Inland Tottori: The Inaba Post Roads, the Ishitani Merchant House & Tottori's Folk Crafts — 2 Days

Chizu sits where the Inaba Kaido met the road over the mountains toward Kyoto and Himeji, and grew prosperous as a post station and centre of the forestry that still cloaks its hills in cedar. Its old main street keeps a run of dark-timbered inns, merchant houses and storehouses, with a former post-station marker and the atmosphere of a town that the main highways later bypassed and so left intact. Walking the quiet street, with the smell of cedar and the rivers running clear from the surrounding forest, sets the tone for a day on the old inland roads, and leads straight to the residence that is the town's treasure.

Free to stroll; individual buildings have their own hours. In Chizu, about 40 minutes south of Tottori City. Allow about 60 minutes.

The Ishitani Residence is the great surprise of inland Tottori: an enormous house built up over the early twentieth century by a family grown wealthy from forestry and trade along the Inaba road, with around forty rooms and seven storehouses spread across some three thousand square metres, now a National Important Cultural Property. Its glory is the carpentry — a soaring beamed entrance hall using whole massive cedar and zelkova timbers, fine joinery, and rooms opening onto carefully composed gardens you view from the polished verandas. Visitors wander freely through the living quarters, tea rooms and gardens, and the house often stages seasonal art exhibitions among its rooms. It is among the finest traditional houses open to the public in western Japan.

Admission about ¥600 adult (approx., 2026); hours roughly 10:00-17:00, last entry 16:30, closed Wednesdays and some holidays. In Chizu, on the old town's main street. Allow about 75 minutes.

East of Chizu, the small town of Wakasa was another stop on the road toward Harima and the seat of a castle whose ruins crown the mountain above; after fires swept the town it was rebuilt with fire-resistant white storehouses and deep eaves, and a stretch of that townscape is now a nationally designated preservation district. Its quiet streets keep the kura warehouses, a 'storehouse street' and a 'roadside-stream street' where clear water runs along the frontages, and the climb to the castle ruins rewards the energetic with a view over the valley. It is an uncrowded, genuinely lived-in old town, the kind of place few foreign visitors reach, and a fitting end to a day on the inland roads.

Free to stroll; the castle-ruin climb is a separate uphill walk. In Wakasa, about 40 minutes from Chizu. Allow about 75 minutes.

Back in the prefectural capital for the night, Hotel New Otani Tottori is a reliable full-service city hotel a few minutes' walk from JR Tottori Station, well placed for the next day's folk-craft sights clustered nearby and for the city's restaurants. Rooms are comfortable and Western in style, with the dependable service of the New Otani name, and the central location means everything for day two is within an easy walk. Tottori has no international five-star property; this is an honest, well-run upper-midscale base for a culture-focused stay in the city.

An upper-midscale full-service city hotel; rates vary by season, room-only or with breakfast (approx., 2026). A few minutes' walk from JR Tottori Station. The day's final stop and overnight.

Tottori became one of the strongholds of Japan's mingei folk-craft movement through the local doctor and collector Shoya Yoshida, a disciple of the movement's founder Soetsu Yanagi, and the Tottori Folk Crafts Museum he established near the station holds his collection: everyday pottery, lacquer, woodwork, dyed and woven textiles and furniture, both from the San'in region and from Korea, China and the West, chosen for the unsigned beauty of well-made useful things. Housed in a handsome converted building, it is a quiet, thoughtful museum that explains the philosophy behind the local crafts you will see for sale next door. A short, rewarding immersion in the region's living craft tradition.

Admission about ¥500 adult (approx., 2026); hours roughly 10:00-17:00, confirm the weekly closed day. Near JR Tottori Station. Allow about 60 minutes.

Next to the museum stands the Takumi craft shop, founded as part of the same folk-craft revival to sell the work it championed and still trading today, a rare surviving mingei shop where the philosophy is put into practice over the counter. Its shelves hold the regional crafts the museum celebrates as living things to buy and use: Ushinotoya and other San'in pottery in its distinctive green-and-black glazes, dyed and woven cloth, woodwork, washi paper and lacquer, all chosen with the movement's eye for honest, useful beauty. It is the place to take home a genuine piece of Tottori's craft tradition rather than a generic souvenir, and an easy browse beside the museum.

Free to browse; purchases at shop prices. Beside the Folk Crafts Museum near the station; confirm the weekly closed day. Allow about 40 minutes.

Tottori quietly produces some of Japan's most awarded wagyu — Tottori beef won top honours at the national wagyu olympics for its meat quality — and Taiheimon is a long-established charcoal yakiniku house in the city specialising in it, buying by the whole carcass to offer cuts that rarely reach the table elsewhere. You grill the marbled beef yourself over charcoal at the table, from premium loin to lean, deeply flavoured cuts, with the rice and side dishes of a proper yakiniku lunch. It is a satisfying, very local way to taste the prefecture's signature beef, and a fitting close to an inland-culture trip that has been about the things Tottori does well and quietly.

Yakiniku lunch sets roughly ¥1,500-3,500 (approx., 2026); confirm hours and the weekly closed day. In Tottori City; this is the Kumoyama branch. Allow about 75 minutes.