Hidden Gems Across Japan
1,610 spots
Karakama Shrine
Karakama Shrine is reached by squeezing through a gap in a rock. The approach climbs a steep flight of stone steps into…
Kiyomizu-dera (Yasugi)
Not the Kyoto one. This Kiyomizu-dera is a mountain temple complex above Yasugi, founded in 587 according to its own acc…
Arakiya
There are a dozen soba shops around Izumo Taisha and Arakiya is the oldest of them, founded in the Tenmei era of the 178…
Tachikue Gorge
Twenty minutes from central Izumo, the Kando River runs between walls of columnar rock rising 100 to 200 metres — eroded…
Sanbe Azukihara Buried Forest
About four thousand years ago Mt. Sanbe erupted and buried the forest at its foot in volcanic debris — not flattening th…
Shussai Kiln
Shussai Kiln was started in 1947 by five local men in their twenties, none of them trained potters, who decided to make…
Iwami Tatamigaura
In 1872 the Hamada earthquake lifted a section of sea floor about a metre out of the water, and it has stayed there. The…
Yunotsu Onsen
Yunotsu was the port that shipped silver out of Iwami Ginzan, and when the mine was inscribed by UNESCO the town went in…
Oni no Shitaburui
The name means the demon's tongue trembling, and it comes from a story in the Izumo Fudoki about a shark deity in love w…
Sugaya Tatara Sannai
Tatara is the Japanese smelting method that produced tamahagane, the steel used for swords — iron sand and charcoal fed…
Kumano Taisha (Izumo)
Shimane has two shrines that claim the rank of first shrine of Izumo province. Everyone knows the one at Izumo Taisha; t…
Yaegaki Shrine
Yaegaki enshrines Susanoo and Kushinada — the god who killed the eight-headed serpent Yamata-no-Orochi and the woman he…
Kamosu Shrine
Everyone goes to Izumo Taisha for the architecture. The oldest surviving example of that architecture is here instead, i…
Yonago Kamogawa Canal Walk
Yonago was the commercial capital of San'in in the Edo period, and the goods moved by water: the Kamogawa runs through t…
Shikano Castle Town
Shikano was the seat of the Kamei family in the Sengoku period, and the street plan they laid out is still there — a gri…
Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory
Gosho Aoyama, who has been drawing Detective Conan since 1994, grew up in Hokuei, and the town has leaned into that comp…
Kurayoshi Beef-Bone Ramen
Almost all ramen in Japan is built on pork bones, chicken or fish. In central Tottori it is built on beef bones, and has…
Uradome Coast Island Cruise
The Uradome coast is fifteen kilometres of granite worked by the Sea of Japan into caves, arches, stacks and inlets, wit…
Iwai Onsen
Iwai is among the oldest hot springs in the San'in region, with about thirteen hundred years of recorded use, and it has…
Ametaki Falls
Forty metres of water off a lip of columnar basalt into a pool surrounded by beech and zelkova, at the foot of Mt. Ogino…
Enchoen
Tottori has a sister-province relationship with Hebei, and in 1995 it built the largest authentic Chinese garden in Japa…
Karoichi
Karo is Tottori city's fishing port, two minutes from the sand dunes, and Karoichi is the market building beside it — a…
Tofu Chikuwa
Chikuwa everywhere else in Japan is fish paste moulded round a stick and grilled. Tottori's is seven parts firm tofu to…
Ogamiyama Shrine Okunomiya
The approach to the mountain shrine of Ogamiyama is seven hundred metres of natural stone laid as paving — the longest s…
Estimated from distance to the nearest airport or shinkansen station. Confirm actual journey times before you travel.