Tottori Hidden Gems

Tottori has fewer people than any other prefecture, and the shape of the place explains why. It is a long, thin strip pressed between the Sea of Japan and the Chugoku mountains, wide enough for one coastal railway, one highway and the towns strung along them. Almost everything you would travel for sits on that line — the dunes east of Tottori City, the white-walled warehouse district at Kurayoshi in the middle, Yonago and the Sakaiminato fishing port at the western end — and the gaps between them are farmland and forest. Mt. Daisen, at 1,729 metres, rises alone above the western plain and is visible from most of it. The dunes are not a desert but a coastal sand field built from river sediment and shaped by winter wind off the sea, which is why they look different after a storm. Inland the roads climb into valleys where the villages are genuinely small: Nageiredo, the cliff hall on Mt. Mitoku, still requires two climbers minimum and a footwear check at the gate.