Amami Oshima is an island an 11 hour ferry ride off the southern tip of the main islands of Japan. The ferry only comes every two days, so if you miss it, your out of luck. The ferry travels through the evening, so you sleep on the ferry (which conveniently saved me paying for a hotel room). You are packed quite tightly in and I think school dormitories have more room.
The people I met on the ferry to Amami Oshima and throughout the islands were so friendly. I think it was partly because of the gaijin (foreigner) factor, since Amami Oshima is not quite so touristy as Okinawa another 13 hour ferry south. In fact, I didn’t mean any other non-Japanese on my four day stay there.
The waters are beautiful and clear. The weather was in the high 20’s and low 30’s (Celcius). The big appeal of Amami Oshima is the nature of course. They actually have a lot of animals and vegetation that only appear in Japan on Amami Oshima and some surrounding islands.
AloJapan.com