If I could keep only one region of Japan, it would be this one. The Seto Inland Sea is an archipelago of several hundred islands set on almost permanently calm water, under the driest climate in the country. You hop from ferry to ferry between fishing villages, buried museums, cat islands, rabbit islands, and ports that inspired Miyazaki. It’s been my playground for years, and this ten-day itinerary gathers the best of it.
The route runs east to west, Takamatsu to Matsuyama, zigzagging between Shikoku and Honshu. Almost all of it happens by train, ferry and bicycle: this is slow travel by nature, and that’s exactly the point.
How the route works
The Inland Sea has two shores: the Honshu side (Okayama, Onomichi, Hiroshima) and the Shikoku side (Takamatsu, Matsuyama). This route does both, linked in the middle by the Shimanami Kaidō, the cycling road that leaps from island to island. Ferries are frequent, punctual and cheap; the only real trap is cramming too many islands into too few days. Ten days is the right tempo for six islands and four towns, without running.
The numbers follow the stages of this guide. Every address lives on the interactive map below, made for your phone once you’re on the road.
IkuzoDays 1-2: Takamatsu, base camp
Takamatsu doesn’t look like much, and that’s precisely its quality: a quiet port city with ferries to every island, and the best sanuki udon in Japan as its municipal specialty. Ritsurin Garden deserves a full half-day: to my mind one of the country’s most beautiful gardens, and it doesn’t even hold official “great garden” status to draw the crowds.
Day 3: Ogijima and Megijima, my two islands
Forty minutes of ferry, one century back. Ogijima is an entire village set crooked on a hillside: lanes too narrow for cars, fishermen’s houses, cats on permanent duty, and a community that refused to die by reopening its school. I go back every time I’m in the region. Its neighbor Megijima is the demon island of the Momotarō legend, with its oni cave and empty beaches. The same ferry line combines both in a day.
Day 4: Naoshima, art under the dots
Naoshima needs no introduction: the island the Benesse group turned into an open-air museum, with Tadao Ando’s buried buildings, the dotted pumpkin, the art houses of the old village. It’s the busiest stop on this route, especially during the Setouchi Triennale, and it’s still easily worth its day: book the Chichu Art Museum ahead and keep the off-hours for the village.
Day 5: Manabeshima, the sketched island
Between Shikoku and Honshu, detour via Manabeshima, the little island Florent Chavouet drew house by house in his book. Not a tourist site, not a vending machine: just a village, cats, a jetty. It’s the stop you skip when you’re in a hurry and regret afterwards. Lovers of tiny islands can push on to Shishijima and its nineteen residents.
Day 6: Tomonoura and Abuto Kannon
Back on the Honshu side. Tomonoura is the Edo-period port that gave Miyazaki his Ponyo: a stone lantern, lanes that smell of mirin, miniature shipyards. Twenty minutes down the road, the vermilion pavilion of Abuto Kannon clings to its cliff above the sea, with a railing so low you understand why sailors came here to pray.
Day 7: Takehara and the rabbit island
Takehara made its fortune in salt and sake, and its preserved district lines up merchant mansions with almost no visitors: Hiroshima’s “little Kyoto”, minus the tour buses. From the neighboring port of Tadanoumi, a twelve-minute ferry reaches Ōkunoshima, the island of hundreds of free-roaming rabbits, whose dark military history adds unexpected depth to the cuddling session.
Day 8: Onomichi, the town of slopes
Onomichi climbs between its temples through a maze of stairways, passages under houses, and viewpoints over the strait. It’s a town of cats, artists and old cafés, perfect for a day without a plan: go up to Senkō-ji along the temple walk, come down through the alleys, get lost on purpose.
Day 9: cycling the Shimanami Kaidō
The Shimanami Kaidō links Onomichi to Shikoku across 70 kilometers of bridges and islands, with a dedicated cycle path the whole way. The full day is superb but demanding; the reasonable version stops at Setoda on Ikuchijima, long enough to visit Kōsan-ji, the gloriously kitsch temple with its hill of white marble, before riding back or pushing on as your legs decide. Bikes rent one-way and can be dropped on the far side.
Day 10: Matsuyama and Chihiro’s bathhouse
Finish in Matsuyama, Shikoku’s gentle big city, for the final reward: Dōgo Onsen, Japan’s oldest public bath, a tiered wooden labyrinth that inspired the bathhouse in Spirited Away (the official site lists baths and hours). If you already miss rural Japan, the wax merchants’ village of Uchiko is half an hour away by train.
What about Miyajima?
The great torii of Miyajima is an hour from Hiroshima, and many will want it as an epilogue. Do it right: sleep on the island, and see the torii at sunrise, before the day-trippers arrive. At midday it’s the busiest place on the entire Inland Sea; at 6am it’s you, the deer and the tide.
Transport and budget
The region is a poor fit for the nationwide pass: ferries are never included and train distances stay short. Run the numbers in our JR Pass calculator before buying anything; more often than not, single tickets win. Ferries cost a few hundred yen a crossing, Shimanami bike rental around 3,000 yen a day. For overall budget benchmarks, see How Much Does a Trip to Japan Cost: expect the region slightly under the national average, islands included.
When to do this itinerary
Setouchi is the driest region in Japan: even the rainy season goes easier here, which makes it an excellent June choice. My favorite windows remain May and October-November, as everywhere (the month-by-month detail is in When to Visit Japan). One caveat: during the art Triennale (odd years, spring-summer-autumn), Naoshima and its neighbors fill up; book island lodging far ahead or shift to the non-participating islands, which stay empty.
Where to next
If this is your first stay in Japan, the classic Tokyo-Kyoto line is covered by my 10-day itinerary. And if this loop won you over, the next one heads further south: my 14 days in Kyushu, volcanoes and islands included, mapped below.
Ikuzo