神奈川県 · Kanto Region

Kanagawa Hidden Gems

Kanagawa packs three very different places into an hour of railway. Kamakura was the seat of Japan's first warrior government from 1185, chosen because hills enclose it on three sides and the sea closes the fourth, and the temples founded then are still spread through those valleys — which is why walking between them means climbing wooded ridges rather than crossing a grid. Yokohama is the opposite: a fishing village that the 1859 treaty ports turned into Japan's window on foreign trade, so the brick warehouses, the Chinatown and the Western hillside houses all date from that opening. Hakone is a volcanic caldera 800 metres up, still venting sulphur at Owakudani, with the water that fills its ryokan coming straight out of it. The prefecture is dense and largely urban, but Hakone and the Miura peninsula both feel a long way from the commuter lines that carry you to their doors.

5 spots

Climate & Best Season

Mild and maritime; warm summers, gentle winters, snow only in the Hakone highlands. Pleasant year-round.

Famous For (Food)

Shirasu (whitebait)
Ie-kei ramen
Yokohama Chinatown fare
Kamaboko

Signature Sights

Kamakura's Great Buddha
Hakone & Lake Ashi
Enoshima
Yokohama waterfront

When to Go

Kanagawa is mild all year — coastal January highs near 11°C, snow only in the Hakone highlands — so the question is crowds rather than weather. Hakone and Kamakura are heaviest during Golden Week, in the November foliage weeks and on any fine summer weekend. Kamakura's hydrangeas draw queues at Meigetsu-in and Hase-dera through June, in the middle of the rainy season. Summer is humid and above 32°C, and the beaches at Yuigahama and Zushi open in July and August. Hakone's autumn colour peaks in mid-November, later around Lake Ashi. February brings plum blossom at Odawara.

Getting Around

Trains do nearly all of it. Yokohama is 30 minutes from Tokyo Station, Kamakura about an hour on the Yokosuka line, and Odakyu's Romancecar reaches Hakone-Yumoto in roughly 85 minutes from Shinjuku. Hakone is then a chain of connections — mountain railway, cable car, ropeway, pirate boat, bus — which the Hakone Freepass bundles into one ticket and which is genuinely simpler than driving the switchbacks. Kamakura and Enoshima are linked by the single-track Enoden. Haneda Airport sits just over the Tokyo border. A car only helps on the Miura peninsula and the western Tanzawa foothills.

Local Food

Shirasu, translucent whitebait, is landed along the Shonan coast and eaten raw when the season allows — the raw version is banned during the winter closure, so what you get depends on the month. Yokohama's Chinatown is the largest in Japan and dates from the 1860s port. Ie-kei ramen, thick noodles in a pork-and-soy broth with spinach and nori, started in Yokohama in the 1970s and spread nationally from there. Odawara has made kamaboko fish cake since the Edo period, when it fed travellers on the Tokaido road.

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