Free Lonely Planet Guide to Northern Honshu, Japan

Lonely Planet Japan Guide

There is a prepublication offer from travel publisher Lonely Planet for a free download of a chapter from its forthcoming 2013 guide book to Japan.

The chapter covers the northern third of Japan’s main island of Honshū. This region of Tōhoku experienced the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, and the meltdown of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

The chapter covers not just the typical tourist attractions — it also offers information on how to volunteer in the recovery effort.

Lonely Planet writer Rebecca Milner visited the region to research updates to the Japan guidebook.

She reports that area of the coast hit by the tsunami is still in rubble, but that the inland areas that were affected only by the earthquake have largely recovered.  Of course there is still a 20-km exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant.

Milner reports:

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