Shikoku: What to Do on Japan's Least-Visited Main Island

Shikoku has no shinkansen. That single fact explains most of what the island is: four prefectures, 3.6 million people, and a tourism industry built around pilgrims and cyclists rather than coach parties. It sits an hour from Okayama across a bridge, and almost nobody on a first trip to Japan goes.

Shikoku is the smallest of Japan's four main islands, and its case for a few days of your trip is specific rather than general: the oldest hot spring in the country, one of Japan's three great gardens, an original castle keep, a 1,200-kilometer Buddhist pilgrimage, whirlpools you can stand above, and a 70-kilometer cycle route across the sea.

Dogo Onsen

What is Shikoku known for?

Six things, and you can build a trip around any one of them.

The 88 temple pilgrimage. A 1,200 km circuit of the whole island, walked in about 45 days or driven in ten. It is the reason Shikoku has an infrastructure of small inns and marked paths that most of rural Japan lacks. Our full guide to the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage covers how it works.

Dogo Onsen. Over a thousand years old, mentioned in Japan's earliest poetry anthology, and the model for the bathhouse in Spirited Away.

Sanuki udon. Kagawa eats more udon per person than anywhere else in Japan and has roughly 600 shops doing almost nothing else.

Whirlpools. The Naruto Strait produces tidal whirlpools up to 20 meters across, among the largest in the world.

The Iya Valley. A remote gorge system with bridges made of woven vine, reached on roads that concentrate the mind.

The Setouchi art islands. Naoshima and Teshima are administratively part of Kagawa, so Shikoku's prefectural capital is the natural base for them.

The four prefectures

Kagawa, the smallest prefecture in Japan, in the northeast. Takamatsu is the main city and the ferry hub for the art islands. Udon, Ritsurin Garden and the Konpira shrine.

Tokushima, east. The Naruto whirlpools, the Iya Valley, and the Awa Odori dance festival in August.

Ehime, northwest. Matsuyama, Dogo Onsen, an original castle, the Shimanami Kaido cycle route and a lot of citrus.

Kochi, the whole south coast. The wildest of the four, with the Shimanto River, long empty capes, Kochi Castle and seared bonito. Our guide to why Kochi is worth the detour makes the case.

Things to do in Shikoku

Dogo Onsen, Matsuyama

One of the oldest hot springs in Japan, in continuous use for well over a thousand years and mentioned in the 8th-century Man'yoshu.

The Honkan, the 1894 wooden main building, reopened in July 2024 after five and a half years of restoration and is now fully open, including the upstairs resting rooms. Bathing starts at around ¥700 for the ground-floor Kami-no-Yu, rising to about ¥2,500 for a private resting room with tea and a sweet afterward.

The building is a maze of staircases and corridors, and there is a room reserved for the imperial family that you can tour. Two newer bathhouses nearby, Tsubaki-no-Yu and the modern Asuka-no-Yu, take the overflow.

The tram ride out from central Matsuyama takes about 20 minutes on the Botchan Ressha, a replica steam tram named after the Natsume Soseki novel set in this town.

Matsuyama Castle

Matsuyama Castle

One of only twelve original castle keeps left in Japan, on a hill in the middle of the city. Admission to the keep is ¥520, the ropeway or chairlift up is ¥520 return, and a combined ticket is ¥1,040. The Ninomaru garden below is another ¥200.

Take the chairlift rather than the enclosed gondola; it is an open two-person seat up through the trees.

Ritsurin Garden, Takamatsu

Takamatsu

One of the finest landscape gardens in Japan and, in the opinion of many people who have seen all of them, better than the official "three great gardens" it was left out of. Six ponds and thirteen landscaped hills laid out over a century by the Matsudaira lords, with Mount Shiun borrowed as a backdrop.

Admission is ¥500 for adults and ¥170 for children. It opens around sunrise and closes around sunset, with the hours shifting monthly, and a boat on the south pond costs extra.

Go in the early morning. It is 75 hectares and almost empty before nine.

The Naruto whirlpools

Naruto Whirling Waves

The Naruto Strait is 1.3 km wide and the tide pushes an enormous volume of water through it twice a day, producing whirlpools that can reach 20 meters across.

They are tidal, so timing is everything: the best viewing is within an hour or so of each day's peak tide, and the biggest occur around the spring and fall equinoxes. Tide tables are published well in advance and every operator posts them.

You can watch from a sightseeing boat, or from the Uzu-no-Michi walkway built into the underside of the Onaruto Bridge, which has glass floor panels 45 meters above the water.

The Iya Valley

A deep gorge system in western Tokushima, historically a refuge for defeated Heike clan survivors and still one of the least accessible places in Japan.

The Kazurabashi vine bridge is 45 meters long, woven from wisteria vine, rebuilt every three years, and has gaps between the slats wide enough to see the river through. Crossing costs ¥550 for junior high age and up, ¥350 for elementary school children.

The Oku-Iya double bridges, further in, are quieter and come with a hand-pulled cable car across the river.

Oboke and Koboke gorges offer boat trips through the rock, and there is a statue of a urinating boy on a cliff edge that is the valley's other landmark.

You need a car, or a very careful reading of the bus timetable. The roads are narrow and the driving is not for nervous beginners.

The Shimanami Kaido

A 70 km cycling route from Onomichi on Honshu to Imabari in Ehime, crossing six islands on a chain of bridges with dedicated bike lanes and gentle spiral approach ramps.

It is one of the best cycle routes in the world, it is entirely rentable with one-way drop-off, and it takes a fit rider about six hours or a relaxed one two days with an overnight on an island. You do not need to be an athlete; the gradients are designed for it.

Konpira-san

Kotohira-gu, on a mountainside in Kagawa, is the shrine of seafarers and one of the great pilgrimages of Japan. The main shrine is 785 steps up; the inner shrine is 1,368.

Palanquin carriers used to haul people up for a fee, and shops at the bottom still rent walking sticks.

Kochi and the south

Kochi Castle is another of the twelve originals, and unusually retains its keep and its palace together.

Hirome Market in Kochi city is a covered hall of about 60 food stalls with shared tables, and the place to eat katsuo no tataki, bonito seared over burning rice straw and served with salt and garlic.

The Shimanto River is called the last clear stream in Japan, with chinkabashi, low submersible bridges built without railings so that floods wash over them rather than taking them away.

Cape Ashizuri and Cape Muroto are the two ends of the southern coast, and both are as remote as anywhere on Honshu.

What to eat

Udon

Sanuki udon is the reason to go to Kagawa. Thick, square-edged, exceptionally chewy noodles, served at self-service shops where you carry your own bowl, add your own broth and pay by the item. Many open at dawn and close by early afternoon when the dough runs out, and a bowl costs as little as ¥300.

Katsuo no tataki, Kochi's seared bonito, is the other unmissable dish.

Citrus in Ehime: mikan, iyokan, and a dozen varieties that do not leave the prefecture.

Sea bream in Ehime, often as taimeshi, cooked with rice or served raw over it with a raw egg.

Sudachi, a small green citrus from Tokushima, appears squeezed over everything.

How do you get to Shikoku?

By train. The Seto-Ohashi bridge carries the line from Okayama to Takamatsu in about an hour, and Okayama is on the Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen. This is the simplest route: Tokyo to Takamatsu is about 4 hours 30 all in.

By bus. Highway buses run from Kobe and Osaka over the Akashi Kaikyo and Onaruto bridges into Tokushima in about 2 hours 30.

By air. Takamatsu, Matsuyama, Tokushima and Kochi all have airports with flights from Tokyo and other major cities. Matsuyama is about 90 minutes from Haneda.

By bike or car across the Shimanami Kaido from Onomichi.

By ferry from Kobe, Osaka, Wakayama and the Kansai coast.

How long do you need in Shikoku?

Shikoku

Three days: Takamatsu with Ritsurin and udon, Kotohira, and Naoshima. Effectively a Kagawa trip.

Five days: add Matsuyama, Dogo Onsen and the Iya Valley. This is the standard loop and the one to aim for.

A week or more: add Kochi and the southern capes, or ride the Shimanami Kaido properly, or walk a section of the pilgrimage.

Getting around: trains connect the four prefectural capitals but slowly, and the interior has almost no rail. Renting a car for the Iya Valley and the Kochi coast transforms the trip. The All Shikoku Rail Pass is worth pricing if you are staying on the trains.

Is Shikoku worth visiting?

Not on a first trip of a week. Tokyo, Kyoto and one more thing is the right first trip, and Shikoku is not that thing.

On a second or third visit, it is one of the best decisions you can make. It has original castles, a genuinely old onsen, food that is regionally specific rather than nationally available, a cycling route people plan holidays around, and an interior that feels considerably further from Tokyo than four hours.

The trade-off is transport. Shikoku rewards a car and punishes a tight schedule.

A Kansai and Setouchi route is the easiest way to add the island to a trip that is already going to Osaka, and our guides to Kochi city and Takamatsu cover the two ends of it in more detail.

For context on what you are looking at, our guide to Japan's historical landmarks covers the castles, and our piece on traditional Japanese textiles covers the indigo dyeing that Tokushima is still known for. When you are ready to put it together, start planning the trip around the ferry and bridge connections rather than the train map.