Chris Broad, having abandoned his dream of becoming a film-maker, arrived in Japan “as a naive 22-year-old Brit” to teach English. When he started a YouTube channel, he jokes, it was only “to remind friends and family I was alive”. That was in 2012. Today, Abroad in Japan has more than 3.2 million subscribers around the world, and has become one of the biggest online resources about the country and its people.

In his first book, the bestselling Abroad in Japan (2024), Broad told the story of his first 10 years in the Land of the Rising Sun. In a follow-up, Journey Across Japan (Bantam, £22), he shares “an epic adventure” that takes him through all 47 prefectures, from the frozen wilds of Hokkaidō to the sun-soaked beaches of Okinawa. His account, he says, told “through a collection of embarrassing stories, practical recommendations and hard-learned lessons”, is for everyone, “from the Japan neophyte to the seasoned veteran who thinks they have seen it all”.