Hidden Gems Across Japan
1,610 spots
Nioza Historical Road
Nioza is the tuff ridge immediately below Usuki Castle, and the castle town was cut into it rather than laid out on it.…
Usuki Stone Buddhas
Around sixty Buddhist figures are carved directly into the tuff cliffs of a small valley outside Usuki, cut between the…
Hitomoji Guruguru
A spring onion, briefly blanched, folded in half and then wound round its own white base into a tight coil, served with…
Ikinari Dango
A thick slice of raw sweet potato and a spoonful of sweet bean paste, wrapped in a plain wheat dough and steamed. That i…
Taipien
Taipien is a bowl of clear chicken and pork broth with mung bean vermicelli in it, topped with stir-fried pork, cabbage,…
Kyusendo Cave
Kyusendo runs about five kilometres into limestone above the Kuma river, which makes it the second longest cave in weste…
Gokanosho
Gokanosho is five settlements — Shiihara, Kurako, Hagi, Nitao and Momiki — scattered through mountains of thirteen hundr…
Yamaga Toro Mingeikan
Yamaga lanterns are made entirely of washi paper and glue. No wood, no wire, no metal — the shrines, castles, palanquins…
Yachiyoza
Yachiyoza was built in 1910 by the merchants of Yamaga, who put up the money themselves for a proper playhouse in a town…
Daikanbo
Daikanbo is a promontory on the northern rim of the Aso caldera at 936 metres, and from it the whole basin is visible at…
Oshitoishi Hill
On a grassland hill at 845 metres on the outer rim of Aso stand several hundred stones, some of them very large, arrange…
Kamishikimi Kumanoimasu Shrine
The approach to Kamishikimi Kumanoimasu runs uphill through cedar forest between ninety-seven moss-covered stone lantern…
Nabegataki Falls
Nabegataki is ten metres high and twenty wide, and the rock behind it is undercut deeply enough that a path runs along t…
Okoshiki Coast
The Ariake Sea has one of the largest tidal ranges in Japan, and when it goes out at Okoshiki it leaves several kilometr…
Misumi West Port
Misumi West Port was one of three ports the Meiji government built to modernise Japanese shipping, designed in 1887 by t…
Tsujun Bridge
The plateau at Yabe had no water. In 1854 the village headman Futa Yasunosuke had this built to get it there: a stone ar…
Ikeyama Spring
Ikeyama is a spring in the far north-east corner of Kumamoto, in the village of Ubuyama on the outer rim of the Aso cald…
Shirakawa Spring
The Shirakawa river, which runs through the middle of Kumamoto City, starts here — sixty tonnes a minute coming up out o…
Amakusa Dolphin Watching
About two hundred wild Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins live year-round in the strait off Futae in northern Amakusa, and…
Oe Church
Oe Church stands white on a hilltop above the fields of western Amakusa, visible for a long way, and it was built in 193…
Sakitsu Village
Sakitsu is a fishing village on a narrow inlet in southern Amakusa, and for over two hundred years of prohibition its pe…
Fukushima Peaches
Fukushima Prefecture is Japan's second-largest peach producer (after Yamanashi), renowned for exceptionally sweet, juicy…
Lake Hibara
Lake Hibara (桧原湖) is Bandai-Kogen's largest lake (10.7 km²), created during Mt. Bandai's catastrophic 1888 eruption when…
Aquamarine Fukushima
Aquamarine Fukushima (アクアマリンふくしま) is a world-class marine science museum combining aquarium, interactive exhibits, and e…
Estimated from distance to the nearest airport or shinkansen station. Confirm actual journey times before you travel.