Hi everyone!
My partner and I are planning a 10 day trip to Japan in February 2023, dedicating 5 days in Nagano to enjoy the snow and outdoors, the rest of our time will be spent in Tokyo. It’ll be our 3rd time to Nagano, we stayed at Nozawa Onsen during the previous visits and would head out for hikes/sight-seeing. We’re looking for recommendations for an alternative city/village that we can use as a base for our hikes/gallivanting.
Would it make sense to stay at Matsumoto, or even Nagano City? Our choices for accommodation and activities are pretty limited because we don’t both can’t drive so we have reconciled with the fact half the day would be spent travelling by public transport, and that the schedules would be inflexible due to infrequent bus services. That’s mainly why we’re looking to stay at Matsumoto because it seems the most central to the places we wanna go (we made a list of all the things we wanna do/places we want to visit below) – we love the outdoors and mountains and hiking so we’re keen on any area that’s accessible by Nagano standards. We were also keen on Hakuba, but it seems a tad less accessible compared to Matsumoto and Nagano, though I’ve read they have shuttle services.
I should add that we would prefer to do the same thing as our previous visits where we stay at one village/city the entire time in Nagano. Is that advisable? Or would it make more sense to break the trip up in parts and find accommodations near each city we plan to visit? Any advice would help! Thanks so much 🙂
Rough Itinerary so far:
Myoko-Togakushi Renzan National Park
Joshin’etsu-kogen National Park
Tsugaike Nature Garden
Azumino
Kamikochi
Kiso Valley
Mount Ontake (we’re still researching on what other mountain trails are open during winter)
3 comments
TLDR: Most hiking routes are closed and do not open before mid-April at the latest.
> Myoko-Togakushi Renzan National Park
Hiking routes closed. Myoko Kogen would make a lot more sense as far as outdoors activities are concerned.
> Joshin’etsu-kogen National Park
Hiking routes closed. You can drive through Snow Corridor and stay at Manza Onsen or Shibutoge, but that’s it, aside from skiing.
> Tsugaike Nature Garden
Reachable in winter. Probably a stay in Hakuba necessary.
> Azumino
Easily reachable from Matsumoto.
> Kamikochi
Closed during winter. You can sign waiver to be let through, but with high avelanche risk and the fact that it’s a public policy not to rescue people that are on closed routes.
> Kiso Valley
Doable as day trip(s) from Matsumoto.
> Mount Ontake
Hiking route closed.
Matsumoto. Nagano City is super boring.
Nagano city train station to Hakuba is about a 50 minute bus ride, it was 1500yen when we were last there 2018