Things to Do in Tohoku, Japan
The rugged, uncrowded northeast: samurai towns, festivals, mountain onsen and deep autumn colour.
84 destinations across 6 prefectures
Festivals in Tohoku
Photo: Rarisan / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
Yokote Kamakura Snow Festival
15 to 16 February 2027
Akita · Snow and ice festival
© Rosino / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Hirosaki Neputa Matsuri
1 to 7 August 2027
Aomori · Lantern festival
Aomori Nebuta Matsuri
2 to 7 August 2027
Aomori · Lantern festival
© 秋田市 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
Akita Kanto Matsuri
3 to 6 August 2027
Akita · Lantern festival
© 掬茶 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sendai Tanabata Matsuri
6 to 8 August 2027
Miyagi · Lantern festival
© KANSEI / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Omagari Fireworks
28 August 2027
Akita · Fireworks festival
Suggested Itineraries
Places to Visit in Tohoku
Shayokan (Dazai Osamu Memorial Museum)
Dazai Osamu's Birthplace, the Big Hiba House His Father Built in 1907
The house in Kanagi where the novelist Dazai Osamu was born in 1909, built two years earlier by h...
Goshono Site
A Jomon Village With Earth-Roofed Pit Houses, Across a Covered Wooden Bridge in Ichinohe
The site of a Jomon village on a plateau above the Mabechi River in Ichinohe, northern Iwate, liv...
Michi-no-Eki Asamushi Onsen
A fifth-floor hot spring bath above Mutsu Bay
The roadside station at Asamushi Onsen puts its public bath on the top floor, with glass looking ...
Mount Iwate
Nanbu Fuji: A Long Day on an Active Volcano Above Morioka
Iwate's highest mountain at 2,038 meters, called Nanbu Fuji for the cone it shows Morioka. The ma...
Sendai Castle Ruins
Above Sendai on wooded Aobayama, Date Masamune’s former stronghold combines imposing stone walls ...
Michi-no-Eki Yonezawa
Yonezawa beef at the edge of the expressway
A large station opened in 2018 about 200 meters from Yonezawa-Chuo IC on the Tohoku-Chuo Expressw...
Michi-no-Eki A-ra-Date
Royce' chocolate and Osaki produce on Route 47
One of the busiest roadside stations in Tohoku, on Route 47 in Iwadeyama on the way to Naruko Ons...
Mount Chokai
Dewa Fuji: 2,236 m From a 1,150 m Trailhead, With Snow Into July
A 2,236 m active volcano on the Akita and Yamagata border, about 16 km from the Sea of Japan and ...
Ryusendo Cave
Clear Blue Underground Lakes in a Limestone Cave Deep in the Iwate Hills
A limestone cave in Iwaizumi with about 700 meters open to visitors and three lit underground lak...
Sukayu Onsen
A 160-Mat Mixed Bath Where the Snow Once Reached 5.66 Meters
A single mountain inn at about 890 m in the Hakkoda range, known for the Hiba Sennin-buro, a pill...
Tamagawa Onsen
A pH 1.2 Spring Pouring Out of the Ground Above Lake Tazawa
A hot-spring cure town 43 km up a mountain road from Tazawako Station, built around the Obuki sou...
Hotokegaura
White-Green Tuff Cliffs You Reach by Boat or 100 Metres of Stairs
About two kilometres of white and pale green tuff spires on the far west coast of the Shimokita P...
Korekawa Site
Lacquered Jomon Combs and the Gassho Dogu: Hachinohe's Korekawa Site and the Museum Beside It
A Jomon site in the southern hills of Hachinohe, Aomori, where a waterlogged ritual deposit prese...
Michi-no-Eki Fureai Park Kita-no-Sato
Kitakata ramen and a hot bath on the road to Yonezawa
A station on Route 121 just north of Kitakata, where the restaurant makes its ramen with flour fr...
Michi-no-Eki Kisakata Nemu-no-Oka
A sea-view bath and sunset on the Akita coast
A roadside station on Route 7 right on the Sea of Japan in Kisakata. A fourth-floor hot-spring ba...