Tight Travellers

By tighttravellers, May 2026

We’ve been asked a lot about the Japan road trip itinerary we followed. Twenty-five days, Northern Japan, one hire car, two Yorkshire folk, and more incredible scenery than we knew what to do with. Here’s the full route; day by day, honestly told, with the bits that went wrong as well as the bits that were absolutely mint.

Before we get into it: this itinerary covers Northern Japan – north of Tokyo, through Tohoku and up toward Hokkaido. If tha’s looking for a Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka itinerary, every travel blog on the internet has one. This one’s different.

Why Northern Japan?

Simple answer: barely anyone goes there. The overwhelming majority of visitors to Japan follow the same golden route: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, maybe a day trip to Nara or Hiroshima. And all see perhaps 10% of what Japan actually has to offer. We visited 11 of Northern Japan prefectures and documented 280+ points of interest. From spectacular driving roads, free hot spring baths, wild camping at roadside stations, and the kind of peace and emptiness that’s impossible to find in the south. It’s the Japan most travellers never see, and it’s extraordinary.

The basics

Duration: 25 days
Distance: Roughly 3,500km across 11 prefectures
Transport: Hire car throughout, essential for this route
Budget: £75 a day for two including accommodation, food, petrol and activities
Starting point: Tokyo (we flew in, collected the car and headed north immediately)
Accommodation: Free michi-no-eki (roadside stations)

The route overview

We headed north from Tokyo through Fukushima (more beautiful than its reputation suggests, the coastal area and mountain lakes are spectacular), then across to Yamagata for mountain scenery and some of the best fruit in Japan, up through Akita and Aomori at the very top of Honshu, across to Iwate and the Sanriku coastal road, south through Miyagi, and then back across to Niigata on the west coast before heading back toward Tokyo via Nagano and Gunma. A rough circle of the north, taking in mountains, coast, countryside and everywhere in between.

The highlights: What we’d do again tomorrow

Free camping at Michi-no-Eki stations. We cannot recommend this enough for anyone doing a Japan road trip. These roadside rest stops are dotted throughout the country, always have clean toilets, and many allow free overnight stays. We woke up to mountain views, lake views, valley views, all for nothing. This is the single biggest budget hack for a Japan road trip.

The Sanriku Coastal Road, Iwate. One of the most dramatic coastal drives we’ve done anywhere in the world. The road clings to clifftops above the Pacific, passing through small fishing villages and offering viewpoints that had us pulling over every ten minutes. Barely a tourist in sight.

Yamadera, Yamagata. A mountaintop temple complex reached by climbing 1,015 stone steps. The views from the top, looking down over the valley with cloud swirling around the lower buildings, were genuinely otherworldly. £3 entry fee. Worth every penny.

Oirase Gorge, Aomori. A river gorge walk following a crystal-clear stream through ancient forest. Free to walk, takes about two hours at a leisurely pace, and looks like something from a Studio Ghibli film.

Free onsen. Northern Japan is dotted with free public hot spring baths. We found half a dozen throughout the route, outdoor baths with mountain views, traditional bath houses in small towns, roadside foot baths for weary drivers. Most cost nothing or a token £1–2.

The practical bits

Getting there: We flew into Tokyo Narita. Skyscanner with flexible dates found us the best price from the UK. Fly in, get thy car, head north.

The hire car: Book in advance and make sure thy international driving permit is sorted before leaving the UK. Japan drives on the left, which helps enormously. Roads are in excellent condition. Satnav is essential; most hire cars have one built in, otherwise use Google Maps offline.

Toll roads: Avoid. Set your Google Maps to ‘avoid tolls’ and enjoy the scenery!

Communication: Get a SIM on arrival, or download an e-Sim (the cheapest one we found was on Trip.com). Essential for navigation, translation apps and looking up opening times of the random things tha stumbles across.

The full map: All 286+ stops

We’ve mapped every single point of interest from this road trip, all 286 of them across 11 prefectures, onto one downloadable Google Map. Free car camping spots, free onsen, hidden viewpoints, budget eating spots, the scenic roads nobody else takes, the temples and shrines worth stopping for. Everything we found over 25 days of driving the north, organised and ready to drop straight onto thy phone.

Download the Northern Japan Road Trip Map — £8.99, instant download. It’s the best thing on our website and we’re only a tiny bit biased.

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