Kyushu · Day Tour
A World Heritage forest, a mud-dyed silk nobody else makes, and almost no visitors.
From
¥49,500 per person
approx. US$313
Free cancellation up to 48 hours before
Instant confirmation
6 hours private tour of Amami Oshima with a car and a local guide. The Kinsakubaru forest, Cape Ayamaru, Yadorihama beach and the island museum, with a keihan lunch in between. Amami sits between Kyushu and Okinawa and was listed as a natural World Heritage site in 2021.
Amami's interior is dense subtropical forest — tree ferns, cycads, cicadas loud enough to talk over. It was inscribed as a natural World Heritage site in 2021 because of what lives in it and nowhere else, including the Amami rabbit, a dark, short-eared animal little changed for millions of years. Kinsakubaru is where you walk into it.
The island is long and narrow and the day crosses it. Cape Ayamaru at the northern end is a coastal park of raised coral with the ocean on three sides. Yadorihama, at the southern tip, is a white beach in a sheltered bay, usually empty. Between them the road runs through forest and mangrove.
Keihan is shredded chicken, egg, pickles and herbs arranged over rice with hot chicken broth poured over at the table. It is the island's dish and it is what everyone eats. The other thing to know about is kokuto shochu, distilled from local brown sugar, which by law can only be made here.
Oshima tsumugi is woven from silk dyed with the bark of a local tree and then buried in iron-rich mud, which turns it a deep black-brown that cannot be reproduced any other way. Each bolt passes through dozens of hands over months. The museum explains it, and once you know what goes into it the price stops being surprising.
Meet your guide at the FamilyMart in Minatomachi.
Subtropical forest, and what lives in it.
Coral coastline and open ocean.
Keihan, the island's chicken and rice dish.
A quiet white-sand beach in the south.
The island's history, music and textiles.
FamilyMart in Minatomachi, Naze, Amami, Kagoshima. Your guide will contact you on WhatsApp beforehand.
Your English-speaking guide and private transportation for the whole day. Lunch, entrance fees and personal spending are separate.
By air from Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Kagoshima or Naha, or by ferry from Kagoshima.
Not in daylight — it is nocturnal. Night wildlife tours run separately and your guide can tell you how to arrange one.
Related but distinctly its own. The forest is denser, the visitor numbers far lower, and the food, textiles and music are Amami's rather than Okinawan.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start time. Bookings are confirmed instantly.
Kyushu · Day Tour
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