Hi Everyone,
6 of us (active 60-year olds) are going for 15 days in Japan, starting May 4th. We are spending 5 nights in Tokyo, then going to Hakone for 2 nights, then heading to Kyoto. I’d love to get some perspectives on Hakone. Asking because a good friend has warned us away, and, I am reading some negative comments about Hakone in some of the threads. Seeing things like crowded, touristy, etc.
Our goal in going to Hakone is to get out of the city and enjoy some outdoor activities and nature. Of course we would prefer this to be in as ‘traditional’ an area as possible. I understand Hakone is a bit touristy. (Hopefully not too much?) We plan to stay in a Ryokan and do the the Open Air museum, Old Tokaido Road, Susuki Fields, and perhaps Mt. Kintoki or botanical garden.
Does this make sense? Or, is there another location other than Hakone that is recommended? Where do locals go? Ideally looking for something between Tokyo and Kyoto to minimize travel. We are relying on trains – we do not have a car.
Any and all feedback is most appreciated!
36 comments
Following as I have basically the same question but for late March/april…
> where do locals go
> touristy
All onsen towns will be touristy by definition. For example, Hakone is actually quite popular among Tokyoites who head out for the weekend and is always highly ranked in [Top 100 onsen rankings](https://www.kankokeizai.com/index_100sen/) (Japan tourism is obsessed with Top 3 / Top 100 of everything).
For between Tokyo and Kyoto the only other famous location is Gero (an hour north of Nagoya), I think? Kusatsu, Kinosaki, etc. are popular but do not fit the requirement of being between these two. And maybe Atami but I’ve read it’s past prime and kind of depressing.
If it’s a first trip you may not want to go anywhere *too* local due to issues around language, potential lack of dietary accommodations, unfamiliarity with rural transport, etc.
I really enjoyed the small quiet onsen town Kinosaki. It’s not too far from Kyoto but a few hours past it if coming from Tokyo.
You’re going to Tokyo and Kyoto, and you’re worried Hakone will be touristy? I went in April 2019, and had a great time. It is close to Tokyo, so there will be people, but it wasn’t bad when I went. I’d go again.
My wife and I just got back from our japan trip. We stayed an older ryokan in Hakone called Motoyu Kansuiro, it was absolutely magical and we loved it. Traditional and really felt like a whole different world(with the exception of the main road close by)
That being said, hakone is very touristy but not anything the tourist hell that is Kyoto(we still loved kyoto as well but it is so overly crowded). We did the hakone loop our second day, it was nice but there was quite a bit of people, especially around lake ashi. We got the tori gate at the lake it was just mobbed with people in line to get a photo and to be honest, aside from the sulfur pits it was a little boring.
With the amount of foreign and native tourists at any given time. Any place you stay(with the exception of mostly tokyo, will benefit from stating your day early. IE: before 8am.
Curious, would Kanazawa be a better option? And again, mainly asking because of the negativity I’ve heard about Hakone being crowded with lots of lines.
Hakone gets crowded and is a bit touristy, but that’s because it’s awesome.
Yeah the public transportation system can be overwhelmed by the amount of people (esp the Hakone loop spots) but as long as you’re not rushing and plan ahead (like leaving motohakone before the last cruise ends) it’s manageable.
I went for the same reasons as you last month and really enjoyed my time. Had some amazing scenic views and was a breathe of fresh air between my time in Tokyo and Kyoto.
I’d highly recommend the open air museum and mt Kintoki. FYI there are two routes up and down mt Kintoki, the route from the shrine is the more difficult one. Unless you’re in good physical shape or want a challenge go up the mountain using the non shrine trail.
It might be recency bias, but we had a great time in the Kiso Valley, staying in a ryokan in Kiso Fukushima for a few nights. You get the traditional onsen town feel in areas, a great temple garden and the nicest people in town. Then you can do day/ half day trips to other towns in the valley like narai or magome. There’s also forests and lakes nearby to check out. The sense of history there is awesome, there are spots where you can see where the samurai would have hiked between Kyoto and Tokyo.
I’ve done hakone before and there are some great ryokans there, but I definitely got less of a traditional feel to the rest of the things I did there.
Have you looked at any of the ones towns in Gifu? It’s north of Nagoya. Depending one what town you go to, you can easily get a train or bus north from Nagoya.
Hakone is really the best for your prompt. I could think of Izu Peninsula, Ise-Toba, and Okuhida as areas that fit, but all are substantially harder to get to & around via public transit, and much shorter on English language. Fuji Lakes area might suit you – of course it’s very touristy but less crowded.
If you go to Hakone I would recommend the following:
1) Avoid weekends if at all possible
2) Look up the Hakone Round Course to understand which routes will be busiest – try to avoid these routes at midday
3) Don’t stay in (EDIT: Hakone-Yumoto) or Gora – based on your interests, maybe stay near Sengokuhara or Kowakudani
Hakone is and always has been a tourist place. If you want to go to a tourist place that’s not jammed with non-Japanese tourists because, inexplicably, everyone wants to go to Hakone, try Atami, another traditional tourist/hot spring city a couple of Shinkansen stops away from Hakone. It’s got a lot of domestic tourists sometimes, but otherwise it’s a quiet(ish) resort town. We (Japan residents) went there in May of maybe 2010, and it seemed empty. We had a very good time. The only marginally unpleasant thing was that we were the only people staying at the *ryokan*, so the entire staff stood and watched us eating dinner.
I was in Hakone in late October, spent two nights, glad I did.
If you are going to Kyoto and looking for an alternative to Hakone, check out Kinosaki, that a few other people here have mentioned.
It is a small town north west of Kyoto. I went there during sakura, it was still lightly snowing but warm enough to walk around in the yukata the hotel provided.
It’s much smaller than Hakone, and still has that old Japan feel to it. You literally walk along a hot spring fed little river that flows through town to go to the different onsens. Most of the tourists wear yukatas so it really is like being in some movie.
It’s a bit out of the way but you could go to Shibu Onsen in Nagano. There’s a really great ryokan called Kanaguya that I highly recommend. Lots and lots of private onsen as well as public onsen.
I lived in Hakone for a while.
Honestly it really does check your boxes and I feel like you’d get the most bang for your buck there.
Like it *is* touristy but that’s honestly the whole point. It’s a hotspring resort town. That’s just what it is. It’s a popular place for locals and international travelers alike. Like sure it’s gets busy and transportation may get crowded at certain times of the day and/or year but I never thought it was that unbearable. Tokyo and Osaka get crowded too.
Despite being a tourist hotspot it does maintain it’s charm. I honestly feel like most of the complaints are probably from people who expected some sort of extreme immersion in local culture being their only stop that isn’t the mega cities of Tokyo/Osaka?? I don’t know. It’s a small town but it’s not bumblefuck nowhere small.
It’s a town built on tourism but not in a terrible cringe way. It’s very much an authentic experience.
I loved Hakone for the 3 days I was there in June. Lots of lovely outdoor things to see. Obviously it’s touristy, but it was still a tremendous experience and provided a nice contrast to the week we had just spent in Tokyo
I liked Hakone. The five Fuji lakes area is good too but you need a car.
Keep in mind a lot of local places are not super pretty haha. Local onsen and bath houses are often in the city or suburbs and are fine for local folks but the touristy places are touristy for a reason, they’re usually beautifully designed and are resort type places. Also to note, but most of the tourists in touristy places are Japanese tourists from other (sometimes local/nearby) prefectures. So if you were thinking touristy meant mostly foreign, I find in Japan that Japanese tourists still make up the majority of the tourists in a given destination. Hakone is very popular with Japanese travelers, as well as foreign visitors.
In Hakone, there are a handful of hotels that cater and advertise more heavily to foreign visitors specifically though, so I wonder if your friend had the experience of staying at one of those locations. I’d recommend reading the reviews and checking to see if there are a number of recent reviews in Japanese, not just those in English or other languages.
Hakone is definitely worth a visit and it is very beautiful and scenic. Taking the cable car down to Lake Ashi and taking the boat tour around the lake is lovely, and depending on the time of year can give you great views of Mt. Fuji!
An alternative onsen town that is still quite easy to get to from Tokyo (there is a bus that goes directly from Tokyo) is Kusatsu Onsen, an onsen village in the mountains in Gunma prefecture. It has a different feeling from Hakone in that it’s a small central village with shops, restaurants, and natural volcanic foot baths surrounded by ryokan and hotels with onsens. There were far fewer western tourists there than Hakone. Less scenic as it’s in its own central and walkable village and more “local” in that most other tourists were Japanese. Because of this, it may be a bit more challenging to visit if you don’t speak a bit of Japanese. Not impossible! Just something to be aware of.
Hakone is awesome but touristy for the ropeway/etc, same with Nikko. But totally worth it — there’s a reason they’re so popular with tourists and locals alike.
If all you want is onsen/ryokan + nature and you don’t care much about shrines, why not go somewhere more off the beaten path? My friends recently went to a Ryokan on the Izu peninsula and loved it. My SO and I went to a Ryokan just past Kinugawa Onsen called Honke Bankyu – remote and hard to get to, but **stunning** onsen and nature.
Maybe Hikone? its only one syllable different and they got Hikoneko, a samurai cat.
I mean you’re doing Tokyo and Kyoto, so surely “not crowded” and “not touristy” aren’t what your itinerary was built upon. All onsen are touristy, because while “onsen” translates to “hot spring”, onsen towns should probably be translated as holiday resort towns.
Places on the Izu peninsula are usually less crowded (due to being close to the sea, the season matters more than in Hakone but not sure about May) and feel less touristy, imho.
That said, I like Hakone.
Hakone is on my bucket list and I think it’s “touristy” by default because residents of Tokyo and other parts of Japan also vacation there.
If you are looking for a quieter alternative, Karuizawa 軽井沢 is a hidden gem and another favorite for locals!!
was just here and had similar objectives. was happy with hakone! as soon as you get onto trails or just away from the main/designed tourist flows (including all of the hakone free pass stuff), you will get more of what you are looking for.
mt ashigara and otome pass was a great hike too.
Please wait till after golden week
Ikaho.
Apologies for sounding rude, but you’re a tourist and don’t want to go to “touristy” places. Maybe it just sounds odd to me. If you want to achieve this, then having some Japanese language skills will be more than helpful.
You’re going to Kyoto, so strap on for the tourist inundation. Hakone shouldn’t be such a problem, and to be fair, a lot of the tourists will likely be Japanese. Not sure how that impacts your experience there. Hakone has some lovely onsen, so in my book always worth a visit if it’s on your way.
If you want to go to “as traditional an area as possible”, then try small onsen towns in Nagano or Gifu prefectures. The downsides may be that they’re further from where your current travel plans are taking you, and the restaurants, hotels, onsen, etc. are not so geared up for non-Japanese speaking tourists.
I hope you all have a lovely stay.
What a fun trip! I’m a 60 year old traveling around Japan for 3 months. I’ve been to both Hakone & the Kiso Valley on this trip. I loved the Kiso Valley- stayed in Narai one night & Kiso the other but fyi it takes a while to get there so you will burn time on the train. Hakone is beautiful & when you spot Mt Fuji from the ropeway you will gasp it is so breathtaking. Stay in a ryokan in Gora bc then you’re close to the cable car/ropeway/ropeway trip to Lake Ashi. It was a bit crowded waiting in line for transportation but nothing close to the crowds in Kyoto.
You could do Arima onsen outside of kobe
I did Fujinomiya and Shiraito falls instead of Hakone. So I cant compare, but I don’t regret it. Barely any tourists, beautiful view of Fuji, there’s even a Fuji World heritage center with amazing architecture and some perspective of the mountain. The waterfalls are amazing. The small town is just an average sleepy Japanese small town, doesn’t feel touristy at all.
Hakone was one of the highlights of our trip. We stayed in Odawara for the Hakone day trip. Plus the airbnb we stayed at in Odawara was amazing. The beach there is also awesome with little to no crowd. For onsen, we went to Hakone Yuryo post our day trip. That was very relaxing. They have a free bus from the train station. I don’t think you should miss out on Hakone.
On the train back from Hakone to Nagoya .
It was quite touristy but it was beautiful. You can find pretty good food, especially if you take a train down to Odawara.
We stayed at Hakone Yunessan and the stay was unreal. Beautiful atmosphere and food and the Ibsen’s were so relaxing.
Not sure where you’re from, but as Canadians from B.C., we didn’t love Hakone. It was definitely touristy, though that made it easy to get around. I would have liked to have gone somewhere less crowded and gimmicky. The volcanic area is super cool though.
Outdoor activities?
Nara is fantastic. While it is a bit touristy in some areas, there are a ton of hiking trails the tourists don’t know about. Download an app called All Trails.
Tsukuba also has a moderate difficulty mountain with trails you can hike. Honestly a beautiful place. I’m here now visiting my wife’s family.
you could go to Hakuba. search it up, beautiful place!
Avoid holiday//weekend (and Friday and Monday), Hakone should be fine.
Typically, onsen ryokan is staycation for Japanese, so book ryokan with dinner and breakfast.
Other than Hakone, Nikko is a good option.
If you drive a car, Nagano prefecture is perfect.
Karuizawa and Bessho hot spring is amazing.
Hakone is incredibly touristy. It’s one of the main places Tokyo residents go for short getaways, for instance.
> Where do locals go?
Something a lot of first-time foreign tourists to Japan don’t realise is that the great majority of tourists in Japan are domestic tourists. The places the locals go are often the most crowded places as a result. You need to be willing to put up with crowds as a tourist in Japan.