Shimoda

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

Where Japan stopped being closed: Perry's fleet anchored here, and the treaty that opened the port was signed at Ryosenji temple, which houses the black ships museum in the same grounds. Behind the old town of white lattice-plastered walls the best sand beaches on the Izu Peninsula follow one after another, starting with Shirahama Ohama; the ropeway up Mount Nesugatayama leaves right beside the station, and half an hour south lies the cove of Hirizo, reachable only by boat and only in summer.

The essentials

Getting there

Train + bus — Shimoda is the end of the line: the station is Izukyu-Shimoda, and Odoriko limited expresses run there direct from Tokyo in about 2h40-2h50 for roughly ¥6,500 with a reserved seat, along with the Saphir Odoriko, which is Green and Premium Green only and always reserved. The cheap route is an ordinary Tokaido Line train to Atami (1h45, ¥2,310) and then the through services down the coast to Shimoda: about 3h45 in total for around ¥4,300. Watch out with rail passes: beyond Ito the track belongs to Izu Kyuko, a private company, not JR, so the nationwide JR Pass takes you free only as far as Ito and the Ito-Izukyu-Shimoda leg must be paid separately (about ¥2,660 on the Odoriko, surcharge included). The JR Tokyo Wide Pass does cover the whole Izukyu Line and the Odoriko, but not the Saphir. Between Atami, Ito and Shimoda you can also catch the Resort 21 "Kinme" and "Kurofune" trains, panoramic cars with seats turned to face the sea, for the price of an ordinary ticket with no surcharge. There is no sensible direct route from Shizuoka: you go up to Atami or Mishima and back down through Izu, about three hours. In town the historic quarter and the port are walkable, but every beach means a Tokai Bus from the station forecourt: stands 2, 3 and 4 depending on the route, 7 to 25 minutes and ¥200-700 each way. Tokai Bus sells two consecutive-day passes that pay for themselves: the Shimoda pass (¥1,100 adults, ¥550 children; ¥1,350/680 from 1 October 2026) covering the town, Shirahama, Tsumekizaki and Ryugu Kutsu, and the Irozaki-Shimoda pass (¥2,400/1,200; ¥2,850/1,430 from October 2026) reaching Yumigahama, Irozaki and Kawazu. Kawazu is 25 minutes away by train and Ito about an hour.

Frequently asked questions about Shimoda

What to do in Shimoda: 29 activities

• Ropeway up Mount Nesugatayama 2 h must-see

  The mountain is named "sleeping figure" because its profile from town looks like a woman lying on her back. The ropeway leaves literally beside the station, a minute's walk, costs ¥1,500 return for adults and ¥750 for primary-school children (one under-6 free per adult), takes 3 minutes and departs on the hour and at 15, 30 and 45 past; it runs 8:45-17:00 from 16 March to 15 October (last ascent 16:30) and until 16:45 the rest of the year. At the top there is a garden overlooking the whole bay and, on clear days, the Izu Islands; the small Aizen-do hall, where people pray for marriage; and a reconstruction of the post from which the shogunate watched for foreign ships. The cabins were replaced in August 2019 and the 35-space car park is free.

• Ryosenji Temple and the MoBS Black Ship Museum 1.5 h must-see

  It was in this temple that the supplementary Treaty of Shimoda was signed in May 1854, the document that put the fine print on the Kanagawa agreement and effectively opened the port to the Americans. The grounds are free; the MoBS museum, opened in January 2016 inside the complex, costs ¥500 for adults and ¥250 for children, opens 8:30-17:00 (last entry 16:40) every day except 24-26 December, and holds some two thousand items on the arrival of the squadrons and the end of sakoku, with prints and documents from both sides. It is a 10-minute walk from the station, at the head of Perry Road.

• Shirahama Ohama Beach 4 h must-see

  Izu's big beach: 770 m long and 90 m deep, very fine white quartz sand, pale green water and a top AA water-quality rating. In 2026 it is lifeguarded from 18 July to 31 August, 8:00-16:00; showers ¥400, a 300-space car park from ¥2,000 a day, parasols ¥2,000 and sun beds ¥1,000. Take the No. 9 bus toward Shirahama, 15 minutes from the station to the Respo Shirahama stop. Outside those six weeks the sand is just as lovely but nobody is watching, and Pacific swell here brings rip currents; from Obon in mid-August the jellyfish arrive, which is when locals consider the season over.

• Eating kinmedai where most of it is landed 1.5 h

  Shimoda is Japan's number one port for kinmedai, the splendid alfonsino: over a thousand tonnes a year and around 80% of everything the market handles. Locals distinguish ji-kinme, caught a few miles out on hook and line, from shima-kinme from the banks off the Izu Islands, and eat it simmered in sweet soy (nitsuke), raw, or as shabu-shabu. The place with no atmosphere and the best fish is Kinmetei, the fishermen's co-op canteen inside the market: open 7:00-9:30 and 11:00-15:00, closed Tuesdays, no reservations, rice bowls from ¥880 and the three-cut kinmedai bowl at ¥1,920.

• Hirizo, the cove you can only reach by boat 5 h Minami-Izu · 50 min only 1 Jul - 30 Sep

  There is no road and no path: you cross on the fishermen's boat from Nakagi harbour, a five-minute run, and only from 1 July to 30 September. Return fare ¥2,000 for adults and ¥1,000 for children from age 4 to primary school, with departures 8:30-16:00 and 8:00-16:00 at the height of August; parking costs ¥2,000 at the harbour and ¥1,000 in the overflow lots. It is a shingle beach, not sand, and there is absolutely nothing on it: no toilets, no shop, no shade — you take the boat back to the village for everything. In exchange the water is among the clearest on mainland Japan, with the Kuroshio current pushing tropical fish among the rocks, and everyone goes in with mask and snorkel. It is cancelled whenever there is swell, especially in September: check the same morning.

• Kisami Ohama Beach 4 h

  The same 770 m length as Shirahama and 75 m deep, but set back from the main road and never as packed: this is the beach of people who come back every summer, ringed by rental houses and cafés. AA water quality, a marked surf zone at one end and plenty of swimming room in the rest. The 2026 season ran 18 July to 23 August, 8:00-16:00, with ¥300 showers and a 300-space car park from ¥2,000. Buses 3 and 4 from the station, 10 minutes to the Kisami stop plus an 8-minute walk.

• Perry Road 1.5 h

  Some four hundred metres of cobbled lane on both banks of the Hiraname canal — the route Perry's delegation walked from the harbour to Ryosenji temple to sign in 1854. What remains are storehouses with namako-kabe walls (white plaster lattices over black tiles, insulation against fire and salt air) and Izu-stone buildings converted into cafés, bars and one-room shops. By day it is a twenty-minute stroll; after dark, lanterns lit and a couple of bars open, it is the closest thing Shimoda has to nightlife. It is a 15-minute walk from the station and costs nothing.

• The thousand-person bath at Kanaya Ryokan 1.5 h

  In Rendaiji, one train stop before Shimoda and four minutes on foot from the station, this wooden ryokan holds the sennin-buro: a hot-spring pool roughly 15 by 5 metres and up to a metre deep, built entirely of hinoki cypress, the largest of its kind in Japan, fed by its own spring and overflowing without recirculation. It is mixed bathing, though women enter through their own changing room and may wear a bath towel inside, and there is also the Manyo-no-yu, the country's largest wooden women's bath. Day bathing ¥1,000 for adults, ¥500 primary school, ¥300 younger, 9:00-22:00 with last entry at 21:00, every day of the year; towel rental ¥300. It publishes no tattoo policy, so call ahead.

• Yumigahama Beach, in Minami-Izu 4 h Minami-Izu · 25 min

  No longer Shimoda but the town of Minami-Izu, 25 minutes by Tokai Bus toward Kyukamura / Irozaki (get off at Kyukamura). It is a perfect 1.2 km arc closed by headlands at both ends, which keeps the water very flat: it appears on every list of Japan's best beaches and is the easiest in the area with small children. The 2026 season ran 18 July to 30 August, 8:00-16:00, with three toilet blocks, paid showers at the beach huts, a municipal car park of about 275 spaces at ¥2,000 a day, an inflatable water park set up only in summer, and SUP and kayak rental.

• Cape Irozaki, the southern tip of Izu 3 h Minami-Izu · 45 min

  The southern end of the peninsula, in the town of Minami-Izu: sheer wind-battered cliffs some sixty metres high, a white lighthouse and, at the end of the path, Ishimuro Shrine wedged literally into a cleft in the rock above the drop, its wooden hall braced against the wall. Since 2019 the parking and facilities sit at Irozaki Ocean Park, from which it is about fifteen minutes on foot to the point along a path with no shade. Take Tokai Bus route S53 from Izukyu-Shimoda station, about 40-45 minutes; if you are also doing Yumigahama, the two-day Irozaki-Shimoda pass pays for itself.

• Cape Tsumekizaki and its lighthouse 2.5 h

  A headland of cropped grass with a white lighthouse at the end and, on the shore below, the Tawaraiso outcrop: hexagonal basalt columns sheared off by the sea, one of the best-explained sites in the Izu Peninsula Geopark. There are two trails, one across the meadow and one linking to the Suzaki coast, and the horizon opens 180 degrees over the Pacific and the islands. Entry is free; the car park has 200 spaces at ¥500 per car. Bus route 10 toward Tsumekizaki from the station, about 15 minutes to the last stop.

• Gyokusenji, the first United States consulate 1.5 h

  Townsend Harris lived here from 1856 to 1859 as the first resident foreign consul general in Japan, with his interpreter Heusken, and from here negotiated the 1858 commercial treaty. The Harris Museum costs ¥500 for adults and ¥200 for children, opens 8:30-16:30 and closes no day of the year; inside are the consul's personal effects, documents and what is held to be Japan's oldest daguerreotype. The temple graveyard holds the tombs of American and Russian sailors who died in the port, and the garden has the monument recalling that Japan's first cow was slaughtered for beef here and its first drinking milk drawn. It is in the Kakizaki district, about 20 minutes on foot from the centre or a few bus stops.

• Hofukuji and the story of Tojin Okichi 1 h

  Okichi Saito (1841-1891) was a geisha in Shimoda when the authorities sent her to serve in Consul Harris's household; the town branded her for life with the nickname "Tojin" (the foreigners' woman) and she ended ruined, drowning in the river at 51. The temple keeps her grave and a small museum with her portrait at 19, her hairpins and period documents: ¥400, 8:00-17:00, with occasional closures and no fixed calendar. Sakamoto Ryoma and Katsu Kaishu were reconciled in this same temple in 1863, which the display also covers. It is a 3-minute walk from the station.

• Hydrangea Festival in Shimoda Park 2.5 h only 1-30 Jun

  Through the whole of June the slopes of Shimoda Park fill with some three million hydrangea blooms of more than a hundred varieties, from white Annabelle to oak-leaved, spread along more than a kilometre of paths and steps that climb and drop; it is held to be the largest concentration in Japan. Entry is free and no cars are allowed inside: there is a temporary 70-space car park at ¥600, a ¥220 bus from the station or about twenty minutes on foot. During the festival there are taiko performances, food stalls and some evenings with the paths lit. Wear proper shoes: it is all slope and stairs.

• Kurofune Matsuri, the Black Ship Festival 4 h only the third weekend of May

  Three days in mid-May in which Shimoda has celebrated its own opening to the world since 1934, and probably the only festival in Japan with a United States Navy band parading alongside one from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. 2026 was the 87th edition, 15-17 May; the 88th falls on 14-16 May 2027. The centrepiece is the parade through the town with people in period dress and, on the first night, fireworks over the harbour: about 1,048 shells from 20:15 to 20:40, watched by some 45,000 people. No tickets are sold apart from a few crowdfunded paired seats, and the town runs out of parking: come by train.

• Ryugu Kutsu and the Toji sand dune 2 h

  A sea cave carved by waves into the tuff of a submarine volcano whose roof then collapsed, leaving a hole some 50 m across open to the sky; from the upper path the gap reads as a heart, which is why it is permanently full of couples. Steps lead down inside from the car park (10 spaces, ¥500, ¥1,500 in summer), but swimming inside is banned and the footing is slippery. Next door, the Toji Sandskii is a natural sand ramp 45 m long at 30 degrees that you toboggan down toward the sea. Bus from stand 2 at the station toward Toji, about 20 minutes to the Ryugukutsu stop plus a 3-minute walk.

• Shimoda Taiko Matsuri 3.5 h only 14-15 Aug

  The main festival of Shimoda's Hachiman Shrine, always on 14 and 15 August, in the middle of Obon week with the town full of holidaymakers. Each neighbourhood's float, carrying a huge drum with children playing it, is shoved through the centre amid chanting; locals say the rhythm descends from the war drums of the 1590 siege. The second night is the one to catch, when the lit floats converge and duel on rhythm. It is free to watch from the street near the station and needs no booking — but book a bed months ahead.

• Shirahama Shrine and its torii above the sea 1 h

  Dedicated to Ikonahime-no-mikoto, it is held to be the oldest shrine on the Izu Peninsula — local tradition gives it some 2,400 years — and it stands right beside Shirahama beach among the pines. What everyone photographs is the red torii planted on a rock out in the water, reached across the sand and rocks. Entry is free and possible at any hour. Its main festival falls in late October (28-30), with the night-time hitachisai announcing the start to the gods of the Izu Islands, the sanbaso theatre designated a city cultural property, and the closing gohei-nagashi. Route 9 bus from the station.

• Snorkelling with children at Nabetahama 3 h

  A small cove tucked inside the harbour, half sand and half rock, with water almost always flat because the harbour mouth shelters it: this is where Shimoda parents take small children for their first go with a snorkel and for rock-pooling. Lifeguarded from 18 July to 23 August 2026, 9:00-16:00 — an hour later than the rest. There is barely any parking, so walking or a five-minute taxi from the centre makes more sense. Water shoes strongly recommended for the rocky half.

• Surfing at Tatadohama 3 h

  450 m of white sand that catch the southern swell well, and Izu's reference surf beach: rounds of the national circuit are held here and several schools rent boards and run beginner lessons, in bodyboarding too. The lifeguarded swimming season in 2026 ran 18 July to 23 August, 8:00-16:00, but surfers come year-round and autumn is the best of it. A 110-space car park at ¥2,000 a day and ¥300 showers; buses 3 and 4, 7 minutes from the station to the Tatado stop.

• Tsumekizaki Narcissus Festival 2.5 h only 20 Dec - 31 Jan

  From 20 December to 31 January the meadow on Cape Tsumekizaki is covered by some three million wild narcissi you can smell from metres away; the peak usually falls in mid-January. It is the reason to come to Shimoda in winter, when the coast is empty and the midday sun still has warmth: stalls are set up on site and they serve ikeda-ni, a local fish soup. Same access as the cape — route 10 bus, about 15 minutes from the station — and ¥500 parking.

• Ebisujima Island and the Suzaki path 2 h

  An islet barely two hundred metres across, joined to the Suzaki peninsula by a small bridge, with a trail that loops around it in about twenty minutes. It is an open geology textbook: ash layers from submarine volcanoes, faults, pillow lava and the flame structures left when sand liquefied in earthquakes. On top is a small shrine to Ebisu where ancient ritual pottery has been found, and to the south a wave-cut platform that emerges at low tide and can be walked on. Take the bus to the Suzaki Kaigan stop; the path has unrailed stretches exposed to the swell, so it is off limits in rough seas.

• Harbour cruise on the black ship Susquehanna 1 h

  A very free replica of the steam frigate Susquehanna, Perry's flagship, makes a 20-minute circuit of Shimoda Bay past Nesugatayama and the islands at the harbour mouth. ¥1,500 for adults and ¥750 for children, plus ¥500 and ¥250 for the upper-deck observation room; departures from 9:10 until 15:30, no closing days except bad weather, and a maintenance break from mid-November to late December. You board at the michi-no-eki by the port, 15 minutes on foot from the station. Bags of gull food are sold on deck, and the whole flock follows the ship.

• Iritahama Beach and its cycads 3 h

  400 m of sand with a row of cycads (Izu's stand-in palms, actually sotetsu) planted right behind, which gives it the cheap-tropics look you see in all the photos. It is the quiet neighbour of Kisami Ohama: fewer people, a more grown-up crowd, holiday houses among the pines. The 2026 season ran 18 July to 23 August, 8:00-16:00, with paid showers and parasol rental; same buses as Kisami, routes 3 and 4 from the station.

• Michi-no-Eki Kaikoku Shimoda Minato 1.5 h

  The roadside station by the harbour, 15 minutes on foot from the railway station, works as the town's market and canteen: direct sales from the Izu fishing co-op, vegetables from local growers, a souvenir shop and a conveyor-belt sushi bar using bay fish. The thing to eat is the Shimoda Burger at Ra-maru: a whole fillet of kinmedai, battered, with camembert inside the bun — how expensive fish gets eaten here when it is not simmered. The Susquehanna cruise leaves from here, and upstairs are two small museum rooms, one on Shimoda's history and one on marlin fishing. Each business keeps its own closing day.

• Shimoda Aquarium 3 h

  It is built inside a natural cove closed off with nets, and its main hall is the Aqua Dome Perry, a circular 20-metre ship moored in the bay with the big tank inside. It keeps dolphins in captivity in the water of the cove itself and stages shows with them ("Marine Fantasy"), as well as paid programmes to feed, swim and dive with them: worth knowing before you go in. ¥2,500 for adults and ¥1,250 for children from 4 to primary school; open 9:30-16:30, extended to 8:30-17:00 during Golden Week, from 25 July to 23 August and in the September Silver Week, and closed 15-18 December for maintenance. A short bus ride from the station.

• Shimoda Park and the viewpoint over the harbour 1.5 h

  The hill separating the old town from the port was once Shimoda Castle, taken and razed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590; what survives are terraces, dry moats lost in the vegetation and several viewpoints that take in the harbour mouth, Ebisujima island and Mount Nesugatayama opposite all at once. At the top stands the monument to the opening of the port, with an anchor and a plaque in Japanese and English. Entry is free at any hour by several paths; the most direct starts at the end of Perry Road, about 20 minutes uphill from the station.

• Shirahama Sea Festival fireworks 2 h only one Saturday in late July

  The fireworks are launched from Shirahama Ohama beach itself and watched lying on the sand, which is what sets them apart from a river display. The 58th edition fell on 25 July 2026, 20:00-20:15, about a thousand shells and some 12,000 spectators; bad weather pushes it to late August. There is no paid seating, there are food stalls, and a free temporary car park of 280 spaces is opened in the Harada area. A 10-minute bus from the station to the Haradaguchi stop.

• The quiet coves: Sotoura and Kunohama 3.5 h

  Two enclosed bays east of town where the sea hardly moves. Sotoura is a wide inlet with waveless water, good for floating and easy snorkelling, open 18 July to 23 August 2026. Kunohama is its opposite in size: 50 m by 40, hidden at the bottom of a path down from the car park (160 spaces, ¥1,000), rocks on both sides, remarkably clear water and a single small kiosk, open until 31 August. Neither has restaurants — bring your food. Showers ¥300.

What only happens on specific dates

• Tsumekizaki Narcissus Festival 20 Dec - 31 Jan
• Kurofune Matsuri, the Black Ship Festival the third weekend of May
• Hydrangea Festival in Shimoda Park 1-30 Jun
• Hirizo, the cove you can only reach by boat 1 Jul - 30 Sep
• Shirahama Sea Festival fireworks one Saturday in late July
• Shimoda Taiko Matsuri 14-15 Aug

Chains well with

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