16 Places To Visit In Hakone

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Museum (5)
Volcano (1)
Historical Site (1)
Temple (1)

1. Owakudani

8 km from city center

Volcano

A steaming valley of sulphur vents left by Hakone's last eruption 3,000 years ago, reached by ropeway with Mount Fuji behind it on a clear day. Eggs boiled in the spring water turn black and are sold four for 500 yen, not the five most guides still say. The nature trail is open but on a guided, reservation-only basis, which is the point nearly everyone gets wrong in both directions.

Top Attraction

9 km from city center

Lake

A caldera lake filling the crater of the eruption that made Hakone, with Mount Fuji standing behind it when the weather allows and the red torii of Hakone Shrine in the water at one end. Replica sailing ships cross it as part of the Free Pass loop. Morning is the reliable window for Fuji; by afternoon cloud usually closes in.

Top Attraction

8 km from city center

Temple

A shrine of 757 standing in cedar forest above the lake, with a stone stairway under the trees and, out in the shallows below, the vermilion Heiwa no Torii gate that is the single most photographed object in Hakone. The queue for a photograph at the gate can run an hour on weekends; the shrine itself is quiet by comparison and free.

5 km from city center

Museum

Japan's first open-air museum, with around 120 sculptures set across a hillside lawn against the mountains, including Henry Moore and Rodin, plus an indoor pavilion of roughly 300 Picasso works. There is a stained glass tower children climb and a hot spring footbath at the end. Allow two hours, more with children.

Hakone Travel Packages

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8 Nights / 9 Days

9-Day Japan Autumn Adventure: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Beyond

Tokyo(3N) → Hakone(1N) → Osaka(4N)

Sold By: Probesten Tours(4.8 )

₹186,000/person

7 Nights / 8 Days

Timeless Japan – 8 Days of Heritage & Nature

Tokyo(3N) → Hakone(1N) → Kyoto(3N)

₹ 320,000

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₹300,000/person

6 Nights / 7 Days

Romantic Paradise Japan Honeymoon Package

Tokyo(2N) → Kyoto(1N) → Nara(1N) → Hakone(1N) → Tokyo(1N

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₹169,999/person

8 Nights / 9 Days

Immersive Japan Adventure Tour Package with Kyoto Historical Tour

Tokyo(3N) → Hakone(1N) → Kyoto(2N) → Osaka(2N)

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₹189,000/person

7 Nights / 8 Days

8 Days Japan Escape Package with Kamakura and Enoshima Island

Tokyo (2N) → Hakone(1N) → Nagoya (1N) → Osaka(3N)

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₹139,000/person

7 Nights / 8 Days

Mesmerising Tokyo and Hakone Tour Package

Tokyo(2N) → Hakone(1N) → kawaguchiko(1N) → Kyoto(2N) → Os...

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₹144,000/person

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5. Hakone-Yumoto

0 km from city center

Hot Spring

The gateway town where the Odakyu line ends and the mountain railway begins, so almost everyone passes through it. A shopping street of sweet shops and craft stalls runs from the station, and there are day-use bathhouses along the river. This is where a Hakone day trip actually gets its onsen, since the higher villages are mostly ryokan for overnight guests.

9 km from city center

Museum

A museum sunk into the forest so that only one storey shows above the treeline, holding a strong Impressionist collection alongside Japanese painting, glass and cosmetics history. A woodland walking path loops around it with sculpture along the way. The building is as much the reason to come as the pictures, which is not true of the other galleries here.

7. Hakone Checkpoint

9 km from city center

Historical Site

A faithfully rebuilt Edo barrier station on the lakeshore, where the shogunate searched everyone travelling the Tokaido and enforced the rule keeping daimyo families hostage in Edo. There is a lookout tower over the lake and a stretch of the original cedar-lined highway nearby. Note it is at Hakone-machi port, not Moto-Hakone where the shrine is.

6 km from city center

Neighborhood

The village at the top of the mountain railway where the cable car begins, and the practical centre of the highlands. Gora Park here is a French-style terraced garden of 1914 with greenhouses, a rose garden and craft workshops, and several of Hakone's best ryokan sit on the slopes around it. Most itineraries change trains here whether they plan to stop or not.

6 km from city center

Museum

The largest private museum in Hakone, five floors of Japanese, Chinese and Korean art, fronted by a 12 metre gilded mural of wind and thunder gods that you can see without paying. There is a footbath in the garden fed by the museum's own hot spring. Stronger than the other galleries here if your interest is East Asian rather than European art.

9 km from city center

Viewpoint

A hillside of susuki grass with a single cut path running up through it, which turns gold and then silver from late September into November and is one of the few genuinely seasonal sights in Hakone. It is free and takes twenty minutes. Outside that window it is an ordinary green slope, so this is one to time rather than to slot in.

8 km from city center

Cable Car

A separate ropeway from the Free Pass loop, climbing to a bare 1,356 metre summit with Hakone-Motomiya shrine on top and no trees in the way. That last part matters: this is the clearest unobstructed view of Mount Fuji and the whole of Lake Ashi in the area, better than anything on the standard circuit. Windy and cold at the top even in summer.

6 km from city center

Museum

A ceramics museum in Gora whose collection is solid but whose moss garden is the reason to go: 130 varieties of moss under old maples, laid out in 1952 and among the best autumn sights in Hakone. Note it is a completely different institution from the Open-Air Museum, which is a short walk away and which people constantly confuse it with.

8 km from city center

Museum

Venetian glass from the fifteenth century onwards in a mock Italian villa, with a garden arch of 160,000 crystal pieces that catches the light and a canal with a gondola. It photographs extremely well, it works in rain, and it is the most family-friendly stop on this list. Glass-blowing workshops run daily.

5 km from city center

Spa & Wellness

A hot spring park you enter in a swimsuit, with outdoor pools, water slides and novelty baths filled with wine, coffee and green tea. There is a conventional nude bathing area alongside for anyone who wants it. This solves the two things that keep many visitors out of a normal onsen, tattoos and modesty, which is exactly why it earns a place.

9 km from city center

Garden & Park

The grounds of a former imperial summer villa on a promontory that pushes into Lake Ashi, with two viewing terraces looking back at Mount Fuji across the water. It is free, it is a two minute walk from the Hakone Checkpoint, and almost no itinerary includes it, which is why it stays quiet on days when the lakeshore is full.

5 km from city center

Waterfall

A low, wide waterfall spilling over a rock lip in thin parallel strands, the name meaning a thousand threads, about ten minutes on foot from Kowakidani through the woods. Free, quiet and easy. It is worth knowing about mainly as a break: this list is heavy with museums, and this is the one stop that is just trees and water.