Nasu Animal Kingdom
📍 Tochigi, Nasu
A sprawling highland zoo where you can hand-feed capybaras, walk among free-roaming birds and alpacas, watch a thrilling raptor flight show — and, in winter, see capybaras soak in their own steaming hot bath.
Up in the cool Nasu highlands, a short hop from the volcano and the hot springs, sprawls one of Tochigi’s most enjoyable family stops: Nasu Animal Kingdom, a zoo built around getting close to the animals.
Why It’s Interesting
It’s hands-on and unhurried — you can hand-feed capybaras, wander among alpacas and free-roaming birds, meet penguins and red pandas, and catch a genuinely thrilling free-flight raptor show where hawks and owls skim the crowd. The signature winter scene is pure Cinnamon Land: a tubful of capybaras soaking in a steaming hot-spring bath, blissfully unbothered, like tiny furry retirees.
Best Time to Visit
Year-round. Summer is pleasantly cool up here; winter brings the famous capybara bath and steam off the warm enclosures.
Getting There
Easiest by car from the Nasu interchange, or by shuttle/taxi from Nasushiobara Station on the shinkansen — a natural anchor for a Nasu highland day.
🐿️ Cinnamon was here
Field report
Nasu Animal Kingdom's winter headline is capybaras soaking in a hot spring with yuzu floating around their enormous calm faces, and I am here to certify: it is exactly as advertised, and better with the sound on — they hum.
Elsewhere the park runs generous: hand-feeding, free-roaming birds and alpacas in the walk-through zones, and a raptor show where a hawk buzzes the crowd low enough to part hair. During the flight demonstration I experienced a moment of ancient, cellular panic (hawk! HAWK!) followed by professional admiration. Both accurate.
It's spread over a highland hillside — shuttle between the two zones, wear real shoes. Winter for the bathing capybaras, any season for the general attitude, which is: animals first, humans lucky. Correct attitude. Full acorns.
— Cinnamon 🐿️
📸 Cinnamon's camera roll
Snapshots from our very good boy on the road.
Where it is
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Nearby discoveries
Nasu Trick Art Museum
Nasu Stained Glass Museum
Nasu Highland Park
Nasu Flower World
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