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For over a decade I've entered Japan on one way tickets and no airline has asked for my proof of return/onward flights, so I stopped obtaining them long ago.

However a few days ago I arrived at BKK airport and VietJet Air would not allow me to board my flight to Fukuoka without a ticket out of Japan!

I arrived three hours early but ended up being the last person at the check-in desk trying to buy a ticket out of Japan, which I hate doing without lots of time to weigh everything up. Since there are 3rd party ferry booking sites (such as "Direct Ferries") which claim to cover all ferry trips but don't seem to always have accurate/up-to-date info, it's very frustrating trying to find the true sites for the ferry companies themselves.

I believe there are currently two companies or at least two routes though there used to be at least three. There is a Shimonoseki-Busan route with an overnight ferry and a Fukuoka-Busan route with a fast hydrofoil. I'm not certain whether the same company runs both or if there are currently any others. I could only find one and it told me that at the current time (presumably due to getting going again after a long covid outage) that booking is only possible by telephone for now.

I gave up under pressure and bought a flight to Taipei from Okinawa but am still wondering if I could've persisted and booked a ferry that I just failed to find the right website for. Is it possible?

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    It's Jan 15 as I type this, so take it with a grain of dashi, but the official Japanese site for the JR Beetle between Fukuoka and Busan says they plan to reopen online booking in mid-January: jrbeetle.com/special/1384 Jan 15 at 10:35
  • @lambshaanxy I think that's the one I found. But that's not the only one, or is it the only one at the current time for some reason? Jan 15 at 17:44
  • There's also "KampuFerry" which uses Shimonoseki which shows a current timetable but whose online reservation link says "under construction" in Japanese and the 3rd party site I don't trust, Direct Ferries, says "no further sailings". I don't know if these are the only two companies. I don't know if KampuFerry's online reservation system worked before covid. Ferry websites in this part of the world have always been low quality in my experience. Jan 15 at 17:55
  • The third option, Camellia Line has online booking but it's unclear if it works. It might be broken, it might just be confusing to use, or maybe you can book private rooms with it but not dormitory? camellia-line.co.jp/rs/idv/reservation Jan 17 at 4:29

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