Travel Destinations in Nagano

Shibu Onsen

Nine Locked Bathhouses, a Key from Your Inn and a Towel to Stamp at Each One

A narrow, stone-paved onsen street in the Yokoyu valley with nine public bathhouses that are lock...

Hotakadake

Hotakadake: Japan's Third-Highest Peak, Two Days from Kamikochi

A horseshoe of rock peaks around the Karasawa cirque, topped by Okuhotaka at 3,190 m, the highest...

Lake Nojiri

Lake Nojiri: Ice Age Elephants Dug from the Lakebed by Volunteers

Nagano's second-largest lake after Suwa, near the Niigata border, where Naumann elephant fossils ...

Lake Suwa

A Lake at 759 m Known for Its August 15 Fireworks and Onsen Town

Nagano's largest lake, about 16 km round, with the hot-spring town of Kami-Suwa on its eastern sh...

Nozawa Onsen

Thirteen Free Village Baths Kept by the Residents, and a Fire Festival Every 15 January

A hot spring village in northern Nagano with 13 public bathhouses, the soto-yu, that anyone may u...

Akiyamago

Akiyamago: Thirteen Snowbound Hamlets Up the Nakatsu River, and a Riverbed You Dig Your Own Bath In

Thirteen hamlets strung about 20 km along the Nakatsu River gorge, five in Sakae village (Nagano)...

Shimoguri no Sato

Shimoguri no Sato: A Hamlet on 38-Degree Slopes Above the Toyama Valley

A farming hamlet in the Toyama valley of southern Iida, its houses and potato fields spread over ...

Michi-no-Eki Utsukushigahara Kogen

Japan's highest roadside station, open only from spring to autumn

At the end of the Venus Line, this station sits at roughly 1,930 m on the Utsukushigahara plateau...

Ueda Castle

The Sanada clan’s stronghold is remembered for resisting the Tokugawa armies twice. Today Ueda’s ...

Yarigatake

Yarigatake: Two Days from Kamikochi, Then Ladders to a 3,180 m Spire

The 3,180-meter spear-shaped peak of the Northern Alps, fifth-highest in Japan, usually climbed o...

Michi-no-Eki Raiden Kurumi-no-Sato

Walnuts and a sumo legend on the Asama Sunline

A stop on the Asama Sunline in Tomi, a town known for walnuts. Buy walnut sweets and Shinshu soba...

Mount Ontake

Mount Ontake: A Ropeway to 2,150 m and a Summit Open Only in Summer

A 3,067-meter active volcano on the Nagano and Gifu border, the second-highest volcano in Japan a...

Mount Yake

Mount Yake: A Day Hike up the Live Volcano That Made Taisho Pond

The active volcano on the Nagano and Gifu border above Kamikochi, climbed as a day hike to its 2,...