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Rural Japan - any suggestions? 2018/2/27 20:38
Any advice on visiting rural areas of Japan would be fantastic thanks. I would need to be able to access the area by the JR trains though.
by Bopper290  

Re: Rural Japan - any suggestions? 2018/2/28 11:21
You are aware that the vast majority of Japan is rural?? Which areas are you traveling to? Do you want to be near the beach, farmland or mountains? Are you on Honshu or are you travelling to different islands as well?
by mfedley rate this post as useful

Re: Rural Japan - any suggestions? 2018/2/28 11:56
In general, the more rural and area of Japan is, the worse the train connections (if there are any) are. It sort of makes sense, since some place with low population doesn't need a lot of train service. So you can use JR to get to some pretty rural places, but the service will not be as frequent.
by rkold rate this post as useful

Re: Rural Japan - any suggestions? 2018/2/28 11:56
Google. You should do some of your own research.
by / (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Rural Japan - any suggestions? 2018/2/28 14:19
Hi Bopper.

As mentioned above, most of Japan is pretty rural, it was actually surprising how much of it is green and foresty. Even some of the popular places for visitors can be very sedate especially if you stay overnight, and with some it is like stepping back in time into the 1960s.

I have found some of the very rural places to be harder to visit because of less familiarity with foreigners, harder to find food etc. What I like to look for are towns which are less popular for foreigners, but popular for holidaying locals. A lot of these involve bus transport rather than trains, in my experience (which is mainly in Western Honshu and Kyushu). But in these towns you get lots of accomodation and food, and Japanese having a fun holiday, but not so many overseas visitors. Or lively places where the buses come in but not many people stay overnight, like Shirakawa-go or Miyajima, or Enoshima.

There are heaps of these places, and a lot of them are close to main tourist centres. Kurokawa Onsen at Kyushu, Kinosaki Onsen at Honshu are really popular with locals but you dont see many overseas tourists there. Hikone is pretty much next to Kyoto and an awesome town worth visiting. Bessho Onsen as well. Even places like Hakone which are pretty much red hot for tourists are nice and green, and once the day trippers go you have the place pretty much to yourself.
by Lazy Pious (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Rural Japan - any suggestions? 2018/2/28 15:24
Here just a few. But as PP said, there are many and you should do your own reaseach (this webpage is a good starting point). They are all reachable by train. (Not sure if it is JR or other company as I canft use JR pass):

Tono valley
Hiraizumi
Kibi plain (by Okayama)
Obuse
Yamadera
Okutama (1,5 h from Tokyo)
Shimantogawa
Furano
Biei
Wakkanai
Teshima
Naoshima
Inujima (all 3 are islands thus no train)
Kurokawa Onsen (no train)
Saga
Sado island (ferry , no train on island)
Shimokita peninsula with Osorezan
...

This list could continue but the above are those places I remember out of the top of my head. I have been to most of them. Have a look:

http://bicycletraveljapan.blogspot.com

Enjoy your trip to Japan!
by LikeBike (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Rural Japan - any suggestions? 2018/2/28 15:56
The western tip of the prefecture of Tokyo is one of the most rural places in Japan. You can get there easily by hoping on a JR train at stations like Tokyo Station or Shinjuku Station and transferring maybe once or twice or even not transferring at all. There are about four trains per hour, average.

Another rural area is the surroundings of Narita International Airport (which is not in Tokyo although they used to call it "Tokyo International Airport"). Be sure to look out the window if you're coming in to central Tokyo.

Among my favorites are these little islands that are so rural that they used to send prisoners to in ancient times, but they use a car number code that is the same as that of central Tokyo.

So these are just for your information. There are so many rural areas in Japan that it's almost impossible to suggest just one or two.
by Uco rate this post as useful

Re: Rural Japan - any suggestions? 2018/2/28 19:09
80% of Japan is rural. One hours along the Chuo Line out of Toyko past Takao puts you into a mountainous rural setting for example.
by hakata14 (guest) rate this post as useful

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