. See Editorial policy for the full rules.