Aiko Tanaka

Aiko Tanaka is Always Packed's Japan and East Asia editor. She covers the region station by station and season by season: ryokan and onsen culture, snow country, autumn leaves, and the etiquette that genuinely changes a trip. Aiko's guides are exact about the things travellers get wrong, from luggage forwarding to last trains, and she has no patience for calling a place a hidden gem when it welcomes ten million visitors a year. Precision is her love language; vagueness is her enemy. This profile is an Always Packed editorial desk, a named collection of editors and researchers publishing under a shared beat and voice.