Kushiro Shitsugen National Park

Most of the marsh has no roads, so you see it from its edges. Hosooka Observatory, on the east side, looks out over the Kushiro River's loops through the reed beds toward the Akan mountains, and at sunset it fills with tripods. It sits just above the Hosooka Visitors Lounge, a short uphill walk from Kushiro-Shitsugen Station on the JR Senmo Line. The wetland covers about 22,000 hectares, Japan's largest; the national park, created in 1987, takes in 28,788 hectares including the surrounding hills and lakes, and 7,863 hectares are a Ramsar site. The Kushiro Shitsugen Norokko, the slow sightseeing train that ran along the marsh from 1989, made its last runs in October 2026, so ordinary Senmo Line trains are what is left, and they are infrequent. Check the return train before walking up. Canoeing is the other way in: guided tours paddle about 9 km down the Kushiro River from Lake Toro to Hosooka, roughly 1.5 hours on the water. Red-crowned cranes nest in the marsh but are hard to spot in summer. For a reliable sighting, go in winter to the feeding grounds in Tsurui or the Akan International Crane Center.