{"id":10232,"date":"2026-04-22T23:32:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T23:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/10232\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T23:32:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T23:32:53","slug":"i-visited-popular-spots-like-tokyo-and-kyoto-during-my-trip-to-japan-but-my-favorite-stop-was-a-town-id-never-heard-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/10232\/","title":{"rendered":"I visited popular spots like Tokyo and Kyoto during my trip to Japan, but my favorite stop was a town I’d never heard of"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Author<\/p>\n

A highlight of my family’s visit to Japan was going to Hakone, a town I had not heard of before this trip. Jamie Davis Smith<\/p>\n

The beautiful town had amazing hot springs, and the Hakone Open-Air Museum was incredible.<\/p>\n

If I return to Japan, I’d go to Hakone again and I’d love to visit other small towns in the country.<\/p>\n

Visiting Japan has been on my bucket list for a long time, and I finally booked a trip after relentless pleas from my children \u2014 and reading about how the US dollar is strong against the Japanese yen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To simplify planning, I booked a family tour<\/a> through Intrepid Travel. Unsurprisingly, the tour went to Tokyo and Kyoto, popular tourist destinations that draw many visitors (including my family) to Japan.<\/p>\n

However, the tour also brought us to some places I may not have found on my own, including the quaint, quirky mountain town<\/a> of Hakone.<\/p>\n

Visiting the town, which is southwest of central Tokyo and about a 90-minute railway ride away, turned out to be my favorite part of the trip.<\/p>\n

We loved the town’s famous hot springs \"Author<\/p>\n

Our trip was complete with incredible views. Jamie Davis Smith<\/p>\n

Hakone is full of onsens, or natural hot springs<\/a>, heated by geothermal activity happening beneath Japan. During my visit, I got to experience several types of onsens \u2014 and I still dream of sitting in their soothing waters.<\/p>\n

First, I tried a bucolic onsen overlooking the mountains, which were lush and green when I visited during the summer. Lounging in a naturally fed hot spring from the top of a mountain allowed me to slow down, relax, and appreciate the beauty of Japan outside of its big cities.<\/p>\n

I also tried a traditional onsen<\/a>, which was segregated by gender and required visitors to disrobe completely. As an American, I’m not used to bathing naked with strangers, but I didn’t want to miss this quintessential Japanese experience.<\/p>\n

Although I didn’t stay long, it was eye-opening to see how this tradition, so different than my own, quickly helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin. This is something I would not have experienced if I had not gone to Hakone.<\/p>\n

Finally, my kids and I tried a series of themed onsens at Yunessun, a hot-spring theme park<\/a>, which was one of the quirkier experiences I have had while traveling.<\/p>\n

There, I hopped into an onsen shaped like a ramen bowl, complete with blow-up toppings. My kids joked that we were experiencing what it felt like to be cooked on a stovetop.<\/p>\n

I also got to try unique baths, including one filled with coffee and another containing wine. My skin felt smooth and soft when I left.<\/p>\n

Our trip featured some unique activities, including a visit to a mind-blowing sculpture garden\"Woman<\/p>\n

The whole family had a blast at the Hakone Open-Air Museum. Jamie Davis Smith<\/p>\n

Although my children don’t always share my affinity for looking at paintings and sculptures, they agreed to accompany me to the Hakone Open-Air Museum.<\/p>\n

Beyond its gates, we found larger-than-life interactive sculptures unlike anything we’ve seen at traditional art museums.<\/p>\n

As we walked through the museum’s gardens, we hopped through rainbows, climbed to the top of a stained-glass tower, and walked underground to peek up at the sky from below.<\/p>\n

My children even swung on colorfully knitted balls hanging from an elaborate net, seemingly suspended from the sky.<\/p>\n

Near the exit of the gardens, I sat and soaked my feet in a hot-spring footbath while gazing out at the surrounding forest. I wish that every large attraction had something similar at the end.<\/p>\n

\"Child<\/p>\n

There were some fun photo opportunities at the Hakone Open-Air Museum. Jamie Davis Smith<\/p>\n

Fortunately, there were many other unique and fun things for us to do in Hakone.<\/p>\n

While there, I ate one of the town’s famous black eggs, which had been transformed from their original white after boiling in a sulfur-rich hot spring. Legend has it that eating one of these adds seven years to your life \u2014 I devoured every morsel.<\/p>\n

\"Hand<\/p>\n

Hakone is famous for its hard-boiled black eggs. Jamie Davis Smith<\/p>\n

We also got a glimpse of Mt. Fuji from the Hakone Tozan Railway and rode on a pirate ship to get a fantastic view of Hakone’s bright-red Torii Gate standing in a lake.<\/p>\n

Hakone was a wonderful stop on our trip, and I’d happily return\"Child<\/p>\n

We saw so much in Hakone.Jamie Davis Smith<\/p>\n

During our time in Hakone, we stayed in a ryokan, a type of traditional Japanese inn<\/a>, and were able to explore a lot of the relatively small town on foot.<\/p>\n

Along the way, we wound through mountain roads dotted with small restaurants and shops, a welcome reprieve from the heat of the bigger cities we had visited earlier in our trip. We even took some time to hike along Hakone’s lush forest paths.<\/p>\n

Although it’s easy to see the appeal of Japan’s bigger cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, if I ever return to the country, I would spend more time in Hakone and seek out other small towns.<\/p>\n

Read the original article on Business Insider<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A highlight of my family’s visit to Japan was going to Hakone, a town I had not heard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8780,1517,8778,1373,8779,8,151],"class_list":{"0":"post-10232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kyoto","8":"tag-davis-smith","9":"tag-hakone","10":"tag-hakone-open-air-museum","11":"tag-hot-springs","12":"tag-jamie-davis","13":"tag-japan","14":"tag-kyoto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}