Travel Highlights 2025
This year, japan-guide.com entered its 30th year of existence. As the travel landscape continues to evolve with challenges ranging from overtourism to the rise of AI chatbots, I felt grateful to spend time on the road again, exploring familiar and new corners of the country. In total, I was fortunate to visit 24 of Japanfs 47 prefectures, and below are my highlights:
#10: Es Con Field
I am not a huge baseball fan, but I was very impressed by the Es Con Field, the home ground of Hokkaido's professional baseball team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Located a 15 minute train ride south of Sapporo, the complex was completed in 2023 and is a popular tourist attraction even on days without games, featuring an interesting variety of dining, shopping, hands-on experiences and accommodation.
#9: Expo 2025 Osaka
The Expo 2025 Osaka was held from April to October this year, and I visited it a total of six times. It was fun to experience Osaka during the expo fever, to check out how countries from across the world presented themselves at the event, and to try dishes from across the globe. The joy was only slightly dampened by the expofs frustrating web presence.
#8: Daisetsuzan National Park
Almost every year since 2008, I have been starting our annual autumn color reports with a visit to Daisetsuzan National Park, the first place in Japan to see the colors, and rarely has it not made my top 10 highlights. This year's circular hike from Asahidake Ropeway's upper station via the summit of Mount Asahidake, the Ohachidaira Caldera and the Susoaidaira Plateau was highly rewarding even with a surprising lack of seasonal foliage.
#7: Tokyo Research
Winters along Japan's Pacific Coast are very dry and sunny, making the season a great time for visiting cities (as opposed to the landscape, which looks rather barren). That is why I use the winter months to do some in-depth research in the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka. I remember particularly well one day exploring almost every single street in the Ginza, Kyobashi, Yaesu and Nihonbashi districts, bringing my step count to a feet-aching 35,413.
#6: Tsubomi trips to Fukuoka
Many more tens of thousands of steps did I invest in another special project early in the year: observing cherry buds on weekly trips to Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka in an attempt to better understand the development of the buds with respect to predicting the season. After weeks of observing nothing but closed buds, I had to hold back my tears when in Kumamoto I finally came across the first open blossoms.
#5: Reporting south of Takamatsu
The Setouchi Triennale was held in 2025. To prepare our web section about this wonderful contemporary art festival, I spent a wet day visiting several new venues along the JR Kotoku Line south of Takamatsu, hopping by local trains from town to town. Despite the absence of 3-star attractions, it was a very fulfilling day of exploring.
#4: Nara before the crowds
On an early morning in April, when the cherry blossoms in Nara had just reached their peak, I spent a calm couple of hours walking through an almost deserted Nara Park. Just as I started my walk back to the station, I ran into the first busy wave of arriving day trip tourists.
#3: Unzen Onsen
It was only my second visit to Unzen Onsen, a hot spring town in Nagasaki Prefecture. My first stay 14 years ago was enjoyable, but did not make the year's top 10 highlights. This time I loved every second in this unique town where the main road leads through an active hell valley, and our hotel was surrounded by bubbling and hissing steam vents.
#2: Exploring Asuka
Asuka is a village in Nara Prefecture, which is often considered the cradle of Japanese civilization, because many early emperors had their palaces built there. Mostly ruins remain from these days - about 1400 years ago - and some of them may be designated as a new World Heritage Site next year. With that in mind, I spent four wonderful days exploring the rural area around Asuka, checking out various ruins, kofun tombs, temples and prominent stones.
#1: Shodoshima Island
My best trip of the year was a 3-day visit to Shodoshima Island, the second largest island in the Seto Inland Sea. And the highlight within that highlight was our dinner at a ryokan, centered around olives, Shodoshima's most famous product. Over the course of the evening, we sampled six different olive oils, paired with local ingredients from land and sea.
