5 places you must go when you visit Okinawa | Guidable - Your Guide to a Sustainable, Wellbeing-centred Life in Japan

5 places you must go when you visit Okinawa

By Guidable Writers Oct 2, 2017

Welcome to Japan. When you live or study in Japan, you must go to Okinawa once. Okinawa is the tropical city in Japan which has many beautiful sites and you might be surprised of such magnificent and cultural scenery. Following is highly recommend places for foreigner that you must go once in Okinawa.

 

 Overview of Okinawa

I think that Okinawa is one of the popular city along with Tokyo or Hokkaido for foreigner. The reason why Okinawa is such attractive place for foreigner are attributable to tropical weather, beautiful beach, marine sports and convenient to access from major foreign counties. Also, you can see a lot of guide plate in English for helping tourist in Okinawa, so it is helpful for foreign tourist and let them easy to go to sightseeing. Recently, there are a lot of tourist to visit and stay to Okinawa and the number of foreign tourist is dramatically increasing year by year. (Following graph is number of tourist from foreign country to Okinawa in past 12 years.) You can see the booming of visit to there.

 

 

Source: Okinawa Prefecture HP 

Please note that Okinawa has some famous islands in Japan and you have couple of options to go to famous tourist spots in Okinawa. Generally, Okinawa divide into two areas such as main island and isolated island and there are differences to visit or see site by each region. Main Island is the most popular and there is for beginners. On the other hand, some isolated island is less convenience and difficult to reach there but there are much more beautiful seas at that place.

 

Main Island

Churaumi Aquarium

 

 

Churaumi Aquarium is the one of the biggest aquarium in the world and almost all tourist to Okinawa visits to this place once. You can see the whale sharks as long as 8.7m, manta rays and a wide variety of fish swim in the gigantic tank. Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium was the first aquarium in the world to succeed in raising and breeding manta that is one of the largest species of ray. Their enormous tank, continuously supplied with fresh seawater, has made it possible for visitors to marvel at the colossal, beautiful forms of these manta rays.

Kouri Big Bridge

 

 

Kouri Big Bridge is the must go place if you want to see the beautiful scenery. Kouri Big Bridge connect between Kouri island and Yagaji island in Nago city. Total length is as many as 1960 meters. If you cross this long bridge, you feel as if run above of the sea.

 

International road

 

 

International road is the main street where is crowded with many people especially tourist every day. The road continues to about 1.6 km and you can see a lot of souvenir shops both side along with the street. If you like going shopping, this place is must-visit and you can buy various type of local food and souvenir like Okinawa Beer, Sanpin tea (Okinawa tea), and some sweets.

 

American village

American Village is the largest shopping center in Okinawa. That concept is like American style. Okinawa has American military base and it has received a significant influence of America. You can see a lot of American people in Okinawa and can feel some American culture in Japan.

As described above, there are a lot of attractive places in Okinawa main island so that you should research carefully in advance. Anyway, if you go to Okinawa during Autumn season, please take care the typhoon. Typhoon frequently hits the Okinawa prefecture during Autumn season and catastrophe like Tsunami are happened. Please take care of that and check the weather forecast in advance.

 

 

 Isolated islands

Okinawa has a lot of isolated islands. Among them, Miyako island and Ishigaki islland are the most popular places with beautiful sceneries and beach.

 

Miyako Island

 

 

One of the most famous place in Miyako island is sand hill beach which has beautiful contrast between white sand and blue sea. You can see the extraordinary beautiful scenery over the sand hill. One of the must-see point in sand hill beach is tunnel made by natural rock. The tunnel is made for really long time and popular in photo spot for tourist. Especially, it is the most beautiful during sun set time. Why don’t you enjoy swimming or walking around the beach with that beautiful scenery. Also, Miyako island has hot Spa called Sigira hot spa. You can’t imagine there is hot spa in Okinawa but, this hot spa is the southernmost spa in Japan. It is amazing that it is surrounded by jangle and natural hot spa. It is no doubt that you had an unprecedented experience here.

 

Ishigaki island

 

 

Ishigaki island is the famous isolated island along with Miyako island in Okinawa. The most famous spot is the Kabira bay. This place was featured in the world news and you should stay there once. Additionally, Ishigaki island is famous of beautiful beach and the most famous one is the Yonehara beach. At that site, you can see various type of beautiful colorful fishes. Additionally, you can see the coral reef near shore so it is popular spot of snorkeling. In this area, there a lot of camping site, so you can enjoy BBQ as well.

Okinawa has a lot of must-see places and you might be bothering which places that you better to go. Anyway, it is important to check carefully in advance and I hope you enjoy your stay in Okinawa. Have a nice stay in Okinawa and enjoy it!!

 

September 26th, 2017

Thomas