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Destination MapCode |
 Car,GPS,ETC card |
When I was planning for my DIY trip to Japan in 2013, I realised that the best way to get to all my destinations was to have ready all their mapcodes. The "English" GPS of my rental car accepted mapcodes and without fail it guided me to the doorstep of my destinations on the trip.
Mapcode of a destination is available in many Japanese publications but the problem is most of these publications are written in Japanese which make it difficult for a Non Japanese to comprehend. Besides that, as a DIY traveller I like to go places where most people do not visit and which means that their mapcodes are usually not published on any magazine.
In 2013 I used a Japanese website www.varjar.jp to get my mapcode. When I tried using the same website again in 2015 while planning for this coming second Japan trip, I found to my dismay that www.viajar.jp had ceased operation. Luckily after much researching I found another website www.mapion.co.jp providing mapcodes.
Mapion website is written in Japanese and even after using google automated translate on its pages, it is still difficult for a Non Japanese speaker like me to navigate around the website. So whenever I use Mapion, I focus on only getting the mapcode of a destination which basically involves only a few simple steps.
First identify a place to visit, then use google map to get its position on the map. Next go tho www.mapion.co.jp and open its Japan map and locate the same position on the mapion map.
Making sure that the red cross is placed at right location then select "convenient tool" on the top right corner of the screen. Clicked the "map URL" on a dropdown menu that appeared and a popup window with the Mapcode would then be displayed.
The mapcode is usually 9 digits, but there are times it has less than or more than 9 digits. No worries they all work.
