Skip the hassle of backtracking with an open-jaw ticket to some of Japan’s most popular destinations.
Japan has exploded in popularity with Australian travellers. Record numbers of Australians are visiting the Asian nation, beguiled by the country’s dynamic food scene, struck by the juxtaposition of its vibrant cities and spectacular natural environment, and impressed by its world-class infrastructure – all while enjoying a favourable exchange rate. However, one common challenge remains: many visitors explore Japan extensively, only to find it costly and time-consuming to return to Tokyo for their departure flight. The solution? An open-jaw ticket.
Maximize your Japan adventure. (Image: Getty/ Kuniheto Ikeda)
The best Japan travel hack
Arrive to Japan in premium business class.
An open-jaw ticket allows travellers to arrive in one city, such as Tokyo, and depart from another, like Nagoya, eliminating the need for a lengthy return trip. Not only does an open-jaw ticket offer travellers more flexibility when establishing their itinerary, but it can also save them money on costly internal transfers and extra hotel costs.
China Airlines, Taiwan’s leading carrier, connects Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Japan via Taipei. Travellers can choose open-jaw tickets to 10 cities across Japan: Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Okinawa, Kumamoto, Takamatsu, Hiroshima and Kagoshima.
While many airlines restrict their open-jaw tickets, China Airlines offers incredible flexibility and value, understanding that visitors like to fit as much as possible into their holidays without wasting time backtracking. And that’s the true value of an open-jaw ticket: you’ll spend less time in transit and more time at the destinations you really want to visit.
Where you can fly
Immerse yourself in Japan’s vibrant energy with amazing flight deals from China Airlines. (Image: Getty/ Shih-wei)
With over 180 flights to Japan each week, Australians are spoilt for choice when it comes to planning their holiday with China Airlines. For ski enthusiasts, an open-jaw ticket provides seamless access to multiple resorts throughout Japan. Travellers can fly into Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport, just two hours from Niseko’s popular ski resorts, before heading to the slopes in Hakuda and Nozawa Onsen; later, they can use their open-jaw ticket to depart from Tokyo.
If skiing isn’t the main event, travellers can consider flying into Osaka to see the cherry blossoms bloom in Osaka Castle Park, where 4000 trees erupt in an explosion of pink between March and April. An alternative route to see the cherry blossoms is to fly into Nagoya, where 1000 trees bloom in Meijo Park, which sits alongside the famous 1600s Nagoya Castle. The city has deep ties to Samurai history and culture, and visitors are able to explore the incredible castles and palaces that still remain.
Many visitors with an interest in history fly into Hiroshima to visit the Peace Memorial Park and Museum, a monument to the dark history of the city, as well as Genbaku Dome, one of the few remaining ruins from the 1945 nuclear attack. For a different historical perspective, flying into Okinawa offers a chance to explore Ryukyuan culture, distinct from that of mainland Japan, while also visiting Second World War wrecks that now serve as world-class diving sites.
For those seeking authentic Japanese wellness experiences, Kumamoto offers access to Mt Aso, home to one of the world’s largest volcanic calderas. After hiking through its expansive grasslands, visitors can unwind in the open-air hot springs of Kurokawa Onsen, one of Japan’s most scenic traditional onsen. While the country is highly regarded for its geothermal hot springs, travellers who fly into the city of Kagoshima – home to Japan’s most active volcano – can enjoy a unique experience: a chance to try the Ibusuki sand baths, where guests are buried in naturally heated volcanic sand.
Japan is home to countless renowned culinary destinations, including Takamatsu, famous for its Sanuki udon noodles. These thick udon are available at small self-serve shops across the city. For a more traditional experience, visitors can explore the tea houses in the famous Ritsurin Garden.
No trip to Japan is complete without experiencing Tokyo, a city where towering skyscrapers stand beside ancient shrines, traditional ryokans contrast with futuristic capsule hotels, and sensory overload meets moments of quiet tranquillity.
Travellers who want to escape the crowds entirely can land in Fukuoka. The city often flies under the radar for most Australians – which means visitors can enjoy historic shrines and temples at Gion without the crowds that haunt similar sites in Kyoto.
The airline
Fly to Japan in comfort and style with China Airlines.
Since the 1950s, China Airlines has connected Taiwan with the world. Flying from its home port of Taipei, the full-service airline flies to 29 countries, including departures from the east coast of Australia. While the airline is known for its excellent connections, it also carries a huge reputation for comfort and class.
China Airlines is renowned for its Taiwanese hospitality, offering world-class service from its thoughtful and attentive cabin crew. The modern fleet of aircraft, including the A350, features stylish, spacious cabins with full entertainment systems and an exceptional inflight menu.
Additionally, guests departing Australia are each allocated two pieces of checked luggage, making the airline the perfect choice for skiers needing to lug gear – or those who like to indulge in a spot of shopping while away. Meanwhile, if you’re flying business class from Taiwan, you’ll be able to indulge in exclusive Michelin-starred Japanese dining, one of the first airlines in the world to offer the experience.
After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
