Island Hopping in Japan: A Beginner's Guide to the Remote Islands
Most visitors see Japan as four big islands and a bullet train. But the country has 14,125 islands in total, and around 418 of them are inhabited. Ferries and small planes link these remote islands — ritō — to the mainland, and each one keeps its own dialect, festivals and pace of life. Island hopping is the slowest, and for many travellers the most rewarding, way to see Japan.
Start with the island groups
The islands in this guide are organised by group, because that is how you travel to them. The Izu Islands run south from Tokyo Bay and are reached by overnight ferry or jetfoil from the capital. The Ogasawara Islands — Chichijima and Hahajima — lie some 1,000 km further south and are served by a single weekly ferry. In the west, the Seto Inland Sea islands (Naoshima, Shōdoshima, the Geiyo chain and dozens more) are short hops apart and made for slow cycling trips. Further south still come the Gotō, Amami, Miyako and Yaeyama chains, where the sea turns subtropical and the island groups are close enough to hop by local ferry.
The boats are the timetable
On most islands, life is arranged around one or two ferries a day. Sailings are cancelled when the sea is rough — in typhoon season, in winter storms, sometimes simply on a windy afternoon — and a cancelled boat can mean an extra night on the island. Build slack into your itinerary, travel with a day in hand before any flight home, and confirm the day's sailing on the operator's site or at the port before you set out. Timetables also change with the season: the summer schedule is not the winter schedule.
When to go
The classic island season is late spring to autumn. The southern chains — Amami, Miyako, Yaeyama, Ogasawara — are warm for most of the year and are winter escapes as much as summer destinations, but they sit in the typhoon belt from roughly June to October. The Izu Islands are at their best from May to October. Northern islands such as Rishiri and Rebun have a short, intense summer, famous for alpine flowers, and quiet, stormy winters. August and the Golden Week and New Year holidays are the peaks: book ferries and rooms early, or avoid them.
On the island
Expect small ports, family-run inns (minshuku), vending machines instead of convenience stores, and buses that meet the ferry and then stop. Carry cash. Rent a car or a bicycle at the port on larger islands; on the smallest, walk. Island pages in this guide give each island's population, area and municipality, and the full encyclopedia article for its sights and access routes — read the page for your island first, then check the current ferry times with the operator.
Sources: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (island count, 2023); Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism remote-island materials (inhabited islands and designations); individual island articles on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), reproduced in full on each island's page in this guide.