Japan's lesser travelled south-west region

19 February, 2025 By: Fleur Bainger

With Japan welcoming nearly 37 million international visitors in 2024 – almost one million of them from Australia - where should you go to escape tourist hoards?

What’s the least-fun thing about travel? Tourists. Lots of them. Finding quieter escapes in popular destinations such as Bali, Phuket and even Paris is proving difficult as overtourism becomes a pressing issue.

Boosted by a weak Japanese yen, the land of the rising sun has become the place on everyone’s lips. Particularly Tokyo, Kyoto and the ski fields of Niseko. Yet for the south west region of Japan, travellers are fewer, the forests are quieter and traditional culture is open to the intrepid.

Visit in any season, but spring (March-May) and autumn (Sept-Nov) are best for embracing nature and walking traditional streets. Budget about A$15 for cafe lunch, $30 for restaurant dinner and $100 for a hotel, per day.

The Japanese are highly respectful and conscientious so in most places, remember to remove your shoes at the door, speak at a moderate volume and regularly say “arigatou” (thank you). And rest is easy, knowing it’s only a one hour time difference from Western Australia.

Matsuyama

In the arrivals lounge at Matsuyama (a 1.5hr flight from Tokyo) I spot the most unusual thing: a chrome kitchen tap dispensing squeezed orange juice. It’s not a one-off. Singular orange juice taps - and bars with up to 20 of them - are found at the city’s major sites.

Why? The sun kissed region in Japan’s lesser-known southwest - Ehime Prefecture - grows more than 40 citrus varieties. The “citrus kingdom’s” capital city is Matsuyama.

I spy my next orange tap, as well as a (delicious) orange ice cream booth at Matsuyama Castle, one of 12 original castle keeps left in Japan. Dating to 1602, the hilltop castle is fortified with 17m high stone walls; I take a chair lift up, then hike hefty steps, noticing wall slits used for shooting arrows.

“The castle was visible from far away,” says my English speaking, Japanese guide, Miki-san. “It’s a powerful symbol to all the people living below.” From our vantage point, I see the Seto Inland Sea, its distant islands, tree smothered hills and the rooftops of Matsuyama.

Entering the castle, I pop my shoes in a free locker and use the Kermit green slippers provided. I scuff into wooden interiors; room frames hover 20cm above my head height and steep narrow stairs lead to upper floors. The living museum is interactive: I try on heavy warrior armour, lift a samurai sword inside a protective box and pretend to shoot a wall-attached musket.

The town tram whisks me to the oldest hot spring in Japan, Dogo Onsen. Some 3000 years ago, townsfolk saw a white egret in the hot, alkaline spring water and noticed how fast its injured leg healed. Locals soon followed suit. Today, the 42 degrees Celsius waters are still believed to have health-giving properties.

Visitors can only use the onsen naked, and after washing their body. Self-consciousness fades as I enter the women’s changeroom, where every age, shape and size is represented, all totally bare.

Pink skinned and purified, I wander a shopping street linking the onsen with the tram and see another orange juice bar. I pay first, get a gelato-sized cup and turn taps in the tiled wall. I count 16 varieties costing from A$2.20 to $4. That night I dine on the local speciality, sea bream rice and watch Miki order a beer stein of orange juice, something none of the bar staff raise an eyebrow at.

Ozu

Matsuyama is found on Shikoku Island, the smallest of the major islands that make up Japan’s leggy form. From it, there’s a 40min express JR Shikoku train to Ozu, an ancient samurai town turning disused buildings into Japan's largest dispersed hotel.

It’s a 30min walk to the old town from the train station, or there’s a bus that goes to Ozu castle. Hiring a car or arranging private transfer allows exploration of the region’s sake and rum breweries and a century-old paper making warehouse.

I stop in the town of Uchiko and learn how to guild Japanese rice paper at Ikazaki Shachu, a handcrafted washi workshop. Guilding master Hiroyuki Saito hands me a card pre-loaded with glue and we sprinkle air-light foil on top, roller it flat then vigorously brush over it in clockwise circles. I’m left with a glinting art piece.

“It takes an artist one day to do a metre of gilded paper,” he says. I treasure it after touring his riverside factory, where staff swill thin cane screens through water mixed with fibres, glue and rice to create each whisper-thin sheet of paper. It’s a three-day process for each stack of 300 sheets to be dried.

It’s a 20min drive to Ozu, where abandoned merchant mansions and crumbling samurai houses have been repurposed into a unique hotel. Nipponia Hotel’s renovated residences spread throughout the old town, allowing guests to feel like a local as they walk between the reception and open-bar lounge to their historic abodes.

The architectural upcycling has seen Ozu recognised as one of the world’s Top 100 Sustainable Tourism Destinations by Green Destinations. My inn for the night was once home of a wealthy silk merchant whose coveted material was used for Emperor Showa’s 1928 enthronement ceremony.

You can visit Ozu in a day, but it’s worth the splurge to spend a night in one of the reimagined houses, and join a breakfast boat cruise of the Hiji river beneath Ozu castle, to learn about traditional cormorant fishing.

Miyajima Island

Returning to Matsuyama, I catch the Setonaikaikisen Superjet ferry for Hiroshima, a 70min journey. Bags dropped at a central hotel, I take the Aqua Net ferry from opposite the Hiroshima Peace Park to Miyajima Island, a 45min trip.

This forested isle is home to tame deer that roam between both a Buddhist temple and UNESCO World Heritage listed Shinto shrine that co-exist in harmony. It’s particularly known for a 16m-tall torii gate that’s painted orange and appears to float, depending on the tides.

The nearby waterside Itsukushima shrine was first built in the year 593, then rebuilt in the 12th century. After throwing a coin in and sending a wish to the three female goddesses enshrined there, I walk to the Buddhist temple through the Five Hundred Rakan Garden, an enchanting mass of smiling statues wearing red crochet beanies.

“They’re known as Buddha’s apprentices,” says Miki. “If you look hard, you can find one that looks like you.” On the ferry ride, I spot aquaculture beds: Miyajima Island is famed for its oysters. For lunch, I order them deep fried, in udon soup overlaid with a thin egg omelette.

I use a touch screen ordering machine - like a basic version of the ones now inside McDonalds restaurants - but there’s nothing fast food about the fat, juicy molluscs. The main street is packed with sightseers, shops and restaurants and leads back to the ferry terminal.

Hiroshima

Returning to Hiroshima, the mood shifts as I tour the Hiroshima Peace Park, remembering the victims of the atomic bomb dropped on 6 August, 1945.

Inside the main museum, I’m brought to tears by the filmed stories told by survivors. While other war memorials focus on the horrors – and they’re here too - this one reveals the emotional pain; the experiences of now-elderly soldiers who were 16 and 17 at the time draw gasps, empathic sighs and sorrowful cries from viewers.

I walk through the accompanying exhibition of artefacts and images, unable to linger long in this disturbingly important place. A sign says it wishes to remind humanity why something like this should never happen again.

From Hiroshima’s ashes, the paper crane emerged a symbol of peace. By night, I walk to the Hiroshima Orizuru Tower, landmarking the city’s ability to rise above. From its upper floors, guests are invited to make and then drop a paper crane from a glass bridge. I can see 50 floors down as I watch mine fall, joining more than one million other palm-sized cranes below. The act feels hopeful, a sentiment that grows as I explore the tower’s observation floor.

For part of the year, it doubles as an open-air bar and the wind that blows feels like it’s washing away the past. All of Hiroshima opens out around me, including the A-Bomb Dome, a UNESCO World Heritage listed building left in its skeletal state since 1945. It’s a poignant sign of Hiroshima’s past, and its recovery.

Onomichi

Nature therapy is a big part of the Japanese existence, so I embrace forest bathing at the waterside port town of Onomichi. I have a private transfer, but you can also take a scenic local train on the San-yo line, or the "Flower Liner" highway bus, each for 90mins.

I head to the Mt Senkoji ropeway, a cable car that glides above trees and grants views of undulating mountains edging the pancake-flat strait. I walk down via the steep Path of Literature, where poetry and written passages are inscribed on rocks and panels.

“Many novelists have come here to write, inspired by the beauty of the landscape and sea,” says Miki. We pass a 600-year-old purification well, a temple, sacred bell tower and The Lovers' Sanctuary, festooned with hearts scribbled with ardent declarations.

Towards the bottom, I stop at the charming Miharashi-Tei guest house and café. Books line window ledges, couples sip coffee and octagonal windows look into the soul of the town. Inspired, I vow to return.

10-day itinerary

• Day one: All Nippon Air is currently the only airline to fly direct, overnight from Perth to Tokyo. Flights include a free domestic flight within Japan; book yours for Matsuyama.

• Day two: explore Matsuyama

• Day three: discover Ozu

• Day four: Hiroshima, Miyajima Island

• Day five: Hiroshima Peace Park

• Day six: Onomichi, Mt Senkoji

• Day seven: Onomichi

• Day eight: board the Shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo, or fly from Hiroshima

• Day nine: enjoy Tokyo

• Day 10: fly direct to Perth.

The writer was a guest of the Japan National Tourism Organization and All Nippon Air.

Images: Fleur Bainger / Adobe Stock