You are the most valuable person on this team right now, and it has an expiry date. You are living in Japan for the first time, from the same country as our viewers, and things still confuse you. In a few weeks you will have got used to it and stop noticing. Write down what confuses you while it still does. Travel, or just going out on a normal day — both count. Aim for around ten a week.

1 Your name

If your entry becomes a video, you get asked along to the shoot.

2 What did you struggle with?

Write it as it happened, to you. Not what you think tourists might find hard.

3 What did you search when it happened?

The exact words you typed into Google or YouTube. This is the most useful thing on this form. If you didn't search anything, leave it blank and press the button below.

4 Where in a trip does this happen?

5 What happened because you didn't know?

6 “I wish I had known…”

How much easier would knowing it have made things?

7 Would you send this to your mother?

Our viewer is a woman aged 30–60 in the US, UK or Australia. Your mother is genuinely close to her.

8 A video about this optional

How this is judged

Search demand, scored 1–100. Built from how much the top videos on this subject are actually watched, whether people really type these words, and how many related searches exist. Nothing to look up by hand.

Then: can a channel our size get seen there, and does not-knowing actually cost her something. Something she cannot avoid, would not know, and where not knowing costs her — that is the sweet spot.

Everything you submit is kept, including entries this tool says no to. Koh, Liza and Claire work through the list and decide what gets filmed.

Numbers are estimated from YouTube data — the closest measurable stand-in for Reels.

The best videos are things she has to know, and doesn't.

Write down what tripped you up. The tool checks how many people are searching for it, whether a channel our size can be seen there, and saves it to the team's list either way.