Travel How far can you go in Japan without a phone?

[thomas]

US game streamer Ludwig Ahgren and his friend Michael Reeves travelled across Japan without smartphones, and their journey was not without setbacks.

The friends gave up the smartphones that were central to their generation and began their journey without a guidebook. Relying entirely on interactions with locals for directions, they found themselves welcomed with remarkable warmth and hospitality from the Japanese people. Their route stretched from Cape Sata at the southern tip of Kyushu to Cape Soya in northern Hokkaido —a journey of around 2,000 miles, though getting lost made it even longer. According to a finale video posted Saturday on Ahgren's YouTube channel, the trip took two weeks. Throughout the adventure, a support team documented their travels, sharing videos of the pair as they experienced some of Japan's most distinctive landscapes, culture, and cuisine.

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With no map, they mistook Miyazaki in southeastern Kyushu for Shikoku, Japan's fourth-biggest island, which is linked by bridges to the country's major island. They turned up in the city, only to find they could not be more lost.The pair also hoped to check out a sumo wrestling match. They decided to park the bikes and travel by public transport but, without a smartphone, it took them three hours to navigate Japan's notoriously headache-triggering train system. When they eventually arrived at Osaka's Edion Arena, they saw a sign written in English. "Tickets sold out," it said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/05/travel/gamer-ludwig-ahgren-travel-japan-no-smartphone-map-intl-hnk/index.html

 

[Petaris]

So they didn't have smart phones but their support team did? So they were never in any real situation that they couldn't just turn to the people with the cameras and ask?

Sorry, I don't mean to sound cynical. It's not a bad thing to try I guess, but I bet they bothered a lot of people unnecessarily .

I think quite a number of us were in Japan, either living or visiting, prior to smart phones or maybe even cell phones existing/being widely available. It was a different time with paper maps and a phrase book.

 

[Majestic]

Thank God I didn't have a "support team" filming me as I made an arse out of myself when I first came to Japan. It would be too embarrassing to watch.

 

[thomas]

So they didn't have smart phones but their support team did? So they were never in any real situation that they couldn't just turn to the people with the cameras and ask?

Sorry, I don't mean to sound cynical. It's not a bad thing to try I guess, but I bet they bothered a lot of people unnecessarily .

I think quite a number of us were in Japan, either living or visiting, prior to smart phones or maybe even cell phones existing/being widely available. It was a different time with paper maps and a phrase book.

I miss the good olden days of randonneuring through Japan without cell phones, GPS, or Google Maps. We would use copies of Touring Mapple maps (tons of them) and often find out that charted roads no longer existed or hadn't been completed yet. Isn't technology boring?

 

[Grandpa Frank]

I remember my first day off base. It seemed all the groups talking took time to say "HI" to me , LOL. And if I saw an old mama-san squatting down , I thought she was peeing. I didn't know we had mama-sans who cleaned our barracks including the large shower room. I freaked out big time when one came in while I was taking a shower. She just acted like I was invisible. Looking back on those days , I was sure a hick from Maine. The best thing that happened to me was running into an old (30 LOL) Airforce SGT. my third week there. He told me to spend every minute I could learning the language & customs and my 2 years would be much more enjoyable.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

They can say all they want that they did it for the experience or whatever, but the reality is they did it for the video. I have no intention on giving them the clicks, eyeballs, or whatever else you might call it by watching their video.

Their 'struggles' are purely performative for the cameras, as @Petaris alluded to, since they had a backup plan if things got out of hand. This is the problem with reality TV in general; it's only real in the sense that there is no predetermined script for the actors to memorize.

EDIT: included the 'no' in front of 'intention' in the second sentence.

 

[JayJJ]

They can say all they want that they did it for the experience or whatever, but the reality is they did it for the video. I have no intention on giving them the clicks, eyeballs, or whatever else you might call it by watching their video.

Their 'struggles' are purely performative for the cameras, as @Petaris alluded to, since they had a backup plan if things got out of hand. This is the problem with reality TV in general; it's only real in the sense that there is no predetermined script for the actors to memorize.

EDIT: included the 'no' in front of 'intention' in the second sentence.
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Once there's a camera and a safety net, it stops being authentic. It's content first, "reality" second, every time!