鳥取県 · Chugoku Region

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.

3 spots

Climate & Best Season

Wet, snowy winters and humid summers on the Sea of Japan. Crab season in winter, dunes best in spring and autumn.

Famous For (Food)

Matsuba crab
Twentieth-century pears
Tottori beef
Gyukotsu ramen

Signature Sights

Tottori Sand Dunes
Mt. Daisen
Mizuki Shigeru Road
Uradome coast

When to Go

Matsuba crab season is fixed by regulation — November 7 to March 20 — and December and January are when the boats land the most. Winter here is grey and snowy rather than merely cold; the Sea of Japan dumps snow on the coast, and Daisen's ski season runs December to March. Summer is humid with August highs around 32–33°C, and the dunes get hot enough that most people walk them at 6:00–8:00 or in the last hour of light. Pear picking runs August to October. The Shan-Shan festival fills central Tottori in mid-August. May and late October are the mildest.

Getting Around

There is no shinkansen in Tottori, and that shapes every itinerary. From Okayama on the Sanyo Shinkansen, the Super Inaba limited express takes about two hours to Tottori; from Osaka, the Super Hakuto takes roughly two and a half. Tottori Airport and Yonago Airport both take flights from Haneda in about an hour and a half. The San'in Main Line connects Tottori, Kurayoshi and Yonago, but trains are infrequent and slow, and buses cover the last stretch — 20 minutes and ¥370 from Tottori Station to the dunes, ¥930 from Yonago to the foot of Daisen. For Nageiredo, the Chizu valley, the Uradome coast headlands or anything off the main line, a rental car is effectively required.

Local Food

Matsuba crab is the winter fixture, and you can watch it change hands at the Sakaiminato market auction from 6:00 to 7:30 in season before paying for it at dinner. Kurayoshi is pear country: the twentieth-century variety ripens from August into October, and orchards there sell picking by the half hour. Two everyday things are worth trying — tofu chikuwa, a soft tofu-and-fish paste roll eaten around Tottori City, and the beef-bone ramen that Kurayoshi shops have made since the postwar years. Daisen's dairy farms supply the soft-serve at the mountain base.