Northern Okayama: Hiruzen's Jersey Highlands, the Sand Bath of Yubara & the Sake Town of Katsuyama — 2 Days

The Hiruzen Highlands are a broad, breezy plateau in the far north of Okayama, grazing country for one of Japan's largest herds of Jersey cattle, set against the rounded Hiruzen peaks and, beyond them, the sacred volcano of Daisen. Hiruzen Jersey Land is the highlands' family hub: a dairy farm and restaurant complex where the rich, golden-yellow Jersey milk becomes soft-serve ice cream, drinks, sweets and barbecue, with the cows themselves in the pastures, a play area and gentle walking trails across the grassland. On a clear day the open, cool, almost alpine setting is a complete change from the lowlands, and the soft-serve here is locally famous. It is an easy, child-friendly first stop and a good place for an early lunch before the afternoon's bath.

Free entry; food and activities charged. Roughly 10:00-17:00 (seasonal). In the Hiruzen Highlands, Maniwa City, about 50 minutes by car from Yubara. Allow about 75 minutes with ice cream or lunch.

A few minutes away, GREENable Hiruzen is a sustainability and culture complex whose centrepiece is the 'Hiruzen no Mori' pavilion, a sweeping curved structure built from CLT — cross-laminated timber — designed by the architect Kengo Kuma and originally created for an exhibition in Tokyo before being reassembled here in the highlands. Around it are a museum with rotating art and design exhibitions on nature and sustainability, a shop of local and eco-minded goods, a cafe, and a base for cycling the highlands on rental bikes. The building itself, all pale curving wood against the green plateau, is the draw, and the mix of contemporary architecture and mountain setting makes a thoughtful counterpoint to the dairy farm next door. A short, interesting stop before dropping down to the hot springs.

Grounds free; museum has paid entry (amount varies by exhibition, approx., 2026). Roughly 09:00-17:00, closed Wednesdays. A few minutes from Hiruzen Jersey Land. Allow about 60 minutes.

Below the great dam at Yubara, hot spring water bubbles up through the gravel bed of the Asahi River, and generations ago the locals walled off three pools right in the riverbed to make the Sunayu, one of Japan's most celebrated free open-air baths — so highly rated it is traditionally ranked the 'west champion' of riverside rotenburo. The pools are open to the sky, free of charge, open around the clock, and overlooked by the dam wall; bathers soak in the steaming water with the river running past and the forested gorge above, a wonderfully elemental experience that costs nothing. It is a mixed-gender bath in the old country style, so come prepared and observe the posted etiquette. A soak here, with the mountains all around, is the rustic heart of a northern Okayama trip.

Free; open 24 hours, closed Wednesday mornings (roughly until midday) for cleaning. A mixed-gender open-air bath; read the posted etiquette. At Yubara Onsen, Maniwa City. Allow about 45 minutes.

East of Yubara, the small riverside resort of Okutsu Onsen has soothed travellers for centuries with its smooth, alkaline 'beauty waters', and the Okutsuso, founded in 1927 and a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, is its most atmospheric inn. Its prized bath, the Kagiyu, is fed by a source that wells up directly through the rocks of the riverbed beneath the building, so the water is poured fresh and untreated straight from the ground, with the Yoshii River running just outside the bath windows. A handful of traditional rooms, kaiseki dinners of mountain vegetables, river fish and local beef, and the sound of the water make it a refined, old-Japan retreat. After a day of highlands and a riverbed bath, an evening of source bathing here is the relaxed close to the trip's first day.

An established onsen ryokan and Registered Cultural Property; rates typically include kaiseki dinner and breakfast and vary by season (approx., 2026); reserve well ahead. At Okutsu Onsen, Kagamino Town. The day's final stop and overnight.

Katsuyama was the castle town of a small domain and a river port on the Asahi, and the core of the old town is preserved as Okayama's first townscape preservation district: a street of Edo and Meiji merchant houses, lattice fronts, white walls and storehouses running below the wooded castle hill. Its signature touch is the noren — every shop, studio and home hangs a length of indigo-dyed cloth at its entrance, each individually designed and hand-dyed by a local textile artist, so the whole street is curtained in unique fabric panels that flutter in the breeze. The lanes hold craft studios, cafes, a soy-sauce maker and galleries, and the unhurried, lived-in feel makes it one of the most charming small towns in the prefecture. A gentle morning's wander before the brewery and the castle.

Free to walk; shops mostly roughly 10:00-17:00, closing days vary. In Maniwa City, about 40 minutes by car from Okutsu. Allow about 60 minutes.

On Katsuyama's old main street, the Tsuji Honten brewery has made sake under the Gozenshu label since 1804, its name meaning the sake once presented to the lord of the domain. The brewery is known across Japan for its young female master brewer, one of relatively few women to lead a traditional sake house, and for reviving an old single-step brewing method using only locally grown Omachi rice. Behind the lattice front, a renovated brewery shop and a stylish cafe-bar let visitors taste a flight of the house sake — crisp, dry, food-friendly styles alongside experimental bottles — buy direct, and see the brewing courtyard. It is an approachable, contemporary introduction to Japanese sake in a beautiful old building, and a highlight of a Katsuyama morning even for those who only sip.

Shop and tasting walk-in (tasting fee applies); formal brewery tours by advance booking. Roughly 09:00-17:00, closing day varies. On the Katsuyama preservation street. Allow about 45 minutes. Mind drink-driving rules — have the non-driver taste, or use the cafe.

Tsuyama, the main town of the northern Mimasaka region, was once crowned by one of the three great flatland-hill castles of Japan, and although the keep and turrets were dismantled in the Meiji period, the castle's astonishing stone walls survive almost complete — tier upon tier of beautifully fitted masonry climbing the hill in great curving ramparts, among the most impressive stonework of any castle in the country. The grounds, now Kakuzan Park, are planted with around a thousand cherry trees and rank among western Japan's finest blossom spots in early April, while a single reconstructed turret, the Bitchu Yagura, can be entered for a sense of the lost castle. Climbing the layered walls to the top bailey, with the town spread below and the mountains beyond, is a satisfying, airy walk and the high point of a Tsuyama afternoon.

About ¥310 adult (approx., 2026); roughly 08:40-19:00 (shorter in winter). In central Tsuyama, about 40 minutes by car from Katsuyama. Allow about 60 minutes. Spectacular and busy in cherry-blossom season in early April.

Below the castle on the east side of Tsuyama, the Joto district is a long, well-preserved street of the old castle town, designated an Important Preservation District: more than a kilometre of Edo and Meiji merchant houses, latticed shopfronts, plastered storehouses and old shrines along what was once the San'in-bound highway. Quieter and less commercialised than many preservation streets, it has a sake brewer, an old pharmacy, a former lamp-oil merchant's house open as a museum, and the small Tsuyama 'Western-style learning' museum recalling the town's surprising tradition of Dutch-studies scholars. A stroll here, with the castle walls rising behind, makes a calm, authentic final stop and rounds out two days in the cool, cultured north of Okayama before the drive back south.

Free to walk; individual museums charged. In eastern Tsuyama, a short drive or 20-minute walk from the castle. Allow about 60 minutes including a museum or lunch.