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June 24, 2012 8:20 AM

If you had a Japanese rail pass and were staying in Nagano Shinkansen area, what day trips would you take?

(Asking for my daughter and her four friends currently in Japan) If you had a Japanese rail pass and were staying in Nagano, Shinkansen area, what day trips would you take? Right now they are planning to visit Tokyo extensively. They have another couple weeks left in their stay. What other adventures can you recommend?

posted by Mr.Me to travel & transportation around Nagano, Japan (5 answers total)

Have they been to Kanazawa? I'd also recommend Jigokudani Monkey Park but they don't gather in the springs in the summer. They should definitely check the weather before heading out, some places might be rained out.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 9:03 AM on June 24, 2012

I would go to Oze National Park. But that's because hiking and nature is the kind of thing I like. I wanted to go there so bad when I was there and didn't find a way to fit it in.

Nikko is pretty awesome, in a looking-at-things kind of way. It should be do-able in a day, but when I went I stayed a second day to see more.

The thing I enjoyed most there, and which was definitely the most memorable was climbing Mt. Fuji. They might just catch the beginning of climbing season. I got there by train late in the day and climbed overnight with a friend to catch the sunrise from the top.

Japan-guide.com (where the above links are from) was my best resource for planning adventures there.
posted by ctmf at 1:04 PM on June 24, 2012

I really recommend a day trip to Obuse. It's accessible by train. The Hokusai museum there is outstanding. Excellent prints and objects.

Additionally, we really enjoyed the Masuichi sake brewery. The ground and restaurant are lovely and some of the sake was just devine. They have a little bar set up where you can sample it for a nominal fee. The bar man is ridiculously generous - kept giving me free shots, I staggered outta there!

Great town, lotsa museums and stuff, Obuse.
posted by smoke at 4:17 PM on June 24, 2012

If they can get over to Minakami, there are a bunch of outdoor sports companies there offering rafting and canyoning. It's also right in the middle of a great onsen (hot-spring) area, which is awesome after the outdoor stuff.

Other than that, in Nagano, Matsumoto (and Matsumoto Castle) is a nice little city. North of that, near Hakuba, there is a good amount of rent-a-bike tool around nature stuff to do.

Not knowing their ages or interests, I can't be sure what to recommend, but in Tokyo, west of Shinjuku, there's Ome and the Okutama area, which, again, are mountains and pretty nice. Yokohama is a good place to visit with some scenic areas. Tokyo has... stuff. It's not my favorite place, and usually I recommend that people try to get to Kamakura, which is nicer from a Japanese culture/temple-hopping kind of way. It's also right on the ocean, and the summer beach season is coming up. Enoshima, Shonan, and Kamakura are all pretty good places to go for a great beach going experience.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:37 AM on June 26, 2012

Kanazawa is do-able from Nagano, but it's kind of a long train-ride (fantastic scenery, and a chance to ride one of the fastest narrow-gauge express trains in the world).
posted by KokuRyu at 7:13 AM on June 26, 2012