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Takikawa City

Takikawa City, in the Sorachi region of central Hokkaido, is home to one of Hokkaido's most celebrated rapeseed flower landscapes and Japan's largest gliding airfield. Each year from late May to early June, 180 hectares of rapeseed fields turn the city into a vast yellow carpet for the 'Takikawa Nanohana Festival,' attracting huge crowds from across Hokkaido and beyond. Takikawa is also renowned as Japan's premier gliding city — the 'Takikawa Aviation Glider Competition' is a major annual event, and visitor gliding experience flights are available. Rich agricultural produce nurtured by the Ishikari River, and spring landscapes ablaze with yellow...

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Ehon no Kan (Picture Book Museum)

Ehon no Kan (Picture Book Museum)

Kenbuchi Town's Ehon no Kan (Picture Book Museum) grew out of the 'Building a Picture Book Village' movement launched in 1989, and is now one of Japan's leading picture book facilities. With a collection exceeding 40,000 books donated from across the country, it offers an immersive, hands-on space where children and adults alike can lose themselves in the world of picture books. The museum also features original picture book illustration displays and reading spaces, serving as a cultural hub where generations connect through storytelling.

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Urakawa Town

Urakawa Town is the central city of the Hidaka region and the heart of Hokkaido's Thoroughbred breeding industry — the 'Hidaka Horse Country.' Many of Japan's greatest GI race champions were born and raised here, and the sight of foals galloping across vast pasturelands is the defining landscape of the Hidaka road trip. Tourism ranches and riding facilities are plentiful, and hands-on horse experiences are enormously popular with foreign visitors. High-quality dairy products including yogurt are another Urakawa specialty, alongside 'Hidaka Kombu' — a premium variety of kelp. 'Urakawa Yushun Village AERU' lets visitors see retired racehorses up close, with...

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Nayoro City

Nayoro City, in the northern Kamikawa region of Hokkaido, is known as 'Japan's coldest city' — winter temperatures sometimes plunge below minus 30°C, and heavy snowfall defines the long winter months. Each February, the city hosts the 'Shibare Festival' (Shibare = the Hokkaido word for extreme cold), a unique celebration that turns the freezing temperatures into entertainment with ice sculptures, fireworks over snow, and a variety of winter events drawing visitors from across Japan. In summer, stunning sunflower fields at 'Seiry' and other locations bloom beautifully throughout the city. Nayoro's Kitasubaru Astronomical Observatory, with Hokkaido's largest sliding-roof dome, offers spectacular...

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Horokanai Town

Horokanai Town, in the Uryu district of northern Hokkaido, proudly holds the title of Japan's largest soba (buckwheat) cultivation area. In late August to early September, the rolling farmland is carpeted with pure white soba blossoms in a display that feels like the original, unspoiled Hokkaido landscape. 'Horokanai Soba' is of such exceptional quality that several local soba restaurants have been listed in the Michelin Guide. The 'New Soba Festival' held each autumn attracted soba lovers from across Japan. Lake Shumarinai — Japan's largest oxbow lake — is revered as the home of the elusive legendary fish 'Itou' (Huchen taimen),...

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Shibetsu City

Shibetsu City, in the Kamikawa region of northern Hokkaido, is Japan's top producer of Suffolk sheep and home to 'Hitsuji to Kumo no Oka' (Sheep and Cloud Hill). The 'World Sheep Museum' (Sekai no Menyokan) showcases around 15 sheep breeds from across the globe and lets visitors feed and get up close with these gentle animals. The pastoral spectacle of Suffolk sheep roaming freely across rolling summer hills is quintessentially Hokkaido, and hugely popular for photography. Shibetsu is also known as a 'Motorcar City' — multiple Japanese automakers maintain cold-weather test tracks here for winter performance testing. In winter, sub-minus-20°C...

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Okushiri Island (Okushiri Blue Sea)

Okushiri Island (Okushiri Blue Sea)

Okushiri Island floats in the Sea of Japan off southwestern Hokkaido, about 100 km southwest of Hakodate. Its legendary 'Okushiri Blue' — an extraordinary water clarity that ranks among the world's most transparent coastal seas — makes this a destination for divers and snorkelers from Japan and abroad. The island's seafood is equally celebrated: sea urchin (bafun and murasaki), abalone, and yellowtail of the finest quality are among the prized products that have made Okushiri famous across Japan. 'Nabeturi Rock,' a dramatic natural stone arch sculpted by wave erosion, is the island's most iconic landmark and a favourite subject for...

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Biratori Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum

Biratori Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum

Biratori Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum is a specialized museum in the Nibutani district, known as a center for the transmission and promotion of Ainu culture. It houses a valuable collection covering Ainu daily tools, clothing, and crafts, offering visitors an in-depth look at traditional ways of life and spiritual culture through actual artifacts. At the adjacent Nibutani Kotan, demonstrations and hands-on programs in traditional crafts such as woodcarving and embroidery let visitors experience Ainu culture firsthand. The Nibutani collection of everyday implements, designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan, is one of the largest of its kind in the...

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Iwamizawa City

Iwamizawa City, the central city of Sorachi region in central Hokkaido, is home to Iwamizawa Park Rose Garden — Hokkaido's largest rose garden with over 10,000 roses spanning approximately 650 varieties. During the blooming season (June–September), the fragrant, color-filled garden draws visitors from across Hokkaido. In winter, Iwamizawa is celebrated for heavy snowfall that supports the Iwamizawa Kitamura Ski Resort, popular for family skiing. The city is also one of Hokkaido's premier ice hockey towns, with deep community roots in the sport and an enthusiastic local fan culture. Rich agricultural products, excellent access via the Doo-o Expressway, and a thriving...

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Shikaoi Town

Shikaoi Town, in the western Tokachi region, is home to Lake Shikaribetsu — Hokkaido's highest lake at 810 meters above sea level, sitting within Daisetsuzan National Park. Surrounded by primeval forest and harboring the endemic 'Miyabe char' fish, the lake's mystical scenery captivates visitors year-round. Each February, the frozen lake surface hosts 'Shikaribetsu Lake Kotan' — a temporary ice village built on the ice itself, featuring an open-air hot spring bath, an ice bar, an ice church, and other surreal experiences found nowhere else on Earth. This unique winter event has won the Suntory Award for Regional Culture. Summer brings...

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Engaru Town

Engaru Town, in the Monbetsu district of central Okhotsk, Hokkaido, is home to Sun Hill Engaru Park — one of Japan's largest cosmos flower fields. When over 10 million cosmos blooms carpet the roughly 10-hectare hillside from late August to late September, the park becomes one of Hokkaido's most celebrated floral destinations, drawing visitors from across Japan and beyond. The same hillside transforms into a sea of pink shibazakura (moss phlox) in spring (May–June), offering a completely different but equally spectacular display. Maruseppu Forest Park features 'Amayu No. 21' — a vintage steam locomotive that is a Hokkaido Heritage site...

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Horonobe Town

Horonobe Town, set on the 45th parallel in the Soya region of northernmost Hokkaido, is an agricultural town of sweeping dairy pastures and pristine wilderness. Its biggest draw is the Horonobe Reindeer Research Ranch — Japan's only facility where visitors can get up close with reindeer. The hands-on experience of feeding and petting these gentle animals is enormously popular, especially when baby reindeer are born from May to July. The vast Sarobetsu Wetlands, a Ramsar Convention-registered site, offer spectacular birdwatching and the unmistakable sense of wide-open northern Hokkaido. Sunsets over the pastures with distant Mount Rishiri silhouetted on the horizon,...

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Nakashibetsu Town

Nakashibetsu Town

Nakashibetsu Town, in the Nemuro Sub-prefecture of eastern Hokkaido, is Japan's largest dairy farming region. The Kaiyodai Observatory (270 m elevation) is famed for its 330-degree panoramic view that makes you feel the actual curvature of the Earth — endless pasture, straight roads reaching the horizon, and open sky have made this a legendary destination for motorcyclists from across Japan. The combination of sunrise, sunset, and stargazing views from Kaiyodai is simply unmatched anywhere in Hokkaido. Yoroushi Hot Spring, a celebrated 'secret hot spring' hidden in deep nature, offers a tranquil retreat where steam rises into the forest air. With...

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Lake Miyajima

Lake Miyajima is a Ramsar-designated wetland and paradise for migratory birds, where up to 70,000 white-fronted geese (magan) gather each spring and autumn migration. The pre-dawn spectacle of tens of thousands of geese taking flight simultaneously from the lake surface — known as the 'magan scramble' — is one of Hokkaido's most profoundly moving natural events. Migration peaks in late March to early April and late September to early October, drawing birdwatchers and photographers from across Japan during these windows. The Miyajima-numa Waterfowl and Wetland Center on the lakeshore offers expert-guided insight into the ecology of these migratory visitors up...

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Shibetsu Town

Shibetsu Town in the Nemuro Sub-prefecture of eastern Hokkaido is celebrated as the 'Holy Land of Salmon' — a small fishing village with over 10,000 years of continuous salmon fishing history dating back to the Jomon period, recognized as Japan Heritage. The Shibetsu Salmon Science Museum is the world's largest salmon exhibit facility, where visitors can observe a spectacular variety of salmonids including sturgeon, Chinook salmon, and king salmon in massive tanks; in autumn, cherry salmon can be seen ascending the stream right outside the museum. Shibetsu is also a member of 'The Most Beautiful Villages in Japan' association, set...

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Mikasa City

Mikasa City, in the Sorachi region of central Hokkaido, is home to Mikasa Geopark — a registered Japan Geopark covering geological strata formed approximately 100 million years ago on an ancient seafloor. It is one of the world's greatest ammonite fossil sites, and the Mikasa City Museum displays impressive real fossil specimens. A fossil excavation program lets visitors dig up ammonite fossils themselves, a wildly popular hands-on activity for all ages. The ruins of the Sumitomo Betsubi Coal Mine, which preserves Hokkaido's largest coal mine headframe (hopper tower), have become a major draw for industrial heritage enthusiasts and urban exploration...

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Hoshino Resorts Tomamu

Hoshino Resorts Tomamu

Shimukappu Village, a mountain community of around 1,000 residents in the Kamikawa region of central Hokkaido, is home to Hoshino Resorts Tomamu — one of Hokkaido's most famous year-round resort destinations. Tomamu turns its famously misty, cloud-covered weather into an attraction: the 'Sea of Clouds Terrace' observation deck at 1,088 meters elevation offers breathtaking views when the right conditions produce a vast cloud sea below. In winter, Tomamu's abundant light powder snow draws skiers from Europe, North America, and across Asia. Summer programs include the spectacular 'Water Room' outdoor pool surrounded by forest, outdoor activities, and stargazing. This world-class resort,...

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Kitami City

Kitami City, in the Okhotsk region of eastern Hokkaido, is a proudly distinctive agricultural city — Japan's leading producer of both peppermint (hakkа) and onions. At its peak, Kitami peppermint once held a 70% share of the world market, earning the city the title 'capital of mint.' The Kitami Mint Museum traces this extraordinary history. Today, Kitami onions are Japan's top-yielding, and the autumn harvest season blankets vast fields in golden-yellow bulbs. Kitami is also 'Japan's curling city' — having sent athletes to three consecutive Winter Olympics (Turin 2006, PyeongChang 2018, and Beijing 2022). The city's fierce yakiniku (Japanese barbecue)...

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Erimo Town

Erimo Town, at the southern tip of the Hidaka region where the Hidaka Mountain Range plunges into the Pacific, is famous for Cape Erimo — a spectacular landscape of wind, waves, and rock. A reef stretches nearly 8 kilometers from the cape into the Pacific, and Erimo is one of Japan's windiest spots, with an average wind speed exceeding 10 m/s year-round. The 'Kaze no Yakata' (Wind Hall) lets visitors experience simulated 25 m/s gales in a popular hands-on exhibit. Around 600 spotted seals (Zenikataseal) inhabit the rocky reefs near the cape, visible through binoculars resting on the sun-warmed rocks....

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Esashi Town

Esashi Town, in the Hiyama Sub-prefecture at the far southwestern tip of Hokkaido, is a historic port town steeped in culture. Esashi Oiwake, one of Japan's three great folk songs, is a haunting, elegiac melody performed with great virtuosity, and the Esashi Oiwake National Competition held each September draws master singers from across the country. Esashi is part of Japan Heritage 'Ikimen' — the network of Kitamaebune (merchant ship) port towns that thrived on herring trade in the Edo period. The Kaiyo Maru Memorial Museum, housing a full-scale replica of the Boshin War-era warship, adds historical drama as the setting...

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Toyotomi Hot Spring

Toyotomi Hot Spring

Toyotomi Hot Spring is a rare 'oil spring,' discovered by accident during oil drilling. Known as Japan's only hot spring with petroleum content, its distinctive water — where dissolved oil forms a protective film on the skin — has become famous by word of mouth for its benefits for atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, and other skin conditions. Known as a 'miracle spring,' it draws long-term therapy visitors from across the country, many staying for extended periods of treatment. The hot spring town is lined with ryokan and hotels, allowing visitors to combine therapeutic bathing with sightseeing.

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Hamanaka Town

Hamanaka Town in the Nemuro Sub-prefecture of eastern Hokkaido encompasses the Kiritappu Wetland (Biwaase Wetland) — a Ramsar-designated wetland of approximately 2,800 hectares. Elevated wooden boardwalks wind through the marsh, and from June through July the wetland transforms into a spectacular sea of blooms: Ezo daylilies, yellow pond lilies, and iris put on a dazzling show. Red-crowned cranes, white-tailed eagles, and Blakiston's fish owls are among the rare wildlife residents. Hamanaka is also the birthplace of Monkey Punch, creator of the iconic manga Lupin III, and the town celebrates this heritage with dedicated exhibits. Fresh oysters, scallops, and kombu from...

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Date City

Date City, in the Iburi region of southwestern Hokkaido, is nicknamed 'the Shonan of Hokkaido' for its remarkably mild climate. The city was founded by the Watari-Date clan from the Sendai Domain, and its Edo-period heritage lends it a gentler, more refined atmosphere than much of Hokkaido. The Kitakogane Shell Mound (a national historic site) preserves Jomon-era traces. One of Hokkaido's few areas where plum trees thrive, Date stages a rare and delightful plum blossom season in spring. With Mt. Usu, Mt. Showa-shinzan, and Lake Toya visible on the horizon, the city enjoys one of the best panoramic positions in...

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Mt. Apoi

Mt. Apoi (810 m) is extraordinarily rare worldwide — one of very few mountains where mantle-derived peridotite (ultramafic rock) is exposed at the surface — and forms the heart of Apoi Geopark, a UNESCO Global Geopark. This unique geological environment sustains a remarkable 'flower mountain,' renowned as a treasure trove of alpine plant species found nowhere else. Endemic Hidaka Mountain Range species bloom in vivid color from May to July, drawing hikers and plant enthusiasts alike. Despite its modest elevation of 810 meters, the mountain's distinctive geology and climate create conditions where true alpine flora can thrive. Apoi Sanso lodge...

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