Countryside for tourists?

24 comments

1. Hakone is not really countryside, more like a tourist resort. Does he mean genuine countryside (= rural areas) or just “cities which are not Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo”?

   You really do not need Japanese for normal touristing even in lesser traveled areas. Small talk is not a thing in Japan, customer service is very good, in the vast majority of cases it is very obvious what you want to do without a single word being spoken (check in to a hotel, showing up at a ticket counter, pointing at menu items) and with Google Maps/Navitime + Google Translate + body language you can do anything.

2. Hakone would be good for a night or 2.
   Maybe concider a day trip to Nikko as well as the forests and shrine are lovely.

   I found some parts of Tokyo felt a bit overbearing after spending time in much quieter areas of Japan and getting out to areas where you can walk in nature helped. There are walking trails around kamakura area too which is closer to Tokyo than the 2 above areas.

3. I haven’t been there yet, but I’m planning on visiting Shirakawa-go. It looks lovely and very countryside in a historical way! Have you considered it?

   Edit: a friend recommended staying near Takayama to visit Shirakawa-go. They have onsens around there too

4. I have come to love the Japan Guide youtube channel. I already did my first trip to Japan this past March and loved it.

   You may want to look at all of their videos, but they have one, 3-part series on traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto but not along the typical route everyone takes. In this 3 part series they take a northern route that goes through more rural/local parts of Japan. [This video, the 2nd in the series, might be especially helpful to you.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfOhY8dKxMU&ab_channel=japan-guide.com)

   BTW, their video on ryokan/onsen etiquette saved me a lot of embarrassment!

5. The only countryside kinda city I’ve been to is Azumino in the mountains, otherwise any place usually not easily reachable by car I’d consinder the countryside.

6. YMMV but Airbnb might be a good tool for this, particularly zooming out the map or just searching by prefecture name. It takes a little bit of care to read the comments and make sure the listing is reliable and that the location is accessible to you, but it could be a fun one-off.

   I stayed in 2 airbnbs that might qualify as “in the country”, including a great experience with one involving a train to Toyama, 20 more minutes on a regional line, and then a 20 minute walk to a really nice guesthouse/private cabin with great views of the mountains and cherry blossoms. The older couple running it invited me to a home cooked dinner (for a fee, listed in the airbnb description) and even with the language barrier, the enthusiasm + google translate made it a really good time. My other stay in Matsushima was more “no-frills” older building that was an adequate basecamp for a day trip to Tashirojima, hosts didn’t interact but left a local guidebook, I had 2 meals local and otherwise ate on my outings.

   I also stayed 1 night in Hakone via a hotel app, but that experience definitely leaned towards a resort onsen stay than in the country. Really nice resort, but the bit of Hakone I walked around particularly more country than many other moderate sized towns with parks and nature nearby.

   I named specific cities but researching other areas those seem like common archetypes across Japan. In any case the language barrier shouldn’t be a huge issue, there’s usually somewhere with photo menus and/or helpful staff, and at worst case there’s always cooking or convenience store food

7. >Now my sisters husband is a country boy, but wants to visit Tokyo due to his love of anime and other Japanese cultural aspects. He requested we spend some time in “the country” but I’m aware that things like English are limited outside of major areas and my Japanese is elementary

   English is limited even in Tokyo and the other big cities, but at least they have English on signs. Out in the countryside it’s much more hit and miss.

   I remember going to a rice planting festival in the middle of nowhere on the east side of Lake Biwa and kind of struggling to find the train station after the festival was over, and then standing around baffled because the (non-JR) station was unattended. The one car train was just sort of sitting there with the doors open, nobody inside. Nobody living within line of sight.

   We sat there for about half an hour wondering if we should try to find a taxi and how when a door opened and the conductor came out. We sorted out our tickets and a few stops later we were back in JR territory and on our way.

   Not scary at all, but it did feel a bit post apocalyptic.

   >I’m thinking Hakone or Kawaguchiko could fill this requirement but I’m wondering if one is better than the other! Onsens we’re requested but I know both places have them.

   Hakone isn’t really country. It’s a major tourist destination.

   Depending on how rural you want to go, I could recommend the Kiso Valley, or the Takayama/Kamikochi area in the Japanese Alps, or just do what we did and find a random festival in the middle of nowhere and check it out. Super nice people all round.

8. I’m a fan of Lucky Star, so I visited the IRL shrine Kagami’s family runs in the anime located in Washinomiya, Saitama. It was an easy day trip with one train from Tokyo. It’s a country town surrounded by fields.

9. Still ryokan-territory but Shuzen-ji on the Izu penninsula is kind of countryside. It’s one of the major wasabi-growing regions and the train out there goes single-track to give it that rural feel. A larger room at Kikuya ([http://www.kikuyaryokan.net/en/](http://www.kikuyaryokan.net/en/)) was great for 2 couples (there are multiple private baths that are first-come-first-served as opposed to reserved).

10. If it’s in your budget, a local tour guide could help with this. If you’re going to the Kyoto area, I can recommend [YUTour](https://www.yutour.net/tours.html) for rural tours near Lake Biwa.

    I’m not affiliated with them; I took their Harie village tour in 2019. It felt like a country town to my touristy, foreign eyes; as in, we would walk past vegetable fields, the local temple had daikon radishes hanging off the bell structure, etc.

    The guide (and owner), Mori Seita, spoke excellent English and is actually involved with community events in the area, so he knows the locals. I had a really great time on the tour and would go on another tour with him if I return to Kyoto.

11. I know nothing about the Kanto area but, if you want some beautiful countryside. I enjoyed Tottori, plus there are plenty of farms there that even serve food made from their produce.

    For onsen, Kinosaki is one of my favorite places, I don’t think it’s nearly as well known as others for foreigners. Great for a couple of days and most ryokan there offer private onsen, as well as voucher passes to the other onsen in the area.

12. You may want to check out Mother Farm. It’s basically a farm themed amusement park but may scratch that country itch. There is infrequent bus service from Kisarazu, but ideally you’d have a car and then drive on to a ryokan or resort of some time in Boso area.

    https://www.motherfarm.co.jp/

13. I’m in Kawaguchiko now. Not sure if I’d call it “countryside” per se, but it is certainly less urban and less crowded than the big cities (still seeing a decent amount of tourists, both Japanese and foreign). Mt. Fuji is a great sight to behold!

14. Oh yes you can easily pass off some less urban areas with outdoors things to do as “countryside” to any first timers in Japan…

15. I found learning the basics helped immensely – hello, goodbye, thank you, excuse me and sorry are the phrases I used the most, you really can get by with that and pointing, translation apps make it very easy to communicate with shop keepers what you want as well. That and understand the culture, little things like being quiet on the trains, handing over cash with two hands instead of one. It all makes a huge difference.

    I found it as a thing of respect to learn the basics, it definitely made a difference in my interaction with some of the locals I did speak to, they were a lot more lively and such. I even had a bunch of teenagers teach me their version of a drinking game, then we sung their friend happy birthday in English, it was super cute. It all started because I shouted kanpai(cheers) to them as I walked past them in a circle near the train station.

16. Yeah I don’t think Kawaguchiko and Hakone are really countryside…maybe just “not city”.

    But what about western Tokyo? Like around Mitake or Okutama. You could even go camping for a night or two.

17. Mount Yoshino in Nara for sakura viewing, and then you stay at a temple nearby for 1-2 nights if you are interested in Buddhism.

18. If you’re going to kyoto, I highly recommend ama no hashidate and miyama. There’s a tour on klook that takes you to both of those in one day and you come back at 5pm. It was an amazing tour. I only wish that it was longer. It was definitely the highlight of the trip and only cost $91 per person.

19. People are saying ‘Hakone is just a resort’ but it’s actually a whole area of towns and villages. If you go to Hakone-Sengoku area it’s further away from the mega onsen hotels, has breathtaking mountain walks, and amazing views of Fuji as it’s close by. Hakone is still very accessible from Tokyo, so it’s not going to be deserted but then neither is (almost) anywhere you’re going to as a holidaymaker.

    Re: Takayama and Izu – yes but…. Takayama is a mini Kyoto, so it’s your base out to incredible rural places like Shirakawa-Go and perhaps walking in Kamikotchi. Or if you have a car, lots of other routes.

    And Izu – the east coast down to Ito is very built up and a faded beach resort vibe. Beyond that it gets very rural. And the west coast is spectacular scenery with just little fishing ports and the odd hotel. I stayed in Dogashima and I loved it for a night or two.

    I’ll throw in that if you want

20. Lots of good advice here so I’m just gonna toss in a plug for the Nagao valley area – Ueda, for a very small city that feels semi-rural, and Bessho Onsen for a very under-sung onsen town. It’s not scenic and fancy, but it is very real countryside Japan. Late March is the off-season in those parts, between winter ski season around Nagano and summer. We scored some amazing deals and had baths and ryokan amenities basically to ourselves. Sakura season varies thanks to climate change so as long as you’re hitting Tokyo you’ll probably have that covered, but do look into areas listed as Kinki – Gifu, Nagano/Matsumoto, and other regions on either side of the Japan Alps for the smaller towns and countryside areas that are still lovely without being wall to wall tourists like Kansai. If your fam is into samurai or ninja stuff, or special farming practices that give tours or experiences, that’s worth looking into as well.

    For getting around you can get a lot of good use out of Google translate, our wait staff at Tamaya Ryokan loooooooved being able to speak into my partner’s phone and have it auto-translated. We were able to get around most of Japan with our limited Japanese, pointing, and apologizing like true midwesterners, but the translate features on the phone (especially the camera pointed at signs and menus) made everything so fast and smooth. Faster than me carefully puzzling out katakana, that’s for sure.

21. >I’m thinking Hakone or Kawaguchiko could fill this requirement

    Yes, these are popular tourist resorts and would be ideal for people who don’t speak Japanese.

22. Do Hokkaido/Sapporo! Did it for my honeymoon and got plenty of nature while out there- plus the chocolate factory is insane!

23. Yoshino in Nara is a must during cherry blossom season and definitely “in the country”. That was one of my favorite places to go when I lived in Japan.

24. You can venture out to Ibaraki and see rural Japan. Given the JR Pass will be increasing by 64% it’s probably not worth going too far but there are plenty of places in Japan that are quite beautiful in the country side. I used to live in Northern Japan and the sakura blooms later in the year like end of April to early May.