HOKURIKU
ISHIKAWA, TOYAMA & FUKUI
MAY 2027
Duration
Group Size
11 nights / 12 days
May 2027
Dates TBC
Max 6 guests
Min 2 guests
Starting Point
Ending Point
Kanazawa
Ishikawa Prefecture
Kanazawa
Ishikawa Prefecture
Train Access
Tokyo: ~3 hours
Kyoto/Osaka: ~2 hours
Price
Estimated
AUD $8,000 - $11,000
Final price TBC
Hokuriku sits on the far side of Japan's mountains, which means this stretch of the Sea of Japan coast has been left to do its thing without much outside interference for a very long time. The result is a region that has been making things — sake, swords, bronze, lacquerware, paper, knives, ceramics — at a level that is hard to find anywhere else in the country.
The trip starts in Kanazawa, where we visit a working swordsmith and sit in Japan's oldest operating sake brewery, before heading north into Toyama, where the deep cold waters of the bay draw a squid that glows and 400 years of bronze casting produced most of Japan's cast metal goods. We cross the mountains through gassho farmhouses, nestled into river valleys that saw almost no outside traffic for centuries. We'll pass through a well-preserved Edo castle town tucked into the Fukui foothills, before spending three days in Echizen, home to one of Japan's six ancient kiln traditions, 1,500-year-old papermaking villages, sea cliffs, and a knife-forging town. The trip winds down in the hot spring towns of Kaga, where Kutani porcelain, lacquerware, and a moss-covered cliff temple round out one of the most quietly extraordinary regions in Japan.
The tour will be led by Michael, who has been travelling and eating his way through Japan since 2007, including time living there, and speaks Japanese.
TRIP HIGHLIGHTS
THE CRAFT OF HOKURIKU
Nowhere in Japan has a higher concentration of living craft traditions than this stretch of coast and its mountain hinterland. In Kanazawa we sit in with a working swordsmith and visit Fukumitsuya, a sake brewery founded in 1625 that is still producing in the same location today. In Takaoka, the Nousaku workshop lets you pour molten tin into a sand-cast mould and walk out with a sake cup you made yourself. In Fukui's Echizen district we visit working potters from one of Japan's six ancient kiln traditions, watch washi paper being drawn from a vat using techniques unchanged for 1,500 years, and spend time at Takefu Knife Village alongside the smiths who supply professional kitchens across Japan. The trip ends in Kaga, where we paint Kutani porcelain and visit the lacquerware workshops in Yamanaka, regarded as some of the finest in the country.
THE FOOD OF HOKURIKU
Hokuriku's food is some of the most distinctive in Japan, and most of it never travels far from where it's made. Toyama Bay is one of the deepest in Japan, and the cold water welling up from the seafloor produces fish of unusual quality, including hotaru ika — firefly squid — a species so specific to this bay that there's an entire museum dedicated to them in Himi. The squid bioluminesce, and we'll learn why the bay draws them in such numbers, before eating them. Kanazawa's fish markets carry nodoguro, snow crab, and prized sea bream from the Noto Peninsula. We'll move through the region's fermented food culture too — sake at multiple points on the route, and the age-old relationship between preserved seafood and the mountain passes that connected this coast to the inland cities.
WILD HOKURIKU
The mountain drive from Toyama to Fukui is one of those routes that makes you glad you're not on a bus. We drop south through the Sho River valley into Gokayama, a cluster of thatched gassho farmhouse villages surrounded by rice paddies with far fewer visitors than the more famous Shirakawa-go. We continue through mountain valleys and emerge in Ono, a well-preserved Edo castle town in the Fukui foothills where morning mist sometimes wraps the hill so completely the castle appears to float. On the Fukui coast, Tojinbo is a kilometre of columnar basalt sea cliffs, the rock stacked in hexagonal columns dropping straight into the Sea of Japan. It's one of only three places in the world with this specific formation.
THE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL
Himi, on the Toyama coast, has a museum dedicated entirely to a single species of squid that glows blue in the dark and only appears in this bay in large numbers due to the unusual geometry of the seafloor. Right next door is the Himi Showa-kan, a museum of mid-20th century Japanese daily life with a fully recreated 1960s public bathhouse built inside it. In Inami, 200 woodcarvers work within earshot of each other, the sound of chisels on cedar audible from the road. It’s a sound the Japanese government has formally listed as one of the country's 100 Soundscapes to Preserve. And Sabae, a city that produces over 90 percent of Japan's eyeglass frames, has quietly built an entire culture around this very specific claim to fame.
SACRED AND HISTORIC SITES
Eiheiji is one of the two head temples of Soto Zen Buddhism, a working monastery with resident monks in active training, set in old-growth cedar forest thirty minutes from Fukui City. The forest alone is worth the trip. In Fukui City, Ichijodani is the excavated ruins of a major Sengoku-era castle town destroyed by Oda Nobunaga in 1573 and left largely undisturbed since, one of the few places in Japan where you get a physical sense of what a complete pre-modern town actually looked like. In Kaga, Natadera is a 1,300-year-old temple built into a moss-covered cliff riddled with caves, the path through it less a garden walk than a navigation of rock that people have been finding their way through for a thousand years.
GET OFF THE EATEN TRACK WITH US
Want to know more? Here's how it works.
Register your interest using the form and we'll be in touch to set up a quick call, a chance to answer your questions and give you a deeper look at what the trip involves. From there, a 25% non-refundable deposit secures your spot. The remaining balance is due 60 days before departure. Check our full T&Cs here.
The full day-by-day itinerary and accommodation guide are coming soon, and formal bookings will open then. In the meantime, our FAQ covers everything from what's included to our cancellation policy.
We’ll be traveling around by van, which is the only way to reach some of the places we're going, so group size is intentionally capped at six.
See our other Japan Tours here.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
General Hokuriku FAQ
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Hokuriku is the collective name for the prefectures lining the Sea of Japan coast on the western side of Japan's central mountain range — primarily Ishikawa, Toyama, and Fukui. The region has historically been isolated enough from the main Pacific coast corridor that it developed its own distinct food cultures, craft traditions, and regional identity. Kanazawa, the largest city, was the seat of the Kaga domain, one of the wealthiest feudal domains outside Edo, and the region's prosperity funded craft traditions that have been running ever since.
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Hokuriku is known for an unusually high concentration of living craft traditions — Kutani porcelain, Wajima and Yamanaka lacquerware, Echizen ceramics and washi paper, Takaoka bronze casting, and Kanazawa gold leaf, among others. The region is also known for exceptional seafood, particularly from Toyama Bay, one of Japan's deepest bays. Kanazawa is often cited as one of Japan's best food cities. The Noto Peninsula, in Ishikawa Prefecture, was designated a UNESCO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System site.
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Toyama Bay produces some of Japan's most prized seafood, including hotaru ika (firefly squid), shiro ebi (tiny white shrimp found almost nowhere else), and buri (yellowtail) caught in winter. Kanazawa's Omicho Market is one of Japan's best fish markets, and the city has a strong culture of kaiseki dining rooted in the Kaga domain's culinary traditions. Fukui is known for its echizen crab, its soba, and Sauce Katsu-don, a local variation on the katsu-don that is the prefecture's unofficial dish. The region also has a strong sake culture, with Kanazawa home to several significant breweries.
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Spring and autumn are the best seasons. May is an excellent time to visit — the rice paddies in the mountain villages are being planted, the cedar forest at Eiheiji is at its most vivid, and the weather is mild before the summer humidity sets in. The region also has a strong winter culture, particularly around snow crab season (November to March) and the dramatic winter landscapes of the gassho villages, but road conditions in the mountains can be challenging.
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The Hokuriku Shinkansen connects Tokyo to Kanazawa in approximately three hours, and to Fukui and Tsuruga in around two and a half hours. From Kyoto or Osaka, the journey to Kanazawa takes around two hours by limited express. The tour begins and ends in Kanazawa, which is straightforward to reach from either direction.
Tour FAQ
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The Hokuriku May 2027 tour is estimated at AUD $8,000–$11,000 per person. Final pricing will be confirmed when the full itinerary and accommodation guide are released. For a guide to what's typically included and excluded in OTET tour pricing, see our FAQ page.
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The tour covers Kanazawa in Ishikawa, the Takaoka casting district and Toyama Bay in Toyama, the mountain villages of Gokayama, Fukui City and the Echizen craft district, the Fukui coast at Tojinbo, and the hot spring towns of Kaga. The full day-by-day itinerary is coming soon.
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We generally stay in a mix of three and four star hotels, with at least one stay at an onsen hotel during the trip. We always choose onsen hotels that allow for private bathing, ensuring all guests have a chance to experience an onsen, even if they have tattoos or are uncomfortable with nudity. A full accommodation guide will be published alongside the itinerary.
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Six people fit comfortably in a van. It’s that simple. Travelling as a small group means we can reach places a coach tour never could, eat at restaurants that wouldn't seat big groups, and visit producers who work on a scale that doesn't accommodate large groups.
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The tour is led by Michael Minsky, who has lived in Japan and travelled there regularly since 2007. He’s been been organising and guiding food-focused tours in Japan for years, speaks Japanese and has personal experience of most of the places on this itinerary.
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Register your interest using the form on this page. We'll be in touch to set up a call, answer your questions, and walk you through the trip in more detail. A 25% non-refundable deposit secures your spot, with the remaining balance due 60 days before departure. Full details are in our Terms of Service.