Japan in a Van: Snow Monkeys, Spring Flowers, and Snowstorms

On this episode, we make our way out of Hakuba and up and over to Nagano where we spend the night before seeing the famous hot tubbing snow monkeys! From there we wind in and out of the mountains, changing our plans as we find deep snow or run into snowstorms. Weather forces us to lower elevations and into early spring blossoms on the Pacific Ocean side. We cross over to the Sea of Japan side again using some very narrow backroads and seeing some beautiful little rural towns. We reach the northernmost part of our trip near Niigata before turning south on the Sea of Japan side where spring is still weeks away.

We spent 18 days on the road traveling from Kagoshima, Kyushu up through central Honshu and back over our spring break. We drove about 3,300 km (2,000 miles). We spent every night in our simple van conversion with our Alaskan Husky, Taku. Rural Japan is where our heart is and it is amazing to see!

Kagoshima to Shibushi to Osaka to Lake Biwa to Hakuba to Nagano to Snow Monkeys to Nikko to Niigata to Noto Peninsula to Kanazawa to Himeji to Hiroshima to home!