Izu Hanto Peninsula

In my long consecutive string of weekend trips, this will probably be my last one for a bit. Hopefully! It's crazy that thoughts like "hey, this is the first time in awhile where i'm getting to sleep in on a saturday" are popping up in my head.

This previous trip consisted of a number of places, including Yokohama, Kamakura, and parts of Tokyo, but I'll focus on, in my opinion, the most interesting place we saw: Izu Hanto. And I've noticed that on all of the trips that I've planned so far, they've included these 3 things: lots of time on trains, small boonie towns, and onsens, which is probably why I enjoyed Izu the most.

Anywhere from 2-4 hours away from Tokyo city, this peninsula is full of little villages and towns that pride themselves on their onsens. The other great thing that seems to be pretty prevalent here is rentable bicycles! I can't say how much I love exploring a small town via bicycle, going at my own pace but speeding up and skipping the boring stuff when necessary. And once you're finished seeing what you've wanted to see, getting back to where you started is a lot faster!

To start this off...

Shuzenji!

There's some nice onsens here, as well as a free mixed onsen that was under construction when I went.

500 yen to rent the bike

small town in the country!

small streets to shop and eat at

From Shuzenji, you can take a 1.5 hour bus ride through the mountains and along the coast to the next town, Dogashima. Really nice scenery!

you can also borrow a bike in dogashima from the information booth for free!

dogashima's typical scenery consists of these cliffs and boulders that line the coast. and lots of people fishing on them.

guys fishin!

how'd he get out there?!

another great thing about dogashima is the Sawada Rotenburo Onsen (outdoor onsen - 沢田露天風呂) that sits right on the cliff. you can see it in this picture on the right side

the onsen - really tiny! no place to wash or anything - just strip and get in!

Another nice thing about the Dogashima coast is that there's a number of hikes that you can take that afford really nice views! And instead of backtracking after you're done, you can just take a bus back to where you started. Perfect.

the different trails

views

From Dogashima, you can take yet another 1.5 hour bus to Shimoda, the town listed in Lonely Planet as the one town you should check out if you only have time for one. Not really true...but it was okay. It's another big fishing town but I definitely liked Dogashima much more.


And to finish the 2nd day off, we stopped at the Rendaiji to check out the Kanaya Ryokan's onsen. It was 1000 yen but definitely, a nice onsen!


Check this area out if you're ever looking for something different from the bigger cities like Tokyo or Kamakura!