Hokkaido

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Hokkaido, Japan's great northern island, wins visitors over with its national parks, the powder snow of Niseko, the lavender fields of Furano and the wild Shiretoko Peninsula. This is the Japan of wide-open spaces, hot springs and seafood, 1 h 35 by air from Tokyo.

An island apart within Japan

Hokkaido covers a fifth of Japan's territory but is home to less than 5% of its population. The island was settled late, in the 19th century, and it shows: Sapporo is laid out on a grid like an American city, farms have silos, and roads run straight between the fields. It offers a Japan of space and silence, the opposite of crowded Honshu.

It is also the land of the Ainu, the island's indigenous people, long marginalised and whose culture is being rediscovered — the Upopoy National Museum in Shiraoi has been entirely devoted to it since 2020.

You arrive after a 1 h 35 flight from Tokyo at New Chitose (CTS), or by Shinkansen to Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto. Once there, a car is almost essential: distances are huge and trains are scarce away from the main lines. UK drivers need an International Driving Permit (1949 Geneva Convention). In winter, plan for winter tyres and short days.

Four distinct seasons

From December to March, Hokkaido gets powder snow famous all over the world: Niseko, Furano, Rusutsu. In early February, the Sapporo Snow Festival fills Odori Park with monumental sculptures. In July, Furano's lavender fields and Biei's patchwork hills draw the other half of the visitors — and summer is cool, around 25 °C, while Tokyo swelters. Finally, autumn brings Japan's first autumn colours to Daisetsuzan from late September.

Seafood, ramen and hot springs

The island serves some of the best seafood in the country — crab, sea urchin and salmon roe piled on bowls of rice — and two dishes born in Sapporo: miso ramen and soup curry. Jingisukan, lamb grilled on a domed hotplate, is shared over a Sapporo beer. Dairy products and Yubari melons complete the island's foodie reputation.

For hot springs, there is Noboribetsu and its steaming Hell Valley, Jozankei an hour from Sapporo, and Toyako on the shore of its volcanic lake. And for raw nature, the UNESCO-listed Shiretoko Peninsula, where brown bears still roam: hiking there is regulated, and rightly so.

The essentials

Your questions answered

Also worth discovering: Rishiri and Rebun, Sado, Ogasawara, Miyajima and Okinawa.