ORD to Anywhere

Okinawa translates roughly as “rope in the open sea”. A chain of islands stretching from the southern end of the Japanese mainland toward the northern tip of Taiwan, this region has quite a bit of local flair and flavor that differentiates it from the rest of Japan. Much like Hawaii and the United States, the Okinawan island chain was a autonomous kingdom for much of its history before being annexed by the Japanese in 1872. While the last century has seen the region adopt

When I made the decision to spend time in Okinawa, I didn’t realize how interesting of a decision selecting a hotel would end up being. Despite Japan’s reputation for having one of the world’s most comprehensive public transportation systems, Naha and its surrounding area doesn’t exactly fit into that mold. With a single monorail line and a network of public buses covering the rest of the island, Okinawa might be one of the few locations in Japan where it makes sense to ren

As I noted in my review of the Hotel JAL City Haneda, I typically travel back to Japan about once or twice a year. Finding a cheap ticket to Tokyo is fairly easy, but I’m not exactly keen on spending every trip I take back to the homeland in Tokyo. With that in mind I poked around a bit before this trip looking for inexpensive tickets to Okinawa as an alternative to capital city. True to form, both oneworld member Japan Airlines (JL) and rival All Nippon Airways had ticket

Okinawa was a bit of an interesting destination for me, mostly because I realized that my fear of renting cars in foreign countries held me back from seeing some of the best sights during my visit. Don’t get me wrong, Naha proper has plenty to do, plenty to see, and more than plenty to eat. But in retrospect I believe I made an error by not securing a method by which I could easily leave the city and explore the island a bit more in-depth. Hindsight is always 20/20, so ther