# Frequently asked questions ## What is Tsugi? Tsugi is for the moment a plan falls apart. Tell it what went wrong and where you are, and it gives you one good place nearby that is open now. ## How does Tsugi choose a place? It looks only at places within walking distance of you, keeps the ones that fit your problem and will stay open for at least 45 minutes, then picks the one with the strongest combination of quality and short walk. There is no AI in the choosing. The same inputs always give the same answer. ## Why only one answer? When a plan has just broken, fifty options make it worse. Tsugi gives you one, and a few more if you say "Not this one". It stops after four, so it never turns into a list. ## Which cities does Tsugi cover? Tokyo only, for now. Within Tokyo it covers cafes, bars, casual food, baths and spas, gardens, temples and shrines, and small museums. If you are not in Tokyo, you can still pick a Tokyo area to try it. ## Why does Tsugi say nothing is open? Tsugi works on Tokyo time, wherever you are. Late at night and early in the morning most Tokyo cafes are closed, so there may be nothing to suggest. When that happens it tells you what opens next nearby. You can also preview it as if it were 14:00 in Tokyo. ## Where do the places come from? Cafes and bars come from the reviews at [thesteep.app](https://thesteep.app), where every place was visited and written up by a person. Food, baths, gardens, temples and museums are chosen from public sources, such as OpenStreetMap and official sites. Tsugi writes its own one-line reason for each place. ## Have you visited every place? No. The cafes and bars are steep reviews, each visited in person. The other places are chosen from public sources, and their cards say "Not visited by us yet" so you can tell which is which. ## How accurate are the opening hours? Hours come from public listings and from the research behind each review. They are not live, so a place can still be closed for a holiday or a private event. When Tsugi cannot be sure, it says so on the result and links to the place's Instagram. ## Does Tsugi know if it is raining or if a place is crowded? It knows about rain, roughly. Tsugi checks the weather forecast for the centre of Tokyo. If it looks wet now or likely within a few hours, it offers a one-tap "somewhere indoors" and favours indoor places. That is the city, not your exact street. It also knows about a few big annual festivals and markets (Sanja Matsuri, the Rooster markets, Setagaya Boroichi), and warns you when one is on near the place; dates follow each festival's usual pattern unless an official source confirms them. It has no live crowd data. For "too crowded" it picks places described as quiet, plus gardens and museums, which tend to be quiet. That is a judgement, not a live count. ## What does "Anything specific?" do? It lets you say what you need, such as a place that takes cards, needs no reservation, has an English menu or vegetarian options. Tsugi removes places it knows do not fit and ranks confirmed matches higher. Where it has not checked, it says so, because a missing fact is not the same as a no. ## Does Tsugi tell me the last train? Not a specific train. Last trains differ by line, direction and day, and they have changed recently, so Tsugi does not guess. From 22:30 Tokyo time it warns you that service winds down around midnight, links to a route lookup to your way back, and after 01:00 it says trains have stopped until about 05:00. ## Do you store my location? No. Your position is used on your phone to find nearby places and is not sent to us or kept. You can also skip it and pick an area instead. ## Do I need an account or an app? No. Finding a place needs no account and no app. Tsugi works in your browser and can be added to your home screen. If you want to keep places you like, you can sign in with your email and an 8-digit code, with no password. ## Is Tsugi free? Yes. Finding a place is free, and so is signing in to save places. ## A place is closed or wrong. What should I do? Write to [hello@tsugi.travel](mailto:hello@tsugi.travel) with the name of the place and what you found. A report from someone standing there is the most useful thing you can send. ## How is Tsugi related to steep? They are separate products from the same maker. [steep](https://thesteep.app) is the review guide. Tsugi uses its reviewed places to answer one question: where do I go now?