Awaji Island, located just south of Kobe in Hyogo prefecture is worth putting on your itinerary if you visit Kansai. It’s connected to Honshu—Japan’s main island—by the nearly 4km long Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge.

The Ajisai Matsuri (Hydrangea Festival) is held annually from mid-June until early July in Otawara. About 6,000 hydrangea flowers bloom, awakening this isolated town into a small local festival.

Ogaki, known as the “City of Water” due to the Suimon River with its canals forming a ring around the old part of town to protect Ogaki Castle.

Sumatakyo Valley is a rural area of Japan a few hours west of Tokyo and has so much to do off the beaten path. As you travel Japan, especially when you are in more rural areas, we highly recommend asking around for advice. That is how we found so many unique experiences on our 50-day runAway Japan adventure.

These fun places allow you to meet, touch and play with some of the cutest animals on the planet. If you are an animal lover, add these five great animal cafes to your bucket list for Tokyo.

In this way, the aquarium is not only a place which exhibits the fish and other marine life native to Hokkaido (and specimens from other world rivers) but it’s a showcase of the role of salmon in Hokkaido, really, to all things salmon

An often-missed sight is Mount Shosha, located 6km away up north from Himeji Castle. Mount Shosha is located in Shoshazan Engyo-ji, a national heritage site famous for its scenes from the 2003 movie "The Last Samurai".

While popular attractions have their respective appeal, more esoteric destinations in Japan can whet the appetites of more seasoned adventurers. One such place is Enoshima, a quiet island off the Kamakura coast.

Although I could have chosen many more, in this piece, I profile five gardens from all across Kyushu for a diverse yet uniquely southwestern Japanese botanical experience.

There’s no better place to see jellyfish than at the Kamo Aquarium in Tsuruoka, located on the Sea of Japan in the north’s Dewa Sanzan, or Three Sacred Mountain region.

This article is about the wide variety of activities you can do on Lake Hamana and how to enjoy the perfect day on the lake.

The origin of this formation is unknown. Some specialists and scientists believed the site is completely natural. Others claim that the formations are man-made stepped monoliths, while others affirm that it is a natural site modified or a man-made artifact.