10 spots โ sorted by traveller rating
The Fujinomiya Trail is the steepest and most dramatic of all Fuji climbing routes, starting higher than any other trailhead and cutting a direct path to the summit crater rim. Shizuoka's side of Fuji feels raw and vertical โ the final ridgeline looms overhead from the moment you arrive at the 5th Station. On a clear morning, the Pacific Ocean glitters far below while the crater opens up in front of you in a scene of extraordinary volcanic scale.
Miho no Matsubara is a long crescent of white sand fringed by centuries-old black pine trees, stretching out with Mt Fuji rising perfectly from the sea on the far horizon. Registered as a UNESCO World Heritage component, this pine grove has been painted and photographed as the definitive image of Japan for over 400 years. At dawn or dusk the combination of glassy sea, ancient pines, and snow-capped Fuji creates a scene of almost unreal beauty.
Perched on a steep forested hilltop above Suruga Bay, Kunozan Toshogu is one of Japan's most ornate and historically charged Shinto shrines โ built as the first resting place of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the warlord who unified Japan. Blazing lacquerwork in red, black, and gold decorates every surface of the main hall, tucked into deep cedar forest above the sea. A scenic ropeway connects the shrine to the Nihondaira plateau, offering sweeping views of Mt Fuji and the bay.
Ryugenbuchi is a deeply cut volcanic gorge near the Izu Peninsula, where dark columnar basalt cliffs drop straight into churning jade-green water below. The gorge was carved by ancient lava flows meeting the sea, creating a dramatic geological landscape of jagged walls, sea caves, and stacked rock formations. Walking the clifftop path here gives an exhilarating sense of Izu's violent volcanic origins, with ocean swells crashing far beneath your feet.
Shiraito Falls is one of Japan's most distinctive waterfalls โ not a single powerful plunge but a wide, lace-like curtain of water seeping from porous volcanic rock and flowing from hundreds of thin threads simultaneously across a 200-metre cliff face. Fed entirely by snowmelt filtered through Mt Fuji's lava layers, the water arrives crystal clear and cold even in midsummer, wreathing the forest below in mist. As a UNESCO World Heritage component it forms part of the Fujisan Cultural Landscape.
Hidden in the forested interior of Izu, this atmospheric cedar approach winds between enormous ancient trees whose straight silver trunks disappear into a canopy that filters the light into green columns. Stone lanterns and mossy temple markers line the path, lending the walk a meditative quality that makes it feel genuinely removed from the tourist circuits along the coast. The cedar smell and cool stillness here are extraordinary in every season โ oppressively ancient in midsummer, ghostly in winter mist.
Nestled in Shimada at the heart of Shizuoka's tea country, Daitokuji temple combines a serene stone-and-moss Japanese garden with an immersive matcha tea ceremony experience. Visitors kneel in a traditional tatami room while a tea master prepares powdered tea with slow, deliberate ritual, the garden visible through open shoji screens. This quiet corner of the prefecture offers one of the most authentic and unhurried introductions to Japanese tea culture.
Suruga Bay is Japan's deepest bay, plunging to over 2,500 metres โ deeper than most of the open Pacific shelf โ and its cold abyssal waters nurture an extraordinary range of deep-sea creatures found nowhere else in Japan. From the shoreline, particularly around the town of Yui, Mt Fuji fills the entire northwestern sky above the sea, making this one of the most painterly mountain-ocean panoramas on earth. The bay's upwellings bring rich nutrients to the surface, feeding the sakura shrimp and tuna fisheries that define the region's cuisine.
Kakegawa Castle is one of a rare handful of Japanese castles rebuilt entirely using traditional wooden construction methods, rising white and graceful above the town with its classic multi-tiered donjon perfectly intact. The interior traces the castle's feudal history through armour, weapons, and local artifacts, while the upper floors give sweeping views across the surrounding plains toward the sea. The cherry-blossom-lined approach in spring makes this one of Shizuoka's most photographed castle settings.
Hamamatsu is the undisputed capital of musical instrument manufacturing, home to the global headquarters of both Yamaha and Roland and dozens of specialist makers across the city. The Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments houses the largest collection of instruments in the world โ over 3,000 pieces spanning every culture and century โ and visitors can play many of them. Factory tours and brand showrooms reveal the craftsmanship behind some of the most recognisable instruments on the planet, from concert grand pianos to synthesisers.
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