Mount Fuji and Hakone

Hakone-Yumoto, where the river valley opens out at the foot of the hills, is the gateway to the whole area and its oldest hot-spring town. The Romancecar limited express from Shinjuku ends here, and the main street leading from the station is lined with shops selling fish cakes, manju buns and pickles. Large day-use bathhouses along the river let you soak without staying the night, and dozens of ryokan, traditional inns, line the valley sides. It is also where the Hakone loop begins: from here the little Hakone Tozan railway zigzags up the mountain through a series of switchbacks, reversing direction at each one.

TipSend your luggage ahead. A baggage service at Hakone-Yumoto station can deliver bags to many inns in the area, so you can do the loop unencumbered.

Japan's first open-air art museum, opened in 1969, sets around a hundred works by sculptors from Rodin and Henry Moore to contemporary Japanese artists across lawns and terraces with the mountains as a backdrop. Children can climb through the Woods of Net, a giant knitted structure, and there is a footbath fed by hot springs where you can rest mid-visit. The Picasso Pavilion holds a large collection of the artist's ceramics and other works, and the stained-glass Symphonic Sculpture tower can be climbed for views over the grounds. It sits beside Chōkoku-no-Mori station on the Tozan line, one stop before Gōra.

TipAllow two to three hours; it's the best wet-weather option in Hakone, as much of the collection is indoors.

From Gōra, a funicular climbs to Sōunzan, where the Hakone Ropeway takes over, sailing over a ridge and suddenly across Ōwakudani, the "great boiling valley", a scarred crater area left by an eruption around 3,000 years ago. Yellow sulphur deposits, steam vents and the rotten-egg smell make it feel like another planet. The local speciality is kuro-tamago, eggs boiled in the hot springs until their shells turn black; legend has it that each one eaten adds seven years to your life. On a clear day, Fuji fills the view to the west from the ropeway and the station terraces.

TipHakone is an active volcano, and access to Ōwakudani and the ropeway is suspended when volcanic gas levels or the alert level rise, as happened in 2015 and 2019. Check the operating status on Hakone Navi on the morning you go; replacement buses run when sections close for maintenance.

The ropeway descends to Tōgendai on the north shore of Lake Ashi, a crater lake formed after Hakone's last great eruptions. Here you board one of the Hakone sightseeing cruise ships, built to look like ornate European men-of-war (everyone calls them the pirate ships), for a crossing of about half an hour south to Hakone-machi or Moto-Hakone. On a calm morning the reflection of Fuji over the far end of the lake is one of the classic views of Japan, but even on a grey day the crossing past forested shores is a pleasant break.

TipThe cruise, the Tozan railway, the cable car, the ropeway and most buses in the area are covered by the Hakone Freepass, sold for two or three days with or without the return trip from Shinjuku. It usually pays for itself if you do the full loop.

Hakone Shrine has stood in the cedar forest above Moto-Hakone for well over a thousand years, and it was a favourite of samurai, including Minamoto no Yoritomo, founder of the Kamakura shogunate. Its vermilion Torii of Peace stands in the water at the lake's edge and has become one of the most photographed spots in Japan. The main halls are reached up stone steps through towering trees, a far quieter scene than the shoreline. Nearby, a stretch of the old Tōkaidō highway, the Edo-era road between Tokyo and Kyoto, survives as a stone-paved path through an avenue of cedars, and the reconstructed Hakone checkpoint shows how travellers were once inspected.

TipThe queue to stand under the lakeside torii for a photo can last an hour or more by mid-morning. Arrive soon after dawn, or photograph it from the shore or the cruise boat instead.

On the south-eastern flank of the mountain, Gotemba is the natural link between Hakone and the Fuji Five Lakes, with buses running over the pass from Sengokuhara and Tōgendai. Most visitors come for Gotemba Premium Outlets, a huge outlet mall laid out with Fuji in the background. The town is also the start of the Gotemba Trail, the longest and least crowded route up the mountain, and its broad lava slopes give a sense of the volcano's sheer scale that the postcard views from the north don't.

The largest and highest of the Fuji Five Lakes, a chain of lakes dammed by lava flows on the mountain's northern side, Yamanaka is the first you meet coming from Gotemba. It's the most outdoorsy of the five, with lakeside cycling paths, kayaking, swans, and the Panorama-dai viewpoint on the hill above the eastern shore. In winter, on a few clear evenings around the solstice, the sun sets directly behind Fuji's summit, the so-called Diamond Fuji, drawing lines of photographers to the shore.

In a farming village between Yamanaka and Kawaguchiko, eight spring-fed ponds hold snowmelt from Fuji that has filtered through the porous lava for many years. The water is astonishingly clear, with waterweed and fat carp visible metres down, and the ponds were once a site of ritual purification for pilgrims before the climb. Thatched farmhouses, a water mill and the mountain behind complete the picture, and the ponds are part of the UNESCO listing. It is small and now very busy, with souvenir stalls crowding the lanes, so it's best early in the morning.

TipDon't drop coins or put hands in the ponds, and keep off private gardens and fields; the village has posted multilingual signs asking visitors to respect residents.

The red five-storey pagoda of Arakurayama Sengen Park in Fujiyoshida, with Fuji rising behind and cherry blossom or autumn maples in front, is probably the single most reproduced image of Japan. The pagoda itself is a memorial to the city's war dead, built in the 1960s, and the famous view is from an observation deck above it, reached by a climb of nearly 400 steps (a gentler slope path also exists). In spring the crowds can be immense: in February 2026 Fujiyoshida cancelled its long-running cherry blossom festival at the park, citing litter, trespass and congestion in the residential streets below. The park itself remains open, but expect queues and crowd control on the deck at peak times.

TipCome at sunrise for the clearest skies and the fewest people, and walk to the park from Shimoyoshida station by the signed route rather than through private streets.

For centuries this was where pilgrims climbing by the Yoshida Trail began their ascent, and the shrine's huge wooden torii, rebuilt every 60 years, still marks the start of the old path. An avenue of giant cedars leads to vermilion halls dedicated to Konohanasakuya-hime, the goddess of the mountain. It is one of the most atmospheric places in the region and much calmer than the viewpoints, and every August the Yoshida Fire Festival closes the climbing season with towering torches lit along the town's streets.

Directly below the mountain, Fuji-Q Highland is Japan's most famous thrill park, known for record-breaking roller coasters: Fujiyama, once the tallest in the world, the spinning Eejanaika and the steep-dropping Takabisha. There are gentler rides and a Thomas the Tank Engine area for children, plus a notoriously long haunted attraction. It's a fun day out if coasters are your thing, and the station on the Fujikyu line makes it easy to combine with Kawaguchiko.

TipWeekends and school holidays bring long waits for the big coasters; buy priority tickets online, or go on a weekday.

Kawaguchiko is the main base for the Fuji area, with the most hotels, restaurants and transport, and the classic lake-and-mountain views from its north shore. Walk or cycle the shore path to the Oishi Park flower fields, take the Kachi Kachi Ropeway up Mount Tenjō for a view across the lake to the summit, and visit the Itchiku Kubota Art Museum, devoted to the extraordinary landscape kimono of a single dyer. Sightseeing buses loop around the lake and on to Saiko, so you can explore without a car.

The town is also at the sharp end of Japan's overtourism debate. In May 2024, Fujikawaguchiko put up a black screen opposite a convenience store near the station, where crowds had been gathering in the road to photograph Fuji appearing to perch on the shop's roof. The screen was taken down that August, but the episode made headlines worldwide. Wherever you are in town, don't stand in the road, block pavements or step onto private land for a photograph.

On the shore of Lake Saiko, a farming village destroyed by a landslide in 1966 has been rebuilt as an open-air museum of around twenty thatched farmhouses, framing Fuji on clear days. Each house holds a craft workshop, a café or a small exhibition: pottery, incense, washi paper, indigo dyeing, and the region's thick hōtō noodles. It's more staged than Oshino Hakkai but far less crowded, and the setting is lovely.

Between Saiko and Motosu stretches Aokigahara, a dense forest that has grown on the lava from a great eruption in 864. Moss, twisted roots and porous black rock give it a hushed, otherworldly quality, and marked trails run between two caves formed in the flow. Narusawa Ice Cave, a short loop through a cramped lava tube, holds ice all year round and was once used as a natural refrigerator; Fugaku Wind Cave nearby is roomier and was used to store silkworm eggs. Both are cold inside even in August.

Aokigahara also has a sad reputation as a place where people have taken their own lives, and you'll see signs encouraging anyone in distress to seek help. Stay on the marked paths, which is also the rule for protecting the fragile forest floor, and treat it as the quiet, beautiful place it is rather than a site for dark tourism.

TipThe caves involve stooping and slippery steps; wear shoes with grip and leave large bags outside.

The three western lakes, Saiko, Shōji and Motosu, are smaller, wilder and much quieter than Kawaguchiko and Yamanaka. Motosu, the deepest, has the clearest water of the five and the view of Fuji over its north-western shore that has appeared on Japanese banknotes; Shōji, the smallest, has fine reflections on still mornings. Each spring the Fuji Shibazakura Festival carpets fields near Motosu in pink moss phlox. With a car or the local buses, a morning here is a welcome antidote to the crowds further east.

On the Shizuoka side of the mountain, south of Motosu, Shiraito Falls is a crescent of cliff about 150 metres wide where hundreds of thin streams of spring water pour out of the rock between layers of lava, like threads of white silk, as the name suggests. It's part of the UNESCO site, and a short walk from the car park. Further south, the city of Fujinomiya is home to Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha, head shrine of the many Sengen shrines dedicated to the mountain, which owns most of the summit; it's a good stop if you continue to the Fujinomiya Trail or the shinkansen.

Climbing Fuji is a classic summer pilgrimage, and hundreds of thousands make it each season, most starting at one of four fifth stations, at 1,400 to 2,400 metres, that can be reached by road. The Yoshida Trail from the Fuji Subaru Line fifth station on the Yamanashi side is the most popular; on the Shizuoka side, the Fujinomiya Trail is the shortest, the Subashiri Trail runs through forest, and the Gotemba Trail is the longest. The ascent takes around five to seven hours and the descent three to four, over loose volcanic gravel with no shade, and many climbers spend the night in a mountain hut near the eighth station to reach the summit for sunrise, the goraikō.

For 2026, the season ran from 1 July to 10 September on the Yoshida and Subashiri trails and from 10 July on the Fujinomiya and Gotemba trails. All four trails now charge a ¥4,000 per person climbing fee. On the Yoshida Trail it is paid through Yamanashi's online reservation system, with a cap of 4,000 climbers a day (not counting hut guests), and the fifth-station gate closes from 2pm to 3am to anyone without a mountain-hut booking. Climbers must also carry cold-weather clothing, rain gear and proper footwear. The Shizuoka trails use their own registration app, which requires a short e-learning module and the fee, and entry from the fifth station between 2pm and 3am again requires a hut stay. Overnight "bullet climbing" without a hut stay is prohibited. Outside the season the trails are closed above the fifth stations and climbing is extremely dangerous; rules are reviewed every year, so check the official climbing website before you plan.

TipEven outside the climbing season you can ride the bus up the Fuji Subaru Line to the Yoshida Trail's fifth station, at about 2,300 metres, for views over the lakes and clouds, whenever the road is open.