Ito and Izu Kogen

Chubu, Japan · Sea / Beach, Town / small city

A hot-spring town of wooden streets at the water's edge and, twenty minutes inland, a wooded plateau with lava sea cliffs, a grass-covered cinder cone you ride a chairlift up and that is set alight every February, and a constellation of improbable museums built by people who moved here to make things.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — The Odoriko limited express runs straight from Tokyo to Ito in 1h40-1h50 for around ¥4,000; the alternative is a Kodama or Hikari shinkansen to Atami (35-50 min) and a 25-minute change onto the JR Ito Line. The nationwide JR Pass covers both, because the track is JR as far as Ito. Beyond Ito it does not: the coast continues on the Izukyu Line, a private railway, and the pass is invalid there even on the through Odoriko. Ito to Jogasaki-Kaigan is ¥650 and to Izu-Kogen ¥750; with a JR Pass, riding on to Izukyu-Shimoda costs a ¥1,860 supplement on local trains and ¥2,660 on limited expresses. The pass that does cover the whole Izukyu Line to Izukyu-Shimoda is the 3-day JR Tokyo Wide Pass, with the Saphir Odoriko excepted. The destination has two quite separate centres: the onsen town, walkable from Ito station, and Izu Kogen, the wooded plateau of holiday houses 20-25 minutes down the line, where almost everything (Mt Omuro, Shaboten, Granpal, the museums) is another 15-30 minutes by bus from Izu-Kogen station. Buses are run by Tokai Bus from the forecourt of Ito station: ¥880 to the Mt Omuro and Shaboten area, ¥860 to Jogasaki. A two-day pass covering the whole Ito and Izu Kogen network costs ¥1,800 for adults and ¥900 for children, which pays for itself in two long rides. A car helps a lot on the plateau but isn't required. From Shizuoka it's a little over two hours with a change at Atami. Tokai Kisen's jet ferry to Izu Oshima also leaves from Ito port, a crossing of about 15 minutes.

Frequently asked questions about Ito and Izu Kogen

What to do in Ito and Izu Kogen: 30 activities

• Jogasaki Coast: Kadowaki suspension bridge and lighthouse 2 h must-see

  Kilometres of black lava cliff laid down by Mount Omuro some 4,000 years ago, dropping sheer into the Pacific. The Kadowaki suspension bridge spans a cleft 48 m long and 23 m up, and next to it the Kadowakisaki lighthouse - 25 m tall, rebuilt in 1995 - lets you climb to its viewing deck for free, with the Izu Islands and the Amagi range laid out around you. It's a 35-minute walk from Jogasaki-Kaigan station on the Izukyu Line, or about ¥860 by bus from Ito; the Kadowaki car park charges ¥500 a day with the first 15 minutes free.

• Mount Omuro by chairlift and the crater rim walk 1.5 h must-see

  A 580-metre scoria cone under close-cropped grass, the largest in eastern Izu's volcanic group and a designated national natural monument - which is why walking up is forbidden and the chairlift is the only way, ¥1,000 return for adults and ¥500 for primary-school children. At the top a one-kilometre path rings the crater in 20-30 minutes, with Mount Fuji, Sagami Bay and the Izu Islands all around, and there's an archery range down inside the crater. Open 9:00-17:00 from March to September and until 16:00 from October to February; it stops for high wind or storms and shuts for maintenance in June and December.

• Tokaikan, the wooden inn on the Matsukawa 1 h must-see

  A timber inn built in the 1920s on the bank of the Matsukawa river, closed as a ryokan in 1997 and now owned by the city: three floors of show-off carpentry where each room was done by a different master, in cypress, cedar and deliberately contorted timber, with a lookout tower on top. From fiscal 2026 admission is ¥300 (¥150 for children); it opens 9:00-21:00, last entry 20:00, and closes on the third Tuesday of the month and 1 January. At weekends and on public holidays you can also use its two hot-spring baths for ¥500, 11:00-19:00, with men and women swapping between the large and small bath every couple of hours. There is no lift and no wheelchair access.

• Ito Orange Beach 3 h

  850 metres of dark sand - the colour comes from Mount Omuro's lava - three minutes' walk from Ito station, with palms and a promenade behind it; it regularly earns the prefecture's top AA water-quality grade. In 2026 the lifeguarded season ran 18 July to 30 August, 9:00-16:00, with four beach houses that go up and come down with the season, free cold showers, paid changing rooms and an inflatable water park. Outside those six weeks there are no lifeguards, and from Obon around 15 August the jellyfish start arriving. On a dozen nights in July and August the fireworks go up from the beach itself.

• Akazawa, the bathhouse hung over the Pacific 2.5 h

  A day-use bathhouse on a clifftop south of Izu Kogen, with several floors of baths and saunas and an outdoor infinity pool whose edge visually dissolves into the Pacific horizon. Open 10:00-22:00, last entry 21:00; ¥1,400 on weekdays and ¥1,700 at weekends and on holidays until 18:00, dropping to ¥1,000 and ¥1,300 after that, with children at half price. Since 1 February 2025 tattoos and body paint have not been admitted except by case-by-case approval. It's about ten minutes by car or taxi from Izu-Kogen station.

• Eating uzuwa-meshi and Ito's fish 1.5 h

  Ito's own dish isn't kinmedai, which belongs to the whole coast, but uzuwa: local bonito chopped with a knife and dressed with green chilli and soy, eaten three ways in succession - plain, over rice, and finally with broth or tea poured on top - a fishermen's recipe served by a dozen places in the centre. From September to April there's also spiny lobster, ise-ebi, which is the good season, and year-round fried moray eel, utsubo, far more common here than elsewhere in the country. The eateries at the port and at Marine Town shut mid-afternoon; for dinner you stay in the centre.

• Ito's summer fireworks 2 h only 24 Jul - 22 Aug

  Rather than cram everything into one night, Ito spreads fifteen displays across late July and August. The small ones, the 'yume hanabi', last twenty minutes from 20:30 to 20:50 and are watched from Orange Beach; the big one belongs to the Anjin Festival on 10 August, a full hour from 20:00 to 21:00 with paid seating. On 8 August lanterns are floated down the Matsukawa (¥1,000 each, sold at three points) and on the 22nd there are te-hanabi, hand-held fireworks, at the Hashi Matsuri. Usami and Kawana hold their own on 2 and 14-15 August. Dates are published each spring and shift from year to year.

• The Jogasaki clifftop trail (Picnical Course and Nature Trail) 4.5 h

  Nine kilometres of path and boardwalk along the cliff edge, from Boranaya - an old mullet-spotting hut by Futo harbour - to Yawatano harbour: about four and a half hours with little climbing, though the surface is raw lava and closed shoes matter. Halfway along is the other suspension bridge, Hashidate, 60 m long and 18 m up and far quieter than Kadowaki. You can break it into sections using Futo, Jogasaki-Kaigan and Izu-Kogen stations; in June the whole trail fills with hydrangeas.

• The Seven Lucky Gods neighbourhood baths 1 h

  Ito still has seven neighbourhood bathhouses scattered around the centre, each adopted by one of the Seven Lucky Gods, and they are baths for residents rather than tourist facilities: ¥400 for adults and ¥200 for children, bring your own soap and towel, opening in the afternoon on hours each one sets for itself. The oldest is Wada Juroujin no Yu, which in the Edo period sent its water to the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu; it's open 14:00-22:00 and closed Wednesdays. None of the seven admits tattoos. This is the cheapest and most local way to bathe in Ito.

• Usami Beach 3 h

  A kilometre and a half of fine sand in a sheltered bay, the calmest water in the municipality, with rock pools at either end where children hunt for creatures: this is Ito's family beach. In 2026 it was lifeguarded from 18 July to 23 August and it has no beach houses, so bring your own food; seasonal parking is ¥1,000 a day. It's about ten minutes' walk from Usami station, two stops north of Ito on the JR Ito Line. No camping or barbecues, and surfing is confined outside the swimming zone, 8:30-17:00.

• Yamayaki: burning Mount Omuro 3 h only the second Sunday of February

  Once a year the whole mountain is set on fire to keep scrub from taking over, a habit Ito traces back more than seven hundred years. They burn the crater rim mid-morning and around midday the entire slope goes up: forty minutes or so, and the mountain stays black until it greens again in spring. It's free and needs no booking, and torches go on sale at the chairlift that same morning (¥3,000, up to two per family, while they last). The catch: it's pushed back a week if it has rained in the days before, because the grass won't dry, so it rarely happens on the announced date - in 2026 it fell on 8 February and 14 February is announced for 2027.

• Diving and snorkelling at Futo and Izu Ocean Park 4 h booking

  The stretch between Futo and Izu Ocean Park, below Jogasaki, is one of Japan's longest-established dive areas: you enter from shore down concrete stairs cut into the lava and swim among volcanic boulders, with shoals of rockfish and turtles in summer. The Ocean Park dive centre charges ¥2,530 for facility use, around ¥7,150 for full equipment and ¥550 for parking (¥1,100 in summer), and tank rental must be booked ahead. Several schools in Futo run try-dives and snorkelling trips, also by reservation. Visibility is best from September to November.

• Granillumi, the illumination at Izu Granpal Park 2.5 h only 6 Nov - 31 Aug

  The Izu Kogen amusement park turns at night into a large walk-through illumination, with zip-lines, slides and karts running among the lights. Season 12 runs from 6 November 2026 to 31 August 2027, last entry 20:45: ¥1,800 for adults on weekdays (¥100 more at weekends and on holidays), ¥1,000 for primary-school children and ¥500 for children from four. It closes in autumn, between one season and the next. Twenty minutes by bus from Izu-Kogen station or ten by taxi; tripods and selfie sticks are not allowed.

• Ikeda Museum of 20th Century Art 1.5 h

  Opened in 1975 on the shore of Lake Ippeki, this was Japan's first museum devoted entirely to twentieth-century art: around 1,400 works gathered around the human figure, of which some eighty are on show - Renoir, Picasso, Miró, Chagall, Matisse, Bonnard, Warhol. Open 9:00-17:00, last entry 16:30, closed Wednesdays except public holidays, though it opens daily in July and August. ¥1,000 for adults, ¥700 senior high, ¥500 primary and junior high. The same bus from Ito towards Shaboten Koen drops you at the lake.

• Ito Marine Town roadside station 2.5 h

  A roadside complex by the harbour with fourteen shops and eateries - the house dish is ryoshi no zuke-don, soy-marinated fish over rice - a free 43-metre foot bath seating around seventy people (10:00-16:00, towels ¥200) and the Asahi-no-yu onsen, which opens at 5:00 so you can watch the sunrise from the tub: ¥1,000 on weekdays and ¥1,400-1,500 at weekends. A boat with a glazed underwater cabin also leaves from here on a 45-minute coastal loop, feeding the gulls on the way, at ¥2,400 for adults and ¥1,100 for children. Five minutes by bus from Ito station.

• Izu Shaboten Zoo 3 h

  Right at the foot of Mount Omuro, a park with some 1,500 kinds of cactus and succulent and around 150 animal species, many of them loose in the grounds. It opens around 8:30-9:00 and closes around 17:00-17:30. What it's best known for is the capybara hot-spring bath, which runs from 21 November to 4 April in the 2026-27 season. It is a zoo, with what that implies: direct contact with animals, giraffes fed from a platform, a llama zip-line and a boat ride round a pond with lemurs. Bus from Izu-Kogen station, or ¥880 from Ito.

• Izukyu's Kinme Densha train 1 h

  The Izukyu Line hugs the water almost the whole way, and two of its Resort 21 trainsets have their seats turned to face the sea-side windows: the Kinme Densha, red like the golden-eye snapper eaten all along this coast, and the Kurofune Densha, black for Perry's black ships. They are ordinary commuter trains with no reservation and no surcharge: a standard ticket is enough, ¥750 from Ito to Izu-Kogen. Only a few services run each day and the timetable is published month by month on Izukyu's website, so check it the same day; the nationwide JR Pass is not valid on this line.

• Kawana Iruka-hama cove 2.5 h

  A 170-metre cove of pebble and shingle beside Cape Kawana, with the clearest water of the three beaches Ito opens each summer and few people, simply because no more will fit; there are seasonal showers and lockers but no beach houses. The 2026 lifeguarded season ran 18 July to 23 August. The name means 'dolphin beach'. It's about 20 minutes on foot from Kawana station on the Izukyu Line; Kawana beach proper, next door, hasn't opened for a couple of summers, so don't count on it.

• Komuroyama Ridge Walk MISORA 2 h

  A short chairlift to the top of Mount Komuro, 321 metres directly above the sea, where a wooden boardwalk circling the summit and a glass-walled café, Café·321, opened in 2021. ¥1,000 return for adults and ¥100 for children, ¥600 one way; the lift runs 9:30-16:00 (last boarding 15:55) and the café 10:00-16:00. The slope is planted with azaleas that flower from late April into early May, and Mount Fuji shows up in winter. About 20 minutes by bus from Ito station.

• Lake Ippeki 1.5 h

  A crater lake formed around 100,000 years ago in the same volcanic family as Mount Omuro, with a wooded shoreline, pedal boats for hire and a local nickname, 'the pupil of Izu'. Worth knowing: since October 2025 a stretch of the north-west shore has been closed for safety works, so you can't walk the full circuit. It's about 20 minutes on the bus from Ito station towards Shaboten Koen, and the Ikeda museum sits on the same shore.

• Maboroshi Hakurankai, the museum of nonsense 1.5 h

  A former tropical plant garden turned into a warehouse of postwar Japanese cultural junk: Showa-era mannequins, film posters, religious dioramas, toys, entire rooms of vintage erotica and the air of a hand-built haunted house that resembles no formal museum. It never closes; 9:30-17:00 in winter and until 17:30 from 20 March to 23 September. Admission ¥1,400 for adults and ¥600 for primary and junior high. Take the bus from Ito towards Granpal Koen to the Umenokidaira stop, about 30 minutes and ¥600; the same owners run the Mysterious Boys and Girls Museum next door.

• Nozaka Automata Museum 1 h

  A small collection of 18th- and 19th-century European automata - clockmakers' figures that write, draw or play an instrument - that don't sit still behind glass: a technician sets them going in front of the audience and explains them one by one, so the visit runs at the demonstration's pace rather than yours. Admission ¥1,000 for adults, ¥800 for visitors with disabilities, ¥600 for junior high and free up to primary. Closed Tuesdays and Thursdays except public holidays, with special exhibitions in spring, summer and at New Year. It's in Izu Kogen, a short taxi ride from the station.

• Sakura no Sato, cherry blossom from September to May 1.5 h

  Four hectares at the foot of Mount Omuro with about a thousand cherry trees of forty varieties, deliberately chosen so something is always in bloom: the October cherries start in September, February brings the kanzakura and the Kawazu cherries, March the Oshima and Ito varieties, and April the familiar somei yoshino. Free to enter, with its own car park, on the same bus stops as the chairlift. Separately, a three-kilometre cherry avenue runs from Izu-Kogen station and blooms in two waves, the early trees in mid-February and the somei yoshino in late March.

• The Yunohana-dori and Kinema-dori arcades 1.5 h

  Two covered shopping arcades between the station and the river, holding what people actually buy in Ito: himono, the split, sun-dried fish of what locals call the 'himono road', and guri-cha, a curly-leaf, long-steamed Shizuoka tea far less astringent than ordinary sencha, plus wasabi and mandarin sweets. Several shops hand out samples. You can walk them in an hour or so, they're five minutes from the station, and being roofed they work in the rain; note that many shops take a weekday off and not all the same one.

• William Adams's shipyard on the Matsukawa 1 h

  At the mouth of the Matsukawa, right in the centre of town, the Englishman William Adams - Miura Anjin, the sailor behind the novel Shogun - built for Tokugawa Ieyasu the first two Western-style sailing ships made in Japan: an 80-tonner in 1604 and the 120-tonne galleon San Buenaventura in 1607. The site was chosen because the shore was deep and the sandbars allowed launching without machinery. What's left today is the Anjin Memorial Park with its sculptures and seafront walk, the shopping street named after him, a model of the San Buenaventura in the city hall and material about him on show in the Tokaikan. It's free and takes a short walk from the station.

• Yukemuri Ichiba, the night food hall on Kinema-dori 2 h

  It opened on 25 April 2026 in the Kinema-dori arcade, five minutes from the station: a hall with nine or ten stalls of Ito and Shizuoka cooking and around two hundred bench seats, built for grazing and drinking your way from one to the next after a bath. It serves until 23:00, which in a hot-spring town where almost everything shuts at nine changes things considerably. It's run by a local company, Ito Onsen Nigiwai, has a karaoke room for groups and, being under the arcade roof, works whatever the weather.

• Izu Kogen Gogatsusai, the May open-studio festival 3 h only all through May

  Izu Kogen filled up with holiday houses and with people who moved here to make things - glass, ceramics, wood, painting - and once a year, in May, close to a hundred venues open at once: studios, galleries, cafés and private houses. You pick up the map and work your way round; each venue sets its own hours and prices, and a good many are free. It used to be called the Izu Kogen Art Festival and is still a neighbours' affair rather than an institutional one. Without a car it's hard to string together more than three or four venues in a day.

• Izu Teddy Bear Museum 1.5 h

  A mock English country house in the woods of Izu Kogen, with antique Steiff bears, work by contemporary makers and temporary shows that tend to be crossovers with a Japanese series. Open 9:30-17:00, last entry 16:30; ¥1,800 for adults, ¥1,200 for junior and senior high school, ¥1,000 for primary, free for younger children and for over-75s. It closes on the second Tuesday of February, March, June and December (plus the following Wednesday in June) and stays open over New Year and Golden Week. A short walk from Izu-Kogen station.

• New York Lamp Museum & Flower Garden 1.5 h

  Opened in 2017 on the Jogasaki cliffs, on the grounds of the former Izu Shiki no Hana flower park, it holds around eighty genuine pieces by Tiffany Studios of New York - table lamps and stained glass roughly 120 years old - and the good part is seeing them close up, with no glass case in between. Around it is a garden of some 230 hydrangea varieties, at its best in June, with the suspension bridge and the Pacific behind, plus a café with a view. It's run by the same group as Shaboten Zoo and is a walk from Jogasaki-Kaigan station.

• Picking mandarins on the Usami slopes 1.5 h only 1 Oct - 30 Jun

  The slopes at Usami, in the north of the municipality, are terraced with citrus trees straight above the sea, and several orchards open to the public so you can pick and eat as much as you like on the spot: satsuma mandarins from October to January and larger, sharper amanatsu from February to June. Each orchard sets its own price, in the region of a thousand yen a head, and it's worth checking beforehand because there's no common rate; at weekends a phone call helps. The orchards are ten to twenty minutes on foot or by taxi from Usami station.

What only happens on specific dates

• Granillumi, the illumination at Izu Granpal Park 6 Nov - 31 Aug
• Picking mandarins on the Usami slopes 1 Oct - 30 Jun
• Yamayaki: burning Mount Omuro the second Sunday of February
• Izu Kogen Gogatsusai, the May open-studio festival all through May
• Ito's summer fireworks 24 Jul - 22 Aug

Chains well with

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