China’s wonderful take on the Japanese planning staple is an AliExpress exclusive for the UK market.
If you missed out this week on a Hobonichi Techo, don’t worry. More will come in stock. But even then, it’s worth looking at the alternatives.
The Kinbor 2026 Planner has been getting a lot of love this year, its first to be aggressively pushed through AliExpress and Google Ads, and it’s also the one I’ll be using myself next year. Mine’s ready, sitting on the shelf, primed for its set-up session at the end of December.
The real star of the show is the paper. Kinbor uses Bachuan paper, which is often described as China’s answer to Tomoe River. It’s thin, smooth, and gloriously fountain pen friendly. Some even whisper it might come from the same factory. When you put that paper behind the classic spreads—a full year’s worth of monthly pages, dailies, planning grids, and a handful of bonus extras—you get something that feels every bit as premium as a Hobonichi or a Jibun Techo.
The price is where it really shines. Kinbor can cost up to a quarter of the price of a Hobonichi Techo, and less than half the price of Kokuyo’s Jibun Techo. For a planner that actually uses the more expensive paper of the three, it feels like one of stationery’s best kept secrets.
It isn’t perfect, though. Kinbor still publishes these mainly in Mandarin, and there isn’t an English-only version. That means some of the quirky bonus sections go untranslated. The good news is all the main planning spreads are bilingual, so you can still use it exactly how you want.
Still, for something being pushed aggressively by AliExpress (who hold the exclusive UK rights to Kinbor), I would expect a fully translated edition.
Mine is currently living inside a Tesco bright orange cover. I’m not gentle with my planners, and it needs proper protection to survive the daily bashing around. I’ll share my set-up in January, once I’ve had a chance to put it through its paces.
Availability: Kinbor 2026 A5 Planner (Black) – AliExpress, High Vibe A5 Journal & Pen – Tesco
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