Curated is the only mark on JapanPass you cannot buy. It means one thing, and we hold it to that one thing: someone from our team went there in person.
✓ Curated
Most directories sell placement and call it a recommendation. We separate the two, on purpose. A business can pay for a listing tier, the same way a shop can take out an ad. That is fair, and we label it plainly. But paying never earns the Curated mark, and no amount of money moves a place onto the curated list. The mark is earned by a visit, or it is not there at all.
When you see Curated, a real person walked in, spent time, and judged it worth your trip. When you do not see it, it only means we have not been yet, not that the place is lesser.
Paid partner tiers give a business room for more photographs and a higher place in the directory's lists, with its tier named on the listing. They are a real service and we are open about the price. What they do not do is change our judgment. A curated place always sits above a paid one in ranking, and a paid page never wears the Curated mark unless it also earned it in person.
Every place below earned the mark in person. Filter by category or prefecture. When a filter has nothing yet, we say so plainly and point you back to the full directory, rather than pad the list.
Curated is earned, never sold. It marks a place somebody from JapanPass visited in person, on a recorded date, and wrote up afterwards. No amount of money moves a listing onto this page, and a paid tier never carries the mark.
No listing currently carries the Curated mark. It is earned by a visit that somebody made and wrote down, and none has been completed and approved yet. When one is, it will appear here. Until then this page describes what the mark means rather than showing places that have not earned it.
Browse the places we do list, none of which claims to be curated.
No place carries the Curated mark yet. It is given only after someone from JapanPass has visited in person, so the list starts empty and grows slowly. That is the point of it.
The best curated finds come from travelers and from our own scouting, not from businesses buying their way in. If somewhere deserves a visit, tell us. It enters a queue, and if we go and it earns the mark, it earns it honestly.