Okayama Japan Travel Guide: Korakuen Garden, Kurashiki and Day Trips
Discover Okayama Japan: Korakuen Garden, Kurashiki Bikan Quarter and Naoshima Art Island. Day trips to Tottori and Hiroshima. Hotels, tours and practical tips.
AUTHOR
eatmono
Things to Do in Kochi: Wild Coast, Fresh Bonito, and Ryoma Country
Kochi Prefecture is the wildest, most untamed corner of Shikoku — and that is exactly its appeal. Facing the open Pacific Ocean, Kochi has Japan’s highest rainfall, its longest unmodified river, its most atmospheric castle market, and a food culture so distinctive it feels like its own country within a country. If you want to know what to do in Kochi, prepare for dramatic coastal scenery, some of the freshest seared bonito you will ever eat, and landscapes that feel genuinely remote even though a rapid train can bring you here from Takamatsu in two hours. Kochi is one of […]
Shikoku Japan Travel Guide: Best Things to Do on the Forgotten Island
If you are planning a trip to Japan and want to escape the tourist crowds while still experiencing authentic culture, stunning nature, and world-class food, Shikoku should be at the top of your list. Japan’s fourth-largest island is routinely overlooked in favor of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka — and that is precisely what makes it so special. The locals are welcoming, the landscapes are dramatic, and the ryokan stays are among the best in the entire country. This complete Shikoku Japan travel guide covers the best things to do across all four prefectures — Kagawa, Kochi, Ehime, and Tokushima — […]
Naruto Whirlpools Guide: Best Boat Tours, Viewing Times, and Getting There
The Naruto Whirlpools are one of nature’s most mesmerising spectacles — vast spinning vortices of seawater up to 20 metres in diameter that form in the Naruto Strait between Tokushima Prefecture and Awaji Island every six hours as tidal currents collide. They are the third-largest natural whirlpools in the world (after Norway’s Saltstraumen and Canada’s Old Sow), and unlike those northern counterparts they can be viewed up close from a glass-bottomed boat or from a glass-floored walkway suspended 45 metres above the roiling water. If you have ever wanted to stand directly above a swirling ocean vortex and feel the […]
Things to Do in Tokushima: Iya Valley, Awa Odori, and Naruto Whirlpools
Tokushima Prefecture sits in the northeast corner of Shikoku, and it packs more drama into a compact area than almost anywhere else in Japan. Within its borders you will find the Iya Valley — one of the country’s most inaccessible and atmospheric mountain gorges — the thundering Naruto Whirlpools in the strait between Tokushima and Awaji Island, the four-century-old Awa Odori dance festival, and a stretch of the Pacific coast wild enough that it still sustains wild sea turtles. If you are wondering what to do in Tokushima, prepare to be surprised by how much depth this often-overlooked prefecture contains. […]