Japan · Kanto · Travel guide
What one or two days in the forest of the shoguns really cost, how to see Toshogu before the coach groups and why the mountains behind the shrine are the better Nikko.
Photo: Antoine / Pexels
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Estimates for orientation, not booking prices. Flights and hotels vary strongly by season: current prices are behind the links below.
Money & payment: You pay in yen (JPY). 1,000 yen is roughly CHF 6 or EUR 6.50. Cards work in cities and hotels; small restaurants, temples and rural stations often want cash. An IC card (Suica or ICOCA) on your phone pays for trains, buses and convenience stores. Flight time: 12 to 14 hours, usually with one stop.
Nine options in three price ranges, each among the best-rated on Booking.com.
Budget
A wooden lodge in the forest above the temples, run by a Zen monk, with morning meditation, vegetarian breakfast and mountain views. Dorms and simple rooms with shared bathrooms. In the afternoon a free shuttle picks you up at Tobu-Nikko station.
A guesthouse on the Daiya river, five minutes from the Kanmangafuchi Abyss and a twenty-minute walk from Toshogu. Rooms with tatami or beds, some with a bathroom, and a shared bath looking out onto greenery. A go-to address for independent travellers for decades.
A guesthouse in a renovated old Japanese house, a few minutes from the JR and Tobu Nikko stations, with dorms, twin and four-bed rooms and a common room where travellers gather in the evening. The hosts are happy to help with buses and routes. Simple, warm and very well rated.
Mid-range
Directly opposite the JR station, with Western-style rooms and its own onsen bath with an outdoor pool. Good breakfast, and the bus to Toshogu stops outside. No surprises, reliable for a night.
A ryokan hotel with a large onsen bath, tatami rooms and kaiseki half board, a ten-minute walk from the shrines. Not new, but well kept and with warm service. A good first ryokan at a fair price.
A new hotel from 2021 at a roadside station in Imaichi, 15 minutes by train or car from Toshogu, ideal for road trippers heading to Tohoku. Modern rooms, no restaurant, but the farmers' market next door.
Luxury
Japan's oldest Western-style hotel, open since 1873, with wooden verandas, carvings, a dining room with chandeliers and the famous 'hundred-year curry'. Five minutes from the Shinkyo Bridge. Take a room in the main building, they are worth the trip.
Hoshino Resorts on the shore of Lake Chuzenji, every room with a lake view, an onsen with an outdoor pool, kaiseki with yuba and local river fish, and a performance of traditional arts in the evening. Half board included; the price is per room for two.
On the north shore of the lake since 2020, with 94 large rooms in wood and paper with lake views, its own onsen and restaurants looking out at Mount Nantai. The quietest luxury hotel in Kanto; at night all you hear is the water. Priced accordingly.
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The 5,000 carvings tell stories you will miss without an explanation: the three monkeys as a lesson in upbringing, the sleeping cat as a symbol of peace. Entry CHF 10 (about EUR 11), guided tours from CHF 40. Start at 8 am and you get two quiet hours.
A 97-metre waterfall, the lift to the lower platform for CHF 3.50 (about EUR 3.75), and the bus from Nikko in 50 minutes for CHF 7 or with the All Area Pass. Day tours from Tokyo combine shrines and lake for CHF 90 to 130; comfortable, but with traffic jams in autumn.
Deliberately a little smaller than Toshogu, but set in the cedar forest and without the crush. Entry CHF 3.50 (about EUR 3.75), or with the combined ticket including Rinno-ji. The gates with their guardian figures are among the finest in the complex.
A walk along the Daiya river to 70 stone Jizo with red caps, free, 20 minutes from the Shinkyo Bridge. Together with the Tamozawa Imperial Villa (CHF 3.50, about EUR 3.75) it makes a quiet afternoon away from the groups.
A two-hour walk on boardwalks through a marsh at 1,400 metres between Lake Chuzenji and Yumoto, with views of Mount Nantai. Bus from Nikko included in the All Area Pass. Cotton grass in June, golden brown in October, free.
Milky, sulphurous springs at 1,500 metres; a day bath at a ryokan costs CHF 5 to 10 (about EUR 5 to 11), and in the village there is a spring where you can bathe your feet for free. The right way to finish after the marshland walk.
Tofu skin has been Nikko's speciality since monks used it as a source of protein. In workshops you lift it yourself from hot soy milk, for CHF 25 to 50 (about EUR 27 to 54) with lunch. Less spectacular than sushi, but more typical of the place.
A recreated Edo-era village with ninja shows, samurai costumes and craftspeople, near Kinugawa Onsen. Entry CHF 36 (about EUR 39); with children it fills half a day, without children you can skip it. Bus from Kinugawa Onsen included in the All Area Pass.
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Nikko's cuisine comes from the monastery: yuba, the skin of soy milk, has been refined here by monks for centuries as a meat substitute, alongside soba from the uplands, freshwater fish and sweets made from red beans. It is quiet food, and it suits the cedars.
Tofu skin in every form: raw with soy sauce, deep-fried, rolled in dashi, as sashimi. Nutty, delicate, surprisingly filling. A yuba menu of eight dishes costs CHF 15 to 30 (about EUR 16 to 32), a yuba donburi at lunchtime CHF 8 to 12.
Tip:Nikko yuba is folded double and thicker than the Kyoto version, and it is the pride of the town.
A deep-fried ball of yuba and sweet potato around sweet red bean paste, crisp outside, soft inside, sprinkled with a little salt. CHF 1.50 (about EUR 1.60) each, hot from the oil at a street stall.
Tip:There is a bench next to them; eating while walking is considered rude here too.
A firm jelly bar made of red beans, sugar and agar, cooked in Nikko with the soft mountain water since the Edo period and less sweet than elsewhere. A bar costs CHF 4 to 8 (about EUR 4 to 9) and keeps for weeks, making it the best souvenir.
Tip:'Mizu yokan', the watery summer version, is served chilled and only keeps briefly.
The Kanaya Hotel's recipe from 1920, rediscovered and back on the menu since 2003: a dark, mild curry in the style of Meiji-era Western hotel cooking, with beef or venison. CHF 15 to 20 (about EUR 16 to 21) with rice, in the dining room with its chandeliers.
Tip:Possible at lunchtime without a reservation, and you do not need a room.
Buckwheat noodles from the uplands around Nikko, cold with a dip or hot with yuba in the broth, CHF 6 to 10 (about EUR 6 to 11). The small houses serve the cooking water at the end, which you pour into the leftover sauce and drink.
Tip:Many close as soon as the day's batch is gone, often as early as 2 pm.
Tochigi Prefecture is Japan's biggest strawberry producer, and the Tochiotome variety is large, sweet and in season from December to May. A punnet costs CHF 3 to 5 (about EUR 3 to 5), a strawberry daifuku with bean paste CHF 2.50.
Tip:Strawberry picking on farms around Imaichi costs CHF 10 to 15 for 30 minutes, with as much as you can manage.
Through markets and eateries with a guide, tastings included.
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Nikko was a sacred mountain before it became a shrine: in 766 the monk Shodo Shonin founded the first temple here after, according to legend, crossing the Daiya river on two snakes, where the red Shinkyo Bridge stands today. But the place became famous because of a dead man. Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the shogunate, died in 1616 and had himself enshrined here as the deity Tosho Daigongen, a guardian spirit watching over Edo from the north. From 1634 his grandson Iemitsu expanded the modest tomb into Toshogu, with 15,000 craftsmen, 2.5 million sheets of gold leaf and more than 5,000 carvings, among them the three monkeys and the sleeping cat. The whole thing took only 17 months and deliberately contradicted the simplicity of Zen: here, power was meant to be visible. Daimyo from across the country had to make pilgrimages, and the 37-kilometre cedar avenue that lines the route was planted by a single retainer, Matsudaira Masatsuna, over twenty years. Iemitsu himself lies next door in Taiyuin, deliberately a little smaller than his grandfather's. The Meiji era separated shrines and temples, but the complex survived. From 1870 Western diplomats discovered Lake Chuzenji as a summer retreat, and the Kanaya Hotel opened in 1873 as Japan's first Western-style hotel. Since 1999 the shrines and temples have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Two routes lead from Tokyo to Nikko. The private Tobu railway from Asakusa is the cheap and direct one: the Revaty or Spacia limited express takes just under two hours to Tobu-Nikko and costs CHF 17 to 20 (about EUR 18 to 21) with a seat reservation, while the slower rapid train with a change at Minami-Kurihashi costs CHF 8 to 10 and takes two and a half hours. Tobu also sells passes for foreign visitors: the Nikko World Heritage Area Pass (2 days, CHF 13) covers the return journey from Asakusa plus the buses around the shrines, and the Nikko All Area Pass (4 days, CHF 25 to 29 depending on season) also covers the buses to Lake Chuzenji, Yumoto Onsen and Kinugawa. The limited express supplement is extra with both. If you have a Japan Rail Pass, you take the Shinkansen to Utsunomiya and then the JR Nikko line, a good 100 minutes; without a pass it costs CHF 33 each way, which is not worth it. Locally, Tobu's buses are the only means of transport: from the station to Toshogu CHF 2, or 30 minutes uphill on foot, to Lake Chuzenji 50 minutes for CHF 7 each way. In autumn the bus gets stuck in traffic on the Irohazaka pass road, so go early.
Toshogu opens at 8 am (November to March at 9 am), and the first hour belongs to you and a few pilgrims. From 10 am the coaches from Tokyo arrive, and you queue in front of the sleeping cat and the three monkeys. Entry costs CHF 10 (about EUR 11); the treasure house is another CHF 6 and can be skipped. Give it two hours: the Yomeimon, the 'gate you could gaze at until evening', the carvings on the stable with the monkeys, the 207 steps up to Ieyasu's plain tomb, and the hall of the crying dragon, where a monk demonstrates the echo with wooden clappers. Then walk five minutes on to Taiyuin (CHF 3.50), Iemitsu's mausoleum: almost the same splendour, a tenth of the visitors, and an even lovelier setting in the cedar forest. In between are Futarasan Shrine (free, the oldest part of the complex) and Rinno-ji with its three golden Buddhas. A combined ticket for Rinno-ji and Taiyuin costs CHF 5.50. If you see all four, you are done by 1 pm and head into the mountains while the groups are still pushing through Toshogu.
The bus climbs the Irohazaka, a pass road with 48 hairpin bends, from 600 to 1,270 metres up to Lake Chuzenji, which formed 20,000 years ago when the Nantai volcano blocked the river. The water leaves the lake over the Kegon Falls, a 97-metre vertical drop into a gorge. You can see them from above for free; the lift to the platform at the bottom costs CHF 3.50 (about EUR 3.75) and is worth it, as you stand in the spray in front of the whole wall. In winter part of the falls freezes into blue columns. On the lake are the former summer villas of the Italian and British embassies, now museums with lake terraces for CHF 2 to 3, and a cafe where you drink tea looking out over the water. An hour further up, at 1,500 metres, is Yumoto Onsen, a small village with sulphurous springs and ryokan, with the Senjogahara marshland in between, crossed by a two-hour boardwalk, one of the finest easy walks in Kanto. The round trip with the All Area Pass takes a full day. The weather up there is five to eight degrees colder than in Nikko, so pack a jacket even in July.
Nikko has three zones for sleeping. Around the stations and along the main street to Toshogu are guesthouses and small hotels for CHF 30 to 50 (about EUR 32 to 54) per hostel bed and CHF 80 to 130 for a double room; from here you walk to the shrine in the morning, which is the key argument. Second, the Kanaya Hotel, Japan's oldest Western-style hotel, with wooden verandas, a 1935 dining room and rooms where Einstein and Helen Keller once slept, from CHF 180. Third, the ryokan on Lake Chuzenji and in Yumoto Onsen with half board, kaiseki in the evening and an onsen bath, from CHF 150 per person including two meals up to CHF 500 at Hoshino Resorts and the Ritz-Carlton. Kinugawa Onsen, 30 minutes east on Tobu, has large 1970s spa hotels at rock-bottom prices (CHF 90 to 140 for two with half board), and the buildings look their age. The honest recommendation: one night in Nikko itself near the shrine, and if you have the time and budget, a second one up by the lake. In autumn and at weekends everything is booked out weeks in advance; on weekdays in May or June you can find something at short notice.
Nikko is high up, so everything happens earlier than in Tokyo. The autumn colours start in early October in Yumoto, reach Lake Chuzenji and the Irohazaka in mid to late October, and only arrive at the shrines in early to mid-November. That is the most beautiful and the busiest time: at weekends traffic on the pass road backs up for hours, and the bus then takes three hours instead of one. The solution: go up on a weekday before 8 am and come back in the afternoon. The cherry blossom arrives in mid-April, May brings fresh green and azaleas by the lake, and June brings rain and mist, which suit the cedar forest well. July and August are pleasantly cool up by the lake while Tokyo swelters, and Senjogahara is then green and full of flowers. Winter is dry and clear, the shrines are often under snow, the Kegon Falls partly freeze, and hotels cost half as much; the buses to the lake keep running, but with winter tyres and sometimes delays. Avoid Golden Week from late April to early May, as everywhere in Japan. The big festivals: Yayoi Matsuri on 16 and 17 April, and the procession of a thousand samurai on 18 May and 17 October.
Twenty minutes west of the Shinkyo Bridge, along the Daiya river, is the Kanmangafuchi Abyss, a gorge of lava rock whose path is lined with around 70 stone Jizo statues wearing red caps and bibs. Legend has it that you never count the same number there and back. It costs nothing, stays quiet even in autumn and, together with the riverside path, is the most beautiful walk in Nikko. On the way back you pass the Nikko Tamozawa Imperial Villa, the former imperial summer residence with 106 rooms (CHF 3.50, about EUR 3.75), one of the largest wooden buildings in Japan and almost always empty. If you have time, take the bus to the section of the cedar avenue near Imaichi: 13,000 trees up to 350 years old over 37 kilometres, the longest tree tunnel in the world. A short stretch is enough to feel the scale. And a tip for the evening: Nikko goes to sleep after 8 pm and the restaurants close early, so start dinner by 6.30 pm or pre-order at your hotel, otherwise you are left with the konbini on the main street.
Yes, if you leave Asakusa at 7 am and limit yourself to Toshogu, Taiyuin and the Shinkyo Bridge; you will be back around 7 pm. A day is not enough for the Kegon Falls and Lake Chuzenji unless you almost skip the shrines. A night costs from CHF 80 (about EUR 86) on weekdays and doubles the experience.
The Nikko World Heritage Area Pass (CHF 13, about EUR 14, 2 days) for visiting just the shrines, and the All Area Pass (CHF 25 to 29, 4 days) as soon as you go up to the lake, since the bus up and back alone costs CHF 14. Both are only available to foreign visitors at the Tobu counter in Asakusa or online. The limited express supplement of CHF 9 to 11 is extra in each case.
Entry costs CHF 10 (about EUR 11) for adults, or CHF 16 with the treasure house. There is a combined ticket for Rinno-ji and Taiyuin for CHF 5.50, Futarasan Shrine is free, and the Shinkyo Bridge costs CHF 2 if you want to walk across it; from the road you can see it for free. Budget CHF 20 per person and three to four hours for all the sites.
Both stations have lockers for CHF 3 to 5 (about EUR 3 to 5), including suitcase size, but in autumn they are full by 10 am. The Tobu tourist information at the station takes luggage for a fee. If you are staying up by the lake, it is better to leave your big suitcase at your Tokyo hotel or send it ahead to Kyoto by takkyubin for CHF 12 to 18.
The town is at 600 metres, the lake at 1,270 and Yumoto at 1,500. Expect five to eight degrees less than Tokyo, and up by the lake rarely above 22 degrees even in July. From December to March there is snow up top, and sometimes down at the shrines. In autumn bring a warm jacket for the mornings, in winter a hat and sturdy shoes, as the steps to the tomb ice over.
For a bath, yes; for a night, only to a degree. Kinugawa was a mass destination in the 1970s, and many concrete hotels now stand empty, though the river gorge is still beautiful. The remaining places are cheap and have good baths. Nicer and more expensive are Yumoto Onsen up by the lake, or a day at the onsen of a hotel in Nikko for CHF 6 to 10 (about EUR 6 to 11).
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