🦊 Animals

Okunoshima (Rabbit Island)

📍 Hiroshima, Takehara

A small island in the Inland Sea overrun by hundreds of friendly wild rabbits — and a sobering secret past as a hidden poison-gas factory the maps once deliberately erased.

A fifteen-minute ferry from the Hiroshima coast lands you on Okunoshima, where the welcoming committee is several hundred wild rabbits that will hop straight into your lap at the rustle of a food bag.

Why It’s Interesting

The contrast is unforgettable. The island is a fluffy, joyful free-for-all — and also a place that was literally erased from maps. From the 1920s, Japan secretly manufactured chemical weapons here; the ruins of the gas factory still stand, and a small museum tells the difficult story honestly. The rabbits, descended from animals released after the war, now blanket the island.

Best Time to Visit

Spring and autumn are the most comfortable. Summer is hot but popular with families; the rabbits are active year-round.

Getting There

Take the JR Kure Line to Tadanoumi, walk to the pier, and hop the ferry. Rent a bicycle on arrival to loop the whole island in an afternoon.

🐿️ Cinnamon was here

Field report

Okunoshima is a small island completely overrun by friendly wild rabbits — hundreds of them, bounding at visitors like furry solicitors — and, in the same green quiet, the ruins of the poison-gas factory the wartime maps deliberately erased.

As a fellow small mammal I was received as a colleague, mobbed, sniffed, judged, and eventually accepted into a warren's afternoon lounging session, which I consider a diplomatic achievement of my career. The rabbits are shameless and the humans, laden with pellets from the mainland (buy before the ferry; the island shop sells out), are their willing staff.

Then the museum, small and unflinching, tells the island's dark first act. Hold both: the joy and the history, one island, thirty minutes apart. That's the visit. That's the point.

— Cinnamon 🐿️

📸 Cinnamon's camera roll

Snapshots from our very good boy on the road.

Accepted into a warren's afternoon lounging session after being mobbed, sniffed, and judged — the diplomatic achievement of my career. I was briefly mistaken for a rabbit. Greatest honor of my life.

The small, unflinching museum on the island's dark first act — the poison-gas factory the wartime maps erased. Hold both: the joy and the history.

Rabbits on Okunoshima — Photo via Wikimedia Commons

An avalanche of rabbits hopping eagerly toward the viewer — Hundreds of bunnies. My one job was 'stay calm.' I failed.

Mon-chan and Cinnamon the squirrel surrounded by fuzzy rabbits — So many fuzzy little leaders-in-waiting. I don't like them. Cinnamon adored them.

🦊 Animals 🧒 Kids 🌄 Outdoor 📷 Photography 📜 History 💎 Hidden Gem

Where it is

🛸 Oddity

Nagoro Scarecrow Village

A near-deserted mountain hamlet where life-size handmade scarecrows outnumber the living residents more than ten to one — sitting at bus stops, tending fields, and filling an entire schoolroom.

📍 Tokushima, Miyoshi 🆓 Free ⏱ Half day

🦊 Animals

Aoshima Cat Island

A tiny fishing islet off Ehime where cats outnumber the handful of human residents many times over — no shops, no hotels, no cars, just a sleepy harbor overrun by friendly felines.

📍 Ehime, Ozu 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day

🎨 Art

Naoshima's Yellow Pumpkin

A giant polka-dotted yellow pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama sits at the end of a concrete pier on an art island in the Inland Sea — so beloved it was rebuilt after a typhoon swept it out to sea.

📍 Kagawa, Naoshima 🆓 Free ⏱ ≈ 1 hour

✨ Experience

The Hells of Beppu (Jigoku Meguri)

A tour of seven boiling, steaming, technicolor hot springs you absolutely cannot bathe in — cobalt-blue, blood-red, and one with crocodiles — where the only thing you soak is an egg.

📍 Oita, Beppu 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day

Nearby discoveries

🌲 Nature

Tottori Sand Dunes

Japan's largest sand dunes stretch for kilometers along the Sea of Japan — a pocket desert with camel rides, wind-carved ridges, and sandboarding, hiding a quiet sand museum nearby.

📍 Tottori, Tottori 🆓 Free ⏱ Half day · 177 km away

📜 History

Takeda Castle Ruins — Castle in the Sky

Stone ramparts crown a mountain ridge in Hyogo, and on still autumn dawns a sea of cloud rises around them until the ruins seem to float — Japan's real-life 'castle in the sky.'

📍 Hyogo, Asago 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day · 201 km away

🍁 Autumn

🌲 Nature

Kawachi Fuji Garden Wisteria Tunnel

A private garden near Kitakyushu where two long tunnels drip with wisteria in a hundred shades of violet, pink, and white — a roughly two-week spring spectacle that draws photographers from around the world.

📍 Fukuoka, Kitakyushu 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day · 213 km away

🌸 Spring

🏛️ Museum

Cup Noodles Museum, Ikeda

A shrine to instant ramen on the spot where it was invented — design your own Cup Noodle, walk a tunnel wall of 800 packages, and salute the shed where Momofuku Ando changed dinner forever.

📍 Osaka, Ikeda 🆓 Free ⏱ ≈ 1 hour · 230 km away

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