Boso Hanto

Aloha,

Does anyone have information on the Boso Peninsula?

Can I use the student rail pass to get there from Narita?

Thanks,
papayahead

Papayahead,

Does anyone have information on the Boso Peninsula?

Can you be more specific? What sort of information are you after?

Can I use the student rail pass to get there from Narita?

Do you mean the Japan Rail Pass? It is valid on all JR lines in Chiba and elsewhere, so you could use it to travel to the area from Narita.

Aloha Dave,

We are looking for a scenic, rural countryside experience. We went to Izu Peninsula last summer, drove down the west side.

We will be traveling in mid to late March. Bozo Hanto looks scenic, but am wondering about transportation, specific sights/towns. We are contemplating Seishun 18 Kippu pass. Yes, we know it will be a long and arduous journey. But, we enjoy train rides through scenic areas. We are arriving at Narita. Thinking of spending one night near the airport, then taking train to Bozo the next day. (We don't have to do the entire peninsula, just curious about the scenic areas.)

Thanks,
papayahead

I spent a weekend in the Boso peninsula once. It's rural and nice, nothing at all spectacular. Nothing. The Yoro valley has a website that has limited amount of English:
http://www.yorokeikoku.com/
click around a bit to find the English, it's not laid out very well.
Here's some info about a railway that sells osenbei (rice crackers):
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/columns/0004/station021.htm
More:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fv20070629a1.html
There are some little fishing villages over on the east side that are nice, since they are not terribly developed.
More tourist info:
http://www.ccb.or.jp/e/attractions/category/scenic.html
anyway, you get the picture. I stayed in a ryokan (very modern but tiny) just outside Katsuura, with a room with a private bath overlooking the tiny fishing harbor - not cheap, but wonderful sashimi. I booked through www.japaneseguesthouses.com; if you were interested you could look there for the Katsuura ryokans.
There's a huge buddha there and supposedly an interesting hike; haven't done them. If you do a few google searches you can find more info about them.
Good luck!

Spendthrift,

Thanks for the information and links.

Small fishing villages, rural, away from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo for a couple of days sounds great to me!

Do you know of any other similar experiences we could find, using Tokyo as a base?

Thanks again for your input,
papayahead

One of my favourite places on the Boso peninsula is Nokogiriyama. I think the train station (on the Tokyo Bay side of the peninsula) is Kanaya, and a short walk from the station is a gondola which takes you most of the way up the mountain, or you can climb it. It doesn't take more than an hour to climb, and there is a temple, a large Buddha statue carved into a cliff face and many other Buddhist carvings, plus a nice view from the top.

The area at the base of the mountain is a very sleepy fishing town and it can also be accessed by taking a ferry across Tokyo Bay from Kurihama
in Kanagawa, which was fun.