This Japanese garden lets you see the beautiful scenery of Sakurajima, the symbol of Kagoshima, up close. The garden includes a variety of facilities, such as the traditional home where lords once lived, and a shop selling traditional crafts. At the restaurant, you can enjoy local cuisine and a famous sweet and salty snack called Jambo Mochi featuring a bite sized mochi rice cake on two sticks.

Saigo Takamori was a great man and one of the founding fathers of modern Japan who established the Meiji government. This eight meter statue depicts him standing bravely before Shiroyama, the site of his last battle. There is also a photo spot across the road where visitors can take a picture with the statue alongside Saigo’s beloved dog.

Tenmonkan is a shopping district always filled with countless visitors where the streets are lined with gift shops, cafes, and restaurants serving local cuisine. After enjoying some shopping, make sure you get your fill of Kagoshima delicacies, such as the shaved ice topped with fruit known affectionately as Shirokuma, or polar bear, shochu alcohol, and dishes made with the famous Kagoshima Berkshire pork.

The stone walls and Japanese garden left over from a samurai home built over 270 years ago remain today in beautiful condition in Chiran, and the area is known as the little Kyoto of Satsuma for its elegant atmosphere. We recommend stopping by the cafe designed after the style of a traditional Japanese home after you enjoy a stroll through the fascinating traditional Japanese garden. You can also rent a kimono to wear for your walk around the area.

This hot spring where you immerse your body in sand warmed by the hot spring waters that flow naturally from the seashore is an experience only to be found in Ibusuki. Popular as a “Japanese sauna”, the bath is said to be effective for detoxing and beautifying your skin. After trying the sand baths, make sure to enjoy the normal hot spring bath at the facility as well.

Spend the night in Kagoshima after enjoying Kagoshima shochu and cuisine made with the local Kagoshima Berkshire pork.

Cape Toi is situated at the southern tip of Nichinan Kaigan Quasi-national Park. The white Cape Toi lighthouse that stands at the edge of the cape offers amazing views of the rich green mountains and the Hyuga-nada Sea. The lighthouse still serves today as a landmark for ships navigating the nearby waters, and is the only lighthouse in Kyushu that you can see inside.
The area around Cape Toi is also a habitat for the native Japanese Misaki horse, letting you experience the toughness and attractiveness of the wild horses up close. The Misaki horse is designated as a national Natural Monument. Many foals, incidentally, are born between April and May, so if you’re lucky, you may get to see a cute newborn foal. There is also a tour course available, featuring a wild horse guide, letting you view the Misaki horses complete with an explanation of the horses and the flora of Cape Toi.
At the very edge of Cape Toi, jutting roughly 6 kilometers to the south, is Misaki Shrine, located in the middle of a cliff, where the god of the sea is enshrined. Here, you can enjoy the beautiful fabric woven by the marine blue and white-edged waves of the azure Pacific Ocean.

This tourist facility offers a sense of openness and release with its full length glass walls. Visitors can enjoy special dishes and mango drinks at the cafe while taking in the panoramic view of Cape Toi. And if the weather is nice, you can also use the seats out on the wide open terrace. The facility includes a gift corner offering local goods and crafts, barrier-free restrooms, and a nursing room.

Here you can enjoy mouthwatering cuisine unique to Kushima and its industry of yellowtail fish farming, such as the rice bowl topped with fresh yellowtail sashimi or their deep fried yellowtail featuring the fish covered in breadcrumbs before frying in oil. You can also shop at Umiyama Marche, a store offering Kushima’s fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables, fresh fish, and processed foods.

This park is located on Izakibana Cape, a small cape in Nichinan City. The cape is filled with subtropical flora such as the Canary Island date palm, giving visitors a chance to enjoy the tropical atmosphere Miyazaki is famous for. The view from the observation deck on higher ground is breathtaking, letting you see the Nanatsubae rock islands floating in the sea and other beautiful islands such as Oshima. This place is still not well known among tourists yet, so you can take your time taking in the views.

This place prospered as the castle town of the Obi domain for roughly 280 years beginning in 1588. Today, many stone walls made with Obi stone and samurai homes made with Obi cedar remain. The beautiful townscape with its historical flavor has been nicknamed the Little Kyoto of Kyushu, and many historical buildings have been preserved. Many samurai residences and shops are located in an area surrounding the Otemon Gate of Obi Castle. Some of them allow visitors inside, and the area is a great place to take walks around the castle town. Visitors can try their hand using the traditional mini archery of Obi, the Shihan-mato, and get a taste of the samurai life at the Shihan-mato archery range. Meanwhile, the Obi Castle History Museum is a must-see destination with displays of swords, armor, weapons, and clothing, and other military implements. There is also a spot known as Iyashi-no-Mori (healing forest) filled with moss and 140 year old Obi cedar at the site of the former Honmaru of Obi Castle. We recommend a visit as it is sure to be relaxing, and you can get some great pictures too.
If you want to dine and walk around the town of Obi, we recommend picking up a copy of the Ayumichan Map that includes tickets to various venues and five vouchers for special and famous local Obi gifts. Enjoy your walk around this historic castle town with echoes of the Edo period as you enjoy delicious local delicacies such as the Obi Senbei that melts in your mouth with elegant sweetness, Obi-Ten with its gentle sweetness of brown sugar, and the Atsuyaki-tamago fried egg that tastes like pudding.

This museum offers a variety of historical exhibits related to the former Obi domain, such as traditional Japanese armor and swords.
The museum also uses projection mapping and computer graphics to offer an easy to understand introduction to the streets of Obi and their beautiful stone walls.

Komura Jutaro, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs no less than two times, was a great diplomat from the Meiji period who built the foundation of modern diplomacy in Japan, and is known for working to end the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. The museum offers an easy to follow explanation of Komura’s life and achievements using illustrations and dramatized video. They also introduce the Obi Castle Town using a unique approach, such as touch panels that describe sightseeing routes.

Obi Castle is divided into 11 sections, one of which is Matsuo-no-Maru, home of the domain lord. 
 The current Matsuo-no-Maru building was reconstructed in 1979, and this design uses Obi cedar trees over 100 years old following historical research, as no records of the original design survive.
The palace follows the Shoin architectural style, one of the traditional styles of Japan, and is laid out to include a main hall, a tea room, a bedroom, and a kitchen. Among the rooms, the traditional bath evokes a sauna from the Edo period.
 

The Kitago Hot Spring is a natural hot spring located in the mountains praised for its strong ability to beautify the skin and remove fatigue. The cherry blossoms are beautiful here in the springtime, as are the autumn leaves in the fall, and the surrounding vastness of nature, including valleys and clear streams, offers a sense of tranquility. Visitors will also enjoy the vast starry skies at nighttime.

This roadside station offers the largest collection of inclusive playground equipment in Kyushu. They offer a variety of local produce, shochu, and speciality goods for sale. The many gourmet options include a restaurant that serves meals using freshly caught local bonito, and a takeout pizza restaurant offering oven-baked Neapolitan pizza made from scratch.

On the southern shore of Udosaki, where the famed power spot Udo Jingu is located, visitors can see a strange rock formation that looks like a massive washboard when the tide is low. This rock formation is the result of deposits made between roughly 12 million and 6 million years ago in alternating layers of sandstone and mudstone. They took on their present form after eons of erosion due to intense waves, wind, and rain. The place is widely known as the Devil’s Washboard.

Udo Jingu features a beautiful and colorful vermillion-lacquered main shrine building within a cave on the cape that juts into the sea. This is one of the main shrines of southern Kyushu, located on the Nichinan Seacoast in southern Miyazaki. The shrine has long been loved by the locals and is believed to offer blessings for safe childbirth, child rearing, and marriage. Worshippers here can try a famous challenge involving tossing an Undama, or luck ball, to make their wish come true. Men use their left hand and women their right to throw the ball towards a rock called Kameishi, or turtle rock. In this custom called “Undama-nage”, If the ball enters a depression on the rock, then your wish will come true. The approach to the main shrine offers a beautiful view of the Hyuga-nada Sea, while rocks of many forms surround the cape as they accept the powerful beating of the waves. 
 Meanwhile, if you walk for about 20 minutes out the shrine gate from Udo Jingu, you will arrive at Namikiri Shrine. This place is considered a power spot, where the torii gate and tiny shrine, located in a cave right up against the encroaching sea, evoke a fantastic and spiritual atmosphere. We recommend wearing shoes with good grip when visiting, as the rough path to the shrine weaves through rocky terrain and you can slip easily.

Enjoy some of the delicious cuisine that exemplifies the Nichinan Seacoast, such as seafood rice bowls made with fresh seafood caught at the local ports, and Ebi Fry (fried prawn) made with the extra large Japanese spiny lobster.

Sunmesse Nichinan is symbolized by the seven replica Moai statues found here. These Moai statues are faithful replicas of those at Ahu Akivi, and the first to be officially approved by the elders of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Visitors are allowed to touch them, so you can experience their impressive presence up close.
The spacious park occupying 20 hectares includes a world insect museum featuring displays of butterflies and insects from around the world, panels of world heritage sites approved by UNESCO, and ground murals of butterflies. Located on a small hill beside the Nichinan Seacoast, the park offers a panoramic view of the ocean, and every corner is a great spot for photos, so why not enjoy the many scenic spots as you walk throughout the park.  The many attractive photo spots include a swing set that swings toward the sea and the colorful “voyeurn” statues (a Japanese play on words based on the French word voyeur) of seated observers.

The observation deck here, situated 50 meters above sea level, offers a panoramic view that includes the beautiful Pacific Ocean and wide blue sky, as well as the strange rock formation known as the Devil’s Washboard. Visitors here can also enjoy the tropical resort atmosphere evoked by the many beautiful flowers that bloom throughout the four seasons. Soft ice cream is available here in flavors that exemplify Miyazaki, such as mango and hyuganatsu, a type of mandarin orange, making it a great place to stop for a break during your trip.

Aoshima, a small island of 1.5 kilometers in circumference that is surrounded by the wavy rock formation known as the Devil’s Washboard, is itself believed to be a power spot. The abundant blessing of rich subtropical flora that grows throughout evokes an atmosphere of more southern climes. Meanwhile, the Aoshima Shrine located near the center of the island is popular for offering blessings for marriage and matchmaking.
There are many other attractions around the island worth a visit as well, such as the Miyakoh Botanic Garden Aoshima where visitors can enjoy tropical flowers in bloom, and the Aoshima Beach Park that offers a selection of drinks and meals.

Aoshima Shrine is a popular tourist destination in Miyazaki. With the entire Aoshima island considered to be the shrine’s grounds, the main building of Aoshima Shrine is located at the center of the island, and worshippers can visit by traveling across Yayoi Bridge that stretches across to the island.
Aoshima shrine is the location for a famous myth and is said to offer blessings for marriage and matchmaking. If you visit, make sure to write down a wish on the heart shaped wooden plaque called the Ema and submit it as an offering, or pick a random Koi Mikuji that will offer love advice just for you. Another popular activity here among travelers is to seek out the many hidden heart shaped decorations.