Exploring Hakone, Japan: Sulphuric eggs, a shrine and a ship!

Just over an hour away from Tokyo, Hakone is the perfect escape from the hustle and bustle of Japan’s capital city. You can easily spend a couple of days here to explore at your leisure, or see the main sights in a day.

In this post I cover just one of the roundtrip circuits from Shinjuku station, however there are lots of different routes around Hakone, and of course, you can stay at a ryokan with an onsen to enhance your trip even further (you can read my guide about how to use an onsen here).

What’s cool about this particular route is that you can just about do it in a day. It’s also completely covered by the Hakone Free Pass (which I’ll talk about in a minute), and it involves taking five different modes of transport, from cable car to pirate ship. Yes, there’s a pirate ship!

Getting to Hakone from Tokyo

The Hakone Free Pass

In order to take advantage of the Hakone Free Pass, you have two options. If you’re picking up your tickets in person, you’ll need to go to Shinjuku Station to pick up your ticket at the Odakyu (Railway) Sightseeing Service Centre. Even though there are two service centres in Shinjuku station (one on the first floor of the west exit, and another at the south exit) I got so confused trying to find the right place to buy a ticket and I lost a chunk of time wandering around. I would check the locations here in advance of your day out. If you’re travelling to Hakone from elsewhere, you can also physically purchase the pass at Odawara – this is a station much closer to Hakone.

Alternatively, you can purchase an online pass – which saves a lot of hassle! I used this on my most recent trip in November 2022 and it was SO much easier. The only thing I would say is that you need an internet connection, as your ticket has an animated gif that needs to be shown at each transport change. (I also needed to use an incognito window to access the pass for some reason. It was fine, but it meant I had to keep logging in each time I needed to show the pass to a member of staff).

You can either buy a two-day or a three-day pass (there’s no one-day pass unfortunately). The two day pass costs around £40/ $50 (USD) for an adult, and around £10/ $15 (USD) for children.

Getting the train to Hakone-Yumoto

Regardless of which train you take, get a window seat if you can! You might be able to see Mount Fuji if you’re lucky.

Taking a train up a mountain!

From Shinjuku, it takes just over an hour to get to the first stop on the route, Hakone-Yumoto station. It’s here that you get off the regular train, and get on the Hakone Tozan train.

The Hakone Tozan train is no regular train though. It performs a number of switchbacks to help it ascend the steep mountainside. (This is where the train stops at a point in the line, the points are changed, and the train goes backwards along a new route.)

Depending on the time of year, you might be travelling past swathes of hydrangeas or fiery autumn leaves, and it’s all so close to the railway line you could reach out and touch it if the glass wasn’t in the way.

You’re free to get off at any of the stations on the Hakone Tozan railway line. Most of the stops have onsen, hotels, or shrines to visit. On my most recent visit I stopped off at Chokounomori station to visit the Hakone Open-Air museum, but if you just want to keep going you can continue to Gora, where the train terminates.

(Optional) Stop off at the Hakone Open-Air Museum

The Hakone Open-Air Museum is an outdoor art/sculpture gallery featuring artists from around the globe. I hadn’t done a whole lot of research before visiting (although I had heard lots of good things) and I was just expecting a load of boring bronze statues. I could not have been more wrong – there are colourful sculptures, moving sculptures, thought-provoking sculptures – there are even sculptures for kids to play on!

There’s a fairly standard route round the museum which means you won’t miss out on anything. A real highlight is climbing the stained-glass tower! Halfway round the park there’s also a Picasso museum displaying some of his less famous works, including pieces made with clay and glass. I learned quite a lot.

The Hakone Open-Air Museum is open all year round and you can buy tickets on the door. It costs 1600 Yen but if you show your Hakone Free Pass you get a 200 Yen discount.

An hour is probably enough time to spend here so you can easily incorporate it on a trip round Hakone, and it’s about a ten minute walk from the Museum to Gora station.

Change at Gora station for the cable car

Gora is a well spaced-out town with lots of restaurants and hotels available. It is also home of the Hakone Museum of Art, which features a Japanese landscape garden and a moss garden, as well as prehistoric ceramics, and Gora Park, a French-style landscape garden built in 1914. Here, there is a tearoom and workshop which offers various activities such as pottery painting, bead making and glass blowing!

If you’re just here for the day you might want to skip the town and get straight in the queue for the cable car. When I was there on my first visit I met these two:

I had absolutely no idea what was going on but it made standing in the queue a lot more tolerable. (The picture on the left cracks me up every time I look at it.) I can’t quite believe I’m writing this sentence, but I later learned that Daikon-ji san, an elderly radish, is one of the mascots of Chiba prefecture.

Once you’re on the cable car, it’s all the way to the end of the line. You then switch to the Hakone Ropeway Sounzan Station and away you go.

The ropeway to Ōwakudani

Despite the name, the ropeway is actually what I think of when I think ‘cable car’. Once you’re in, you’re hoisted up the side of the mountain over the pine forest.

Arriving at Ōwakudani station (which is a stop-off on the ropeway) is actually pretty exciting, as you don’t know what to expect until you reach the crest of the hill and there it is!

Ōwakudani is a volcanic valley with sulphuric vents that you can sometimes walk around (although it depends on the wind and the air quality). Seeing and being so close to the steaming yellow craters is very cool indeed, although the accompanying sulphur smell perhaps less so. There’s a little museum nearby which gives you a bit of information about the area, and there’s a cafe and shop too.

Here, you can purchase eggs that have been cooked in the waters of Ōwakudani, turning the shells black. I can’t speak for the taste I’m afraid, although if you eat one it apparently adds seven years onto your lifespan.

Speaking of eggs, you can also buy related gifts at the shop, including black egg bath soap. It comes complete with sulphuric scent, which we discovered when exchanging gifts on Christmas Day…it was, er, not pleasant.

Pirate ship time to Hakone Shrine!

Following another ropeway trip to the shores of Lake Ashi it’s all aboard the pirate ship! It’s a lovely trip across the lake with some gorgeous views. For Hakone shrine you need to get off at the Motohakone stop.

On my first trip to Hakone I completely missed the shrine the first time round (I got there far too late) so on my most recent visit I was determined to get there! 

Hakone shrine is about a ten minute walk from Motohakone. As you approach, the actual shrine is to your right up a flight of steps, with the famous floating torii gate to your left. 

Here’s a mini warning through – if you want a picture of yourself in front of the torii, be prepared to queue in The World’s Longest Queue. I actually gave up in the end! If you just want a picture of the gate though you can go to the side of the queue and take an okay-ish photo.

Head back to Tokyo

From the Motohakone bus stop (just opposite from where you disembark from the ship) you can catch the H or R Tozan bus which will take you to Odawara station (you need to get off at Midoricho). From there you can then get the train back to Shinjuku. You can also get the H, R, or K Tozan bus to Hakone-Yumoto station if you prefer.

Want to find out more about all the amazing places to visit in Japan? See my full first-trip itinerary and travel guides here! I’ll be adding more as my Japan series progresses.