[JAPAN] Day Trip from TOKYO to HAKONE/ KAMAKURA & ENOSHIMA/ YOKOHAMA

This time, we’re going to share Kanagawa Travel Guide. Options for day tour from Tokyo to Hakone, Kamakura, Enoshima & Yokohama including transportation information (how to go there), places to visit and eat, things to do, etc.

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Tokyo might be the most popular destination in Japan, of course! But do you know that there are many charming destinations worth exploring located just around 1hour from Tokyo?

There are so many interesting places that might be fun for you to visit. We have three recommendations that are perfect for One Day Trip from Tokyo, it is located in Kanagawa Prefecture: Hakone, Kamakura & Enoshima, and Yokohama.

Each destination has its own charm, we’ll show you all the fun places, let’s start the travel guide!!

HAKONE

Our first recommendation in Kanagawa is Hakone. This popular destination is famous for its hot spring and scenic scenery.

TOKYO – HAKONE TRANSPORTATION
Actually there are many transportation options but to make it easier for you, for this blogpost, we’re going to give you an example from Shinjuku Station.

JR Pass user can take local or rapid JR trains on JR Shonan Shinjuku Line for about about 70-90 minutes From Shinjuku Station to Odawara Station (Hakone).

One of the convenient options is “Romancecar” that can go non-stop from from Shinjuku Station to Hakone-Yumoto Station (it costs 2230yen for one way).

You can also purchase “Hakone Free Pass” by Odakyu Railways which includes the round trip from Tokyo to Hakone and unlimited use of selected trains, cablecars, ropeways, pirate ship and buses in the Hakone area, it’s more convenient.

HOTEL IN HAKONE
Susukinohara Ichinoyu Ryokan
Our accomodation is this charming Ryokan/ Japanese style hotel with tatami room and private onsen. Shabu-shabu dinner and Japanese breakfast are included.

PLACES TO VISIT IN HAKONE

Hakone Ropeway
First we headed to Owakudani via Hakone Ropeway from Togendai station. It takes around 10minute of ropeway ride to the top.

If you’re lucky, you can see good view of Mount Fuji from the ropeway. It was cloudy on our first visit on October 2018. But lucky us!! We got to see nice clear view of Mount Fuji on our second visit on December 2019.

Dear Fuji-san, thank you for showing your beauty to us and made our trip to Hakone perfect.

Owakudani
Owakudani is an area around a crater created during the last eruption of Mount Hakone many years ago, no wonder the surrounding areas are famous for their hot springs.

When in Owakudani, don’t forget to buy kuro tamago or black egg cooked in natural hot spring water, whose shells are blackened by the sulfur and which are said to prolong one’s life by seven years. You can eat it right away or with salt or mayonnaise.

Hakone Sightseeing Cruise
From the ropeway, we continued our adventure with Hakone Sightseeing Cruise ride for around 40 minutes.
The popular Pirate ship cruise is seriously a must try experience, it offers amazing beautiful scenic view of Hakone.

We can also see Mt. Fuji from the cruise ride. You can sit indoor or enjoy the cool breeze outdoor.

Bakery & Table
After we took off from the ship, we had a quick visit to our favorite bakery and their curry bun still remains as good as we remembered. Established since 1937, the bakery offers nice view of Lake Ashi and they have food bath on the outdoor seating area.

Hakone-Jinja Shrine
Of course we couldn’t miss the chance to visit Hakone Jinja Shrine, a Japanese Shinto shrine on the shores of Lake Ashi and take a beautiful shot of their iconic yet instagrammable Torii gate.

Hakone Open-Air Museum
As the name suggests, it is Japan’s first open-air museum opened in 1969 with many sculptures and contemporary artworks.

The museum has wide range of artwork collection Picasso, Henry Moore, Taro Okamoto, Yasuo Mizui, Churyo Sato, and many others.

Our favorite spot is called Symphonic Sculpture, a tower built of stained glass with a winding spiral staircase, it’s very majestic and beautiful.

During our visit on December 2019, there was lights illumination called “Night at The Hakone Open-Air Museum” lit up during the night for limited period of time (29 November 2019 – 5 January 2020). The light illumination there is a winter-only event, if you’re planning to see the lights illumination, make sure to check their website to see the illumination schedule every year.

KAMAKURA & ENOSHIMA

Located 55 minutes from Tokyo. There’s an indescribable charm from Kamakura and Enoshima.

Me and Mr. Jajan love Kamakura and Enoshima. We had memorable time on our first visit on October 2018, and another memorable time on our second visit this December 2019.

There’s this Japan dorama we watched called A Girl with Three Sweethearts and the filming location was Kamakura & Enoshima. It was really fun returning to Kamakura & Enoshima after watching the dorama.

TOKYO – KAMAKURA TRANSPORTATION

It takes around 1 hour from Shinjuku Station to Kamakura Station via JR Shonan Shinjuku Line.

You can also purchase Enoshima-Kamakura Free Pass by Odakyu Railways which includes the round trip from Shinjuku to Kamakura and unlimited usage of the Enoden train ride.

PLACES TO VISIT IN KAMAKURA
Here are some places to visit, food to eat and activities to do in Kamakura:

Komachi Street & Onari Street
Located close by JR Kamakura Station, you can start the journey from Komachi Street (near east exit from JR Kamakura station) and slowly walk to Onari street.

We are sure you’ll end up spending quite a lot of time strolling around the street since there are many local snacks and souvenirs shops as well as cafes and restaurants here.

Foodies like us are super happy with this shopping street because we can try many delicious local delicacies along the street such fishcake, inari sushi, or tamagoyaki with shirasu. Shirasu is a kind of small white fish or whitebait and it’s famous in Kamakura.

There’s sweet potato specialty store too selling sweet purple potato croquette and soft ice cream. Their jagaimo cheese is very delicious, potato croquette with mochi-like texture.

When we strolled around Kamakura and noticed many people carrying yellow paper bag with bird drawing. Turned out it came from Toshimaya shop, one of the most famous souvenir shops in Kamakura. Their specialty is Hato Sable or pigeon shaped cookies. The taste is very classic, that kind of egg cookies we always love but with good quality. SOOOO GOOD, we should have buy more.

Kamakura Beniya
Kurumicco is another popular snack for souvenir. The walnut caramel sweets is seriously OISHI!! It’s not too sweet, buttery nutty with nice caramel aroma. MUST TRY!

Kimono Rental Wargo & Ebisuya Rickshaw Experience
To get the full experience, strolling around Kamakura in Kimono sounds like a great idea. Our Kimono rental shop was located conveniently near Komachi street.

Completing our experience, we had rickshaw ride experience too and it was fun. The rickshaw guy brought us to some of his best hidden spots and shared us some stories behind and helped is take pictures too, of course they speak English fluently.

AWkitchen Garden Kamakura
In AWKitchen Garden, some of the ingredients they use are locally sourced from Kamakura. That explains the different menu there. We really enjoyed the fresh vegetables. We can see Kamakura’s famous local train every few minutes since the track is right next to the restaurant.

Kotokuin Temple (Great Buddha)
We visited Kotokuin Temple last year so we might as well put it in this travel guide for your reference. The temple is famous for the “Great Buddha” statue of Amida Buddha, which is one of the most famous icons of Japan.

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu
Kamakura’s most important Shinto shrine would be Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, that explains why the shrine is always full os visitors.

Hokokuji Temple (Takedera)
Hokokuji is an old temple in Kamakura, and it also known as “Bamboo Temple”, because it surrounded by scenic bamboo garden with zen vibes and beautiful landscape.

KAMAKURA – ENOSHIMA TRANSPORTATION
Kamakura & Enoshima are very close to each other. It is located around 23 minutes away from Kamakura Station by taking Enoden Line (Enoshima Railway) and then 15 minutes walk to Enoshima Island by crossing the bridge.

HOTEL IN ENOSHIMA
Iwamotoro Ryokan
Enoshima is small offshore island, we decided have stay one night there. Our hotel Iwamotoro Ryokan is a historic Japanese hotel that was originally a temple. The room concept is traditional Japanese style with tatami room.

Kaseiki dinner (course meal) was served in our room. On bright sunny day, guest can enjoy view of Sagami Bay, Mt. Oyama and the Hakone mountains from the room. It is also famour for it’s relaxing hot spring onsen.

PLACES TO VISIT IN ENOSHIMA

Benzaiten Nakamise-dori
The narrow shopping street in Enoshima island is filled with lots of souvenir shops as well as cafes and snack shops.

Please make sure you try Tako Senbei or octopus cracker, they press fresh octopus in this specially made hot pan to flatten it into cracker. There is shrimp version too, it’s very crispy and tasty. We personally love the shrimp version more.

Illumination at Sea Candle, Samuel Cocking Garden
On top of the island you will find a beautiful garden landscape at Samuel Cocking Garden.

Lucky for us, we could see the beautiful illumination when we came on December 2019. The theme was “Enoshima Illumination Jewel of Shonan” and it was held from 23 November 2019 to 16 February 2020. FYI, the lights illumination is a special event available for limited period of time, you can check the official website to see any on going or upcoming event in the future, who knows you’d get a chance to see it too.

It was one of the most beautiful illuminations we’ve ever seen, the lights are arranged beautifully. You can go up to the Enoshima Sea Candle lighthouse observation tower to get a 360-degree panoramic view of Enoshima. Ahh it’s sooo magical and sooo beautiful!!

YOKOHAMA

Located near Tokyo, Yokohama is second largest city in Japan with a population of over three million. It is the capital of Kanagawa Prefecture. There are many interesting places to explore, it makes a great day trip option too.

TOKYO – YOKOHAMA TRANSPORTATION
It takes around 30 minutes from Shinjuku Station to Yokohama via JR Shonan Shinjuku Line.

HOTEL IN YOKOHAMA
Yokohama Park Royal Hotel
Our hotel is located strategically near station and shopping malls. The room is spacious too with nice city view from high floor, definitely a nice option if you consider to stay at Yokohama.

PLACES TO VISIT IN YOKOHAMA

Orbi Yokohama
Planned and developed by Sega, at Orbi, visitors can enjoy the world of nature and animals through all five senses. The Cat Paradise is my fav, it was really fun playing with the cat.

Ocean by Naked – Asobuild
Inside Asobuild, there’s an interactive art installation. As the name suggests, the installation is ocean themed. It’s available on limited time until 27th January 2020.

Hammer Head Mall
In Yokohama, there are lots of shopping malls but this particular mall is special for us because there is Kurumicco Factory there, soooo happy with the fact that we can buy our favorite Kurumicco there.
Besides Kurumicco, there are many omiyage or souvenir options available there including Yokohama’s signature Ariake Harbour with unique cruise-shaped box where we can print our photo in the box. What a nice gift idea!!

Sankeien Garden
When we googled about places to visit in Yokohama, Sankeien Garden showed up as the top search result. After visiting the garden, we can easily see why it’s one of the top places to visit in Yokohama. The Japanese style garden has stunning layout and landscape.

The beautiful landscape, the quite serene vibes, it was very peaceful. Inside the garden we had amazake and dango, also cup of matcha while looking at the Japanese tea ceremony.

The best time to visit is normally at the end of November. Even though we were couple weeks too late from the peak autumn season (mid Dec 2019), the garden remained beautiful.

Cupnoodles Museum
One of our main reasons to Yokohama would be visiting Cupnoodles Museum. Finally our bucketlist is checked!!

Inside the museum there are many areas like Chicken Ramen Factory (for making noodle), Instant Noodles History Cube (display of instant noodle from all over the world), Museum shop, etc.

And make sure to to make your own cup noodle at My Cup Noodles Factory on the third floor. It is such a great experience and fun activities to do!!
First after purchasing the cup, you can draw on the cup with your own design. After that you can select your favorite soup seasoning as well as four toppings from 12 topping options. Then they will seal it. So much fun and it makes a good souvenir too.

There are 4 options of soup, I got the seafood soup while Mr. Jajan picked his fav curry flavor.

Next we headed to the Noodle Bazaar – World Noodles Road, it’s basically foodcourt area with many vendors selling various noodle dishes from all over the world like Thailand, Italy, Japan, China, Vietnam, Singapore, etc and of course from Indonesia like Mie Goreng.

One of the unique item you can find there is CUP NOODLE ICE CREAM, yupss Curry Chicken Ramen & Seafood Ramen ice cream flavor. We love to explore new unique ice cream and unlocked new flavor in our tummies. It is interesting, a sweet and savory ice cream, tasted unique but not for everyone. If you have an adventurous palate, you can give it a try.

Yokohama Chukagai (China Town)
Visiting Yokohama wouldn’t be complete without visiting China town because Yokohama has the largest China town in Japan. The China town here is known as Yokohama Chukagai. The lively atmosphere, the wide variety of food and shopping options makes it really an interesting destination.

We heard that the street will be transformed with lot of lanterns and colorful ornaments including festive parades every year to welcome Chinese New Year Festival. Hopefully someday we can visit this area during Chinese New Year.

Located in the greater area of Yokohama Chukagai there are many new and hip cafes to visit too. We visited this highly raved egg yolk dessert cafe and it was delicious!

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Thank you for reading our Kanagawa travel guide. Now you can plan your trip, pack your suitcases and visit these places, we’re sure you’ll have lots of fun 🙂