We Camped at Japan’s Incredible Mt Fuji Lake 🇯🇵 (Japan Road Trip)

We Camped at Japan’s Incredible Mt Fuji Lake 🇯🇵 (Japan Road Trip)

And good morning from rural Japan here in a place called Shizoka. We have pulled in our camper van last night here in this little car park which you’ll find in a lot of places around Japan. These sort of serviced car parks are completely free. Um and they come with a few different facilities which I’ll show you just walking around here. but had an absolute belter of asleep last night and we’ve woken up to this absolutely bloody gorgeous day. Just want to show you what we’re working with here. This is our Toyota Hias. It’s a 2021 Toyota Hias. We keep food and things on the side which is shaded from the sun. And inside here we have a little ice bag of ice, haven’t we? Um, we’ve got these reflective privacy things which don’t really help with the heat when the sun blasts on like. Um, but we’ve gone pretty primitive. Look at that. Just stuck loads of blankets. One blanket, two blanket, three blanket, four. What more could you ask for now? It’s special. I haven’t got any special uh van life uh build or anything. It’s a normal car that’s used for normal stuff uh on a normal day. This is the type of toilet you can expect in a public car park in Japan. So imagine the state of what these would be like in England where you see like you know this toilets on the side of the road and stuff right in Japan. No no you’ve got motion sensor light in this beautiful wooden traditional Japanese building. You got two urininals got some nice water and uh as far as Oh Christ I wonder if someone’s in there. Oh someone someone might be in there. That would be quite funny, wouldn’t it? Um, nonetheless, the other very, very convenient thing about this car park is not only is there a convenient store not far away, there is also two vending machines. Now, in Japan, you will find vending machines on every bloody street corner ever. But very, very helpful here. So, what can we do? What can we do? A mini picari sweat. A mini picari sweat. There we go. Right. Okay, now obviously you want a Picari sweat. Now this bottle of water here is foreshadowing. Tell you why. Just a second. Look how cute this mini bottle of Picari is, man. It’s a little isotonic drink. It’s got like salt and sugar in it and stuff like that. Very nice indeed. I drink them a lot. Shouldn’t treat you like that, should I? Now, apparently in this area, there’s a little walk we can do where we should be able to see Mount Fuji from here. Now, it’s not that close to here, but you should be able to see it right across the bay. But today, our objective is that we’re going to drive for an hour or 2 hours or so to a place we can camp where we can really see Mount Fuji right from our from our little bedroom in the camper van. That’s better. Paige is going to sort us out some breakfast now, which we’ve got an absolute treat this morning, which is steak and eggs. Um, left over from when we tried to have a barbecue the other night and um, we just end up eating too many sausages and left the steak. This is so cute, isn’t it? Bye. Wow. Right beside the car park is this lovely little Gibli style village. Look at this. Straight out of an anime, isn’t it? This is proper small town Japan. And if you ignore that major hotel on the hill there. Um, look at these gardens, guys. Don’t want to trespass, of course, but I do think this is still a public footpath. Look how beautiful these heritage Japanese buildings are. Really, really, really lovely. Look at that bonsai tree. It’s not flowered at the minute. Oh cra, I think. Yeah, that’s as far as I can go on this road here. Gorgeous. Yeah. Yes. Very excited for the day. Starting it off looking at the sea. Steak and eggs. Picari sweat. Bit of sweat in a bottle. I know early in the video. Let’s just take a second. Let’s just take 10 15 seconds just to walk in quiet. Just enjoy what a beautiful, beautiful village this is. Where people live. This is where people live their everyday life in peace. Listen to this. Bloody beautiful. This is why I like to call Japan home. It’s why I spend more time here than any other country in the world, including England. Far more time here than we do in Newcastle or anywhere in the UK. Yeah, this is home for us for most of the year. And I hope through some of these videos you can just start to see why. What a beautiful, pleasant societal life that this really is here. Fantastic. Morning. How you doing? I’m good. Just been around these cars. H. It’s on a road trip. No kidding. Yeah. Nothing. Sleeping in the van. From where? Uh we came down from Nago. Um is that where you live? Yeah. Yeah. And then down to to here and then we’re going to head up uh towards Fuji and up to Sai. You going to Tohoku? Yeah. Sai is famous for the beef tongue. Right. Right. Right. Also the hagen notke. Oh, what’s that? It’s a sweet. Oh, okay. Go good with your with your cal with your tongue. Oh, awesome. Yeah, I’ll try it. Yeah. And and first time in this area? Yeah, first time she’s walking. Yeah, it’s nice. Beautiful, isn’t it, though? Right. You got Fuji and you got every It’s such a huge prefecture. Is there like a hike over there that we can You guys have a bit of Scott Are you Sky Scottish? Almost Newcastle, Northeast England. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. There’s there’s like some local hiking up here. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. These smaller mountains. It’s really nice. I’ve been living I have a house here. I live here. Oh, really? What a dream. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s cool, man. I’m trying to get myself in shape. Yeah. This is a nice place to do it, isn’t it? Especially now spring’s here and right in the winter I was like Yeah. But now I’m getting out of the house and I’m going to do it nice and early. Feeling good. We’re going to end up somewhere uh somewhere close to Fuji on the lake uh where we can park that up camping. Yeah, I do that. I just want to like open the van door and like see Fuji in the morning. That’s going to happen for you, man. I hope so. Thank you. You actually parked here. Yeah, last night. Yeah, it’s nice. There’s a toilet there. The vending machine. What could you want? This is I can’t believe that. Yeah, this is a good spot to be actually. Where you from? Uh Florida. Florida. Nice. Awesome, man. And you moved out here how long ago? Uh here about 2 and a half years ago, but I’ve been in Japan for 30 31 years. Wow. Fantastic. Old timer, man. Yeah. What a journey. Deep veteran. But I was living in Shizoka. Oh, well. So you And then I bought a house right over here. So now I I got out of that little apartment scene. Now I’ve got my own threetory house and it’s just love that near the near the evacuation tower, which is necessary. You got the river and the ocean. Oh, yeah. I see. So, I I go down the stairs and I go back up the stairs and and these that’s what these blocks are, right? Like Yeah. Yeah. We’ll see how it how it pans out. I hope so. I don’t even think about it anymore. I used to be afraid to live on the ocean, but now I don’t I don’t really think about it. Taking the beauty every day that it’s calm. Kind of like that. And how long you been over from Newcastle living in Nagana? Uh totally like one year now. So, just newbies. Newbies. You’re some serious newbies. Newbies on the block. You guys are awesome. I can’t believe I met you guys. She’s the one I saw first. She gave me this big hello like and and Japanese won’t do that in these, you know. I was like I was like, but it’s good. It’s good cuz that’s You need We need people, man. We need to stay connected, right? Yeah, for sure. Love that. Nice to meet you, Ken. And I wish you the very best on your journey. Enjoy the waves. We’ll do, bro. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cheers, Ken. Bye. What a nice ladder. Right. What’s the setup here, Paige? Good morning. Today we’re having steak and eggs. Fantastic. And coffee. And coffee. Right. What we’ve got, guys, we’ve got Hakuba blend coffee from Hakuba Coffee Stand, which is the best bloody coffee in Japan. Um, and run by absolute legends. Oh, okay. So, it’s a decentiz coffee bag. Fan bloodytastic. No coffee for you, sir. Can’t get any better than this, can you? This is van life here. This is what it’s all about. Having a bit uh bit breakfast fry up here. A this man. So happy man. This is like dreams come true for me. Traveling around Japan in a van. Bloody having some panda for breakfast. Unreal. You know you’re a pro in Japanese language when you stop actually pronouncing the words and just say that’s all you need for everything. There you go. Get pean on the pan. Love that. We haven’t got any oil we’ve gotten out. But the um the actual fat cap here should sort of melt off a little bit and create a nice little layer of beef fat which we can then fry a few eggs on. We are living the dream here. That is three lovely sunny side fried eggs. Let’s get them on the steak. Going to make a little smiley face. Is that how you feel when your steak makes for That is right there how I feel. And some mustard for you, sir. Oh, yes. Thank you very much. That is sublime. I have to say that is like a softboiled egg. That you get the softboiled yolk but with a runniness of a sunny side up. That’s all about. Get that in there and just going to town with it. Oh yes. What a treat. Unbelievable. Oh my bloody is my jud as well. All right, that’s breakfast complete. Now we’re going to go on a little hike up to a a temple or something at the top. Hi. Hi. Hi. All right, time giving us words of encouragement. They are. I’m sure they’ve been up here plenty times in their prime. Certainly not the easiest hike to do in the morning, but uh very very beautiful nonetheless through this amazing Japanese forest here. See the remainders of the traditional roofs on the housing estate. But bloody hell out of breath. These uh steps are pretty steep. After a pretty steep and strenuous climb, we are arriving at a temple. Amazing temple right here on the mountain with the sea on one side, more mountains on the other side and hopefully a view of Mount Fuji. Fingers crossed. I’m nervous. We might not get it. All this might be just to see a temple, which is nice, but I like to see the big foods as well. This is proper classes, man. Wow, look at this. It’s all Japanese temple completely to ourselves. Hey. Oh, wow. Look at the views over here. Wow. Over there outwards to the sea. So, I believe I don’t know which one, but one of these you will uh be able to see the old Fooge. Did she asked us to ring the bell? I think I think she did. Yeah. She said the lady down the bottom said, “Make sure you ring the bell when you get there.” So, we’ll let them know that we’ve arrived. You want to do the honors? She’ll know we’ve arrived now. I hope they’re cheering for us down there. Yay! We’ve made it to the top. Completed the pilgrimage. Wow, look at this temple. Amazing, isn’t it? Okay, got me eyes out for food. I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m even supposed to look. It’s all forests. I hope I can say I hope I haven’t come all this way for nothing. Let’s go this way. Well, we rang the gong. came all this way to ring the gong. All right, let’s see. Oh, there’s a little gap in the trees over here. Come on. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please. Anything? Anything? Oh, I think it’s too misty. Wow. I tell you what, there’s a view there. Maybe no Fuji, but you should see the color of this water down here, lads. Absolutely beautiful. There’s rocks. It’s water’s crashing up against the rocky shoreline. That is Mount where? Oh my god. I can’t believe it, man. That is an unbeliev Honestly, you look at So, you look at the mountains that are around there and you think, “Oh, criy. Yeah, we haven’t seen this.” Them mountains are just like mere foothills compared to old foods. I’m just going to record through this uh fence here and you’ll see it. Absolutely ridiculous size. Wow. What a view. It’s amazing. And this this uh this tree like naturally frames it. Obviously, it could be a slightly better day, but we’re not going to uh beggars can’t be choosers. Look at that. Unbelievable. The city of Shizoka and uh this absolutely incredible mountain, Mount Fuji over there. Unbelievable, man. Got ourselves a nice coffee. Wait, wait. What am I waiting for? What’s this hack? This is You can find these at 7-Eleven. Not all of them, but some of them have them. But it’s like a like a caramel syrup, like really similar to like Starbucks caramel drizzle. And I always put it in my 7-Eleven coffees. And this is the first time. They’re like 10 p. Yeah. So, you’re making your coffee here. You just stick your caramel drizzle in and you’ve got yourself a nice caramel latte. Look how good these coffees look. Big up family cafe. How much is a coffee here? Actually, it was quite expensive for a large. Really? Yeah. How much for both of them? It was 600. So three 1 pound50 a coffee to extortion at that. Going to take these on the road as we head towards the mountains of Shisawa. Look at this. The sea. You’ve got the waves cascading over the rocks over here. Mount Fuji just over there. What a lovely little town. All of these apartments are like bloody holiday. It’s like Japanese Benador here. Wow. Look at that. Look at that, man. This is the driver of dreams, this man. Route one. Unbelievable. Jeffrey. Well, it’s nearly as big as hell villain like uh you know probably Ben should give it a run for its money. I must say I wouldn’t. That would be eye, wouldn’t it? Playing footy there. Have a little game of footy. As soon as you put it in top bins, you can just celebrate towards Fuji. That would be eye, wouldn’t it? Those clouds are rolling in. They better stay away from my mountain. That shinkan send is zooming past on that bridge. Beautiful lake opening up here where some fellas are doing a bit of fly fishing. Thank you. Unreal, guys. Look at this. Japan really has it all. Honestly, it really does. Right. Apparently, this Mishinoaki rest stop here has a rooftop terrace, a viewing terrace, which of course we know what we’re going to be able to see. But we’ll go in nonetheless. We’ll have a look. Oh yes, we’ll have a look. That’s what you found. A that’s class that in it. How much are these? We have to get one of these. Our route one. What’s on the back? 15 quid. That’s so good. 15 quid. I reckon we’ll get one of these like let’s have a look at the viewpoint first. Oh yeah, we’re in a rush for our campsite. I forgot that I’m dillydallying about with vending machines. Right, let’s literally look at it and then not look anymore. Fuji, how about that? Eh, unreal. Take my picture, please. Of course I will. That’s kind of, isn’t it? That’s what you want. Nice little village here as well. I’m sure being slammed with tourists like us. I’m trying not to be that guy, but uh yeah, very very nice. Right, there we go. I’m sure where we’re going it’s going to be even better views. Let’s get ourselves a Route One t-shirt. There it is. Fuji. Wow. Right up in that. That’s how quick we got there. Right. quickly get myself a 15 quid route one t-shirt because best road ever and then get on our way hopefully in time. Cutting it a bit short now I think. Hi. Right. Okay. Yeah. Stick the new t-shirt on for the uh remaining 10 km of route one. Not bad at all. Can’t resolve. We didn’t find anything for lunch. Uh, but we’ll have to see, won’t we? There you go. Thank you very much. All right, let’s get this on. Hit the road again. Hey, that’s not bad, is it? Route one. Hey, now let’s get back on it. Well, I have to say potentially a lack of preparation. We didn’t expect snow on the ground here. We just left one of the snowiest places in Japan where we live. Um, and we’ve came what we thought was going to be a lovely warm lake retreat and instead there’s snow on the ground and the air is crisp. Oh, we keep the spirit high. It looks very busy. I thought given that it was a bit cold still in that peak of summer, we might have a chance. But it does look a little bit busy. Bit worried. I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens. We’ll see how we get on. You can see why it’s busy though, can’t you? Look at that, man. All right. Well, we’ve just been to visit that office there and they’ve accepted our reservations, so there must be space. Um, but we asked them like, uh, can we get like a lakefront view or whatever? And they said, I don’t know, find out when you get there. So, it’s a first come, first serve situation. Um, we don’t book plots. Yeah. It’s not like in England, the Captain or Scotland, the book a pitch and all the rest of it. Um but I very very uh very excited. All right, so here it is. We’ve journeyied right across the Japanese coastline to get to here in land in Fuji and we have arrived at our campsite for tonight. We’ve got the car all unloaded. We’ve got the food ready. Everything, even the little bit of booze we’re going to have. Here it is, the grand reveal of our campsite for tonight. Look at this. How about that, eh? Look at this guys. Mount Fuji right there. Ricocheting off the surface of Lake Mitsuoto here. Fire is just starting up. Just getting that uh nice bottom layer first before we put on the big woods. We got lots of wood tonight, so we’re going to have plenty fire. Got the Jack Daniels, of course. We’ve got red wine. We’ve got champagne. Most importantly, the tiny rebel. Tiny best beer going. Best beer you can get in Japan. And it’s very hard to find in Japan. We paid 1,000 yen per can. I bought two cans. Yeah. And I bought them from a bar. I was like, can I get these to take away? Right. Go on. Get that open while we wait for this fire to get going. Bit like our neighbors over there. They’ve got a decent fire going, don’t they? Let me show you this unbelievable lakefront here. I’m wrapped up like the bloody Michelin man because sun’s gone down. It’s about to get very cold. So, I’d rather be too hot than too cold. But have a look at this, guys. Absolutely gorgeous. Wow. Take a moment here, man. Mount Fuji. Got some ducks on the lake here. Unbelievable, guys. What a scene this is. Campsite. It is busy. As you can see behind me there. Got lots and lots and lots of different tents and stuff. But we’re not complaining. Of course, it’s busy. Look at the location. But have a listen to this. So, rampack campsite. Listen. It’s quiet, isn’t it? Few ducks quacking over there. Just look at it, guys. The plains. It’s just grassy plains and tiny villages cemented into the uh forest sides there. And the sun just setting down on the peak of Fuji now. Isn’t that just bloody incredible? That is [ __ ] amazing, isn’t it? What an unbelievable scene. Well worth the drive. Well worth the journey. If you get a car, if you rent a van, whatever in Japan, get yourself over here. Yeah, you might not get prime front seating like these fellas, but look at our nice van there. Bloody chopper block in the back of it, but what can you do? We’re not perfect. We ain’t got like, oh, here’s this DIY cupboard I set up. Just shove it all in. Cardboard boxes. That’ll do us. Hey, I’m just saying we ain’t no professionals like them. Our van would just shove a whole load of stuff in, get the blankets in, and we’ll make it nice and neat later. Not come yet. Probably won’t either. There we go. Just sit here now. Enjoy the fire. Put your feet out. Get warm. Have a nice drink of Jack Daniels, eh? It’s what you want, isn’t it? Hi. Cheers. What a beautiful road trip. What a beautiful place. The final bits of light are just pink. The final little pink stretch over Fuji there on the ice cap. What a great day it’s been. What an unbelievable day. Ending it off with a fire. Have you enjoyed it? How about this though, guys? Look at the uh what you can see there and what I’ve got here. Look at that. It’s the same. Wait, it’s the same bloody lake. How about that? That’s the same. Hey, look at that way. Yeah. This is the lake where they used to photograph for the 1,000 yen bill. Pretty good, isn’t it? It’s looking good. The fire. Yeah. Get this fire going. Got a nice little base layer and then we can uh cook some food and get the fire going bigger afterwards. We’ve got this yakinik, not yakaniku, yakuri grill set. It’s like this nice little metal contraption. And we’ve got these skewers and we went out and bought some sort of like pre-marinated beef with garlic. Stick them on here. And then later we can um put the grill on top. We’ve got a nice little grate there. Stick that on top and then put them above there. And we’re going to have some lovely garlic beef kebabs with the nice view. Yeah, this is uh it’s just what dreams are made of, isn’t it? You couldn’t ask for more than this. It’s like pure bucket list Japan these last couple of days. Can’t believe we like saw Mount Fuji this morning and we were like we’re going to go there today. Yeah, we started the video climbing that mountain, seeing Mount Fuji for the tiniest little glimpse and now even realized that that was Mount Fuji. I know. Couldn’t couldn’t miss it now, could you? No. Now we’re having our dinner. Beef. Bloody Japanese beef. Technically Wagu. Wagu just means Japanese beef. It does indeed. Um right by Fuji. Just incredible. Let’s get this grill on here. That’s perfect size. So right out there, aren’t we? Obviously, yes, we should wait until the fire dies down. Um but I’m absolutely ravenous. I can’t be asked, but it’s going to go for it. can make the uh the fourth skewer there. And I’m just going to go for it on the fire. So, we have to be careful. Stick them this way around. Right. Here we go. Stick them on there. Lovely. Oh my goodness. Flame grilled beef kebabs. You couldn’t ask for more than that, could you? Oh, that’s good, isn’t it? Look at them. Yes. Best thing is when you’re camping, right, guys, is get beef and then you know you kind of go wrong. Even if you undercook it a little bit or it’s burnt on one side and not cooked on the other, doesn’t really matter, does it? Just somewhat medium rare. Truck coming back. All right, they must be done now. They’ve been flame grilled. Get them on there. Beautiful. They’re dripping off. Look at that. That is some beautiful. Not quite well done. It’s like medium. That’s a really good really good one that one. Look at that. Should I take a bite? Go on then. Oh, it’s really good. That garlic flavor is lovely. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s go for a little bit from the end there. W That’s what you want, isn’t it? There we go. Look at that. Steaming hot. Oh, that’s what you want after a long day. Is it proper garlic in it? Yeah. Wow. So, it’s not just the garlic chips. It actually has infused with the beef. Well, I feel like we peaked our travel too early in the year. No, it’s not getting better than this. It’s all downhill. Might as well go after this. Hey, go on, Sussy. Light the fire for a fat and the sausage is natural lighter fuel. Right, we’ve had an absolutely amazing night. Had a good drink, good bit of barbecue, all the rest of it. It’s an unbelievable night sky tonight under Fuji. So, going to give you a little bit of a time lapse. I’m not going to include Fuji cuz the stars are more behind it over here. So, yeah. Cue a time lapse. Good night.

Mt Fuji, Japan 🇯🇵

We Hit the Road in Japan: Van Life to Mount Fuji
Leaving Shizuoka in our Toyota Hiace camper van, we set off along Route 1, Japan’s historic coastal road, in search of something slower, quieter, and older than the bright lights of Tokyo. This journey took us through beautifully preserved countryside towns, past retro shopfronts and vending machines older than we are, and finally to Lake Motosu, the iconic spot featured on the 1000 yen note, one of the most scenic Mount Fuji camping spots in Japan.

We wild camped with a view of Fuji, cooked over fire, and watched the sunset reflect off the water with a glass of whiskey in hand. This is van life in Japan, but not the version you usually see.

Join us as we explore Japan by camper van, discover hidden Fuji lakeside campsites, and experience the nostalgic charm of rural Japanese travel, a side of the country that still runs on rhythm, routine, and quiet beauty.

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0:00 How to Camp for Free in Japan
3:23 Cute Ghibli Village in Real Life
5:13 Steak and Eggs a Japanese Carpark
11:03 Hiking to Secret Mount Fuji Viewpoint
15:43 How to roadtrip Japan
21:00 Incredible Mount Fuji Campsite

#japan #fuji #japantravel