Atami & Ito: East-Izu Onsen, Art & Coast — 2 Days

A much-loved shrine just inland from Atami station, built around an enormous camphor tree said to be more than 2,000 years old — one of the largest in Japan, its trunk so vast that walking once around it is held to add a year to your life. The grounds have been prettily redone with café terraces and a soft nightly illumination of the great tree, which has made the shrine a popular 'power spot'. A gentle, green first stop before the museums.

Grounds open daily, free; the great camphor is lit nightly until ~23:00. A 5-minute walk from JR Kinomiya Station (one stop from Atami) or a short taxi from Atami Station. Café terraces on the grounds are good for a coffee. Allow 30-45 minutes.

A major private art museum on a hillside above Atami, reached by a dramatic sequence of long escalators through the mountain, holding a celebrated collection of Japanese and East Asian art including National Treasures — among them Ogata Korin's gold-ground 'Red and White Plum Blossoms' screens, shown each spring. The galleries were redesigned by Hiroshi Sugimoto, and a wide terrace and restaurants look out over the town to the bay. A reproduction of Korin's house and a golden tea room are on the grounds. Lunch on-site with the view.

Open ~09:30-16:30, closed Thursdays (open if a holiday); admission about ¥2,000 adult (approx., 2026). A bus from Atami Station to the entrance, then the escalators up. Restaurants on-site make this a good lunch stop. Allow about 2-2.5 hours including lunch.

A 1919 seaside villa, once counted among Atami's three great houses and later a celebrated ryokan that hosted novelists from Tanizaki to Dazai, now preserved by the city as a cultural-property museum. Its rooms blend Japanese craftsmanship with European Art Deco and even a Roman-style bath and stained glass, set around a lush garden — a portrait of the cosmopolitan taste of early-twentieth-century Atami. Quiet and atmospheric, and an easy walk in the centre of town.

Open ~09:00-17:00 (last entry 16:30), closed Wednesdays; admission about ¥610 (approx., 2026). In central Atami, walkable from the seafront or a short bus from the station. Allow about an hour. The garden and the Roman bath room are the highlights.

A curve of imported white sand along the town's seafront, backed by palms and lined with a promenade, and best known for its nightly illumination — the beach and the coconut palms are lit after dark year-round, designed by a lighting artist, so it works as an evening stroll even outside the summer swimming season. Atami also runs fireworks displays over the bay on set dates through much of the year. A relaxed end to the in-town day before checking in.

Open at all hours, free; the illumination runs nightly year-round. Swimming season is roughly mid-July to late August only. On the central Atami seafront, a short walk from the station and Kiunkaku. Check the tourism calendar for firework dates during your stay.

A small luxury onsen hotel on the hillside above Atami, all of its rooms suites with their own open-air hot-spring bath looking out into the trees or toward the sea. The design is contemporary and hushed, with a forest spa, a fine kaiseki restaurant and a teppanyaki counter, and the whole place is built around privacy and the soak rather than sightseeing. It is the kind of stay that makes Atami feel like a proper retreat, and an easy base for both the in-town day and the Ito day-trip.

Rates are at the luxury end and vary by season (2026, from roughly ¥100,000+ for two) — confirm directly. On the hillside above Atami; ask about a shuttle from the station. Every room has a private open-air bath. Book the kaiseki or teppanyaki dinner plan.

A jagged coast of black lava cliffs formed by an ancient eruption of Mount Omuro, where a 48-metre pedestrian suspension bridge swings across a chasm above the surf beside the white Kadowaki Lighthouse, whose deck you can climb for a coast-and-sea view. A cliff-top nature trail runs along the shore through pine and rough rock, with the open Pacific below. It is the most dramatic stretch of the east-Izu coast and a complete change of register from Atami's polished seafront.

Open at all hours, free; the lighthouse observation deck keeps daytime hours. About 40-50 minutes by car from Atami, or via Ito and a local bus to the Jogasaki-Kaigan area. Wear sturdy shoes for the cliff trail and mind children near the edges.

A perfectly shaped grass-covered cinder cone rising 580 metres above the Izo plateau, its smooth green dome the source of the lava that made the Jogasaki cliffs. There is no walking up — to protect the grass, access is by a chairlift to the rim, where a level path circles the crater with a 360-degree view of the sea, the Izu islands and, on a clear day, Mount Fuji. The mountain is ceremonially burned black each February in a centuries-old grass-burning. A short, memorable summit with almost no effort.

Reached by chairlift (round trip ~¥1,000, approx., 2026), daytime hours, weather permitting. NOTE: the chairlift has a scheduled maintenance closure June 15-25, 2026 — the summit is inaccessible then, so check dates before going. About 10 minutes by car from Jogasaki. No climbing on the cone.

A quirky zoo-and-botanical park at the foot of Mount Omuro, half greenhouse-cactus garden and half free-roaming animal park, world-famous for its capybaras, who soak in an open-air hot-spring bath in the cold months — the original capybara onsen, copied across Japan. Beyond the capybaras there are monkeys, peacocks and meerkats wandering the grounds, glasshouses of cacti and succulents, and restaurants for an easy lunch. Family-friendly and genuinely charming, and a fitting pairing with the cone above it.

Open daytime hours; admission was revised around April 2026 to roughly ¥2,700 adult — re-confirm the current fee. At the base of Mount Omuro, a short drive or bus from the chairlift. The capybara open-air bath runs in the colder months. Restaurants on-site for lunch. Allow about 2 hours.

A surprising collection of twentieth-century Western and Japanese art on the Izo plateau, holding works by Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Warhol and Chagall alongside Japanese modernists, gathered around the theme of the human figure. Set beside a pond with a view toward Mount Omuro, it is a calm, uncrowded counterpoint to the day's coast and animals — the kind of small, idiosyncratic museum that makes eastern Izu more interesting than its onsen-resort reputation suggests. A quiet close to the day-trip before the drive back to Atami.

Open ~09:00-17:00, closed Wednesdays (open on holidays and in summer); admission about ¥1,000 (approx., 2026). On the Izu Kogen plateau near Mount Omuro, a short drive from the zoo. Allow about an hour. From here it is roughly 50 minutes by car back to Atami.