Visiting Naoshima and Teshima: ferries, museums, closed days

To visit Naoshima and Teshima, allow two days, one per island, and place them between Wednesday and Sunday. Most of the museums on Naoshima close on Mondays, those on Teshima on Tuesdays, and the two headline visits, the Chichū Art Museum and the Teshima Art Museum, are only possible with a dated ticket, bought online in advance. You get there by ferry from Takamatsu, on Shikoku, or from Uno, on the Okayama side.

Naoshima is an island of eight square kilometers that used to live off a copper smelter. From 1989, the patronage of the Benesse group turned it into one of the most visited contemporary art sites in the world, with a rule kept ever since: the buildings give way to the landscape, and many are buried. Teshima, its neighbor, is more rural and is visited for a museum that contains only a single work.

How long should you allow on Naoshima and Teshima?

• One day: Naoshima alone. This is the choice when time is short, provided you have your slot at the Chichū.
• Two days: one island a day, the right format. In our Shikoku in 12 days stage, the two islands fill the last two days, from a three-night base in Takamatsu.
• A night on Naoshima: to see the island once the day visitors have left.

Do not try to fit everything in. The Chichū alone takes two hours, and you stay at the Teshima Art Museum longer than you imagined.

Which museums to see, how much do they cost and which need booking?

Prices noted on the official Benesse Art Site website at the time of writing, in October 2026. A ticket bought on the spot costs ¥200 to ¥300 more than the online ticket. Check prices and opening days again before you book.

Place	Island	Weekly closure	Online price	Dated slot
Chichū Art Museum	Naoshima	Monday	¥2,500 on weekdays, ¥2,700 on weekends and on public holidays	Yes, compulsory
Benesse House Museum	Naoshima	None, open from 8:00 to 21:00	¥1,300	No
Lee Ufan Museum	Naoshima	Monday	¥1,200	No
Naoshima New Museum of Art	Naoshima	Monday	¥1,500	No
Art House Project, five-house ticket	Naoshima	Monday	¥1,200	No
Minamidera and Kinza (Art House Project)	Naoshima	Monday	¥600 each	Yes
Teshima Art Museum	Teshima	Tuesday, and from Tuesday to Thursday from December to February	¥1,800	Yes, compulsory
Les Archives du Cœur	Teshima	Same as the Teshima Art Museum	¥600	No

What you need to know about each:

• The Chichū Art Museum, designed by Tadao Andō, is entirely underground and lit by natural light alone. It houses five of Monet’s Water Lilies in a room of white marble, a space by Walter De Maria and three installations by James Turrell.
• The Art House Project occupies seven sites in the village of Honmura, old houses and a shrine entrusted to artists.
• The Naoshima New Museum of Art, opened in spring 2025 on a hill near Honmura, is Andō’s tenth building for Benesse Art Site.
• The Teshima Art Museum is a concrete shell without a single pillar, pierced by two round openings to the sky. A single work, by Rei Naitō: water seeping from the floor in drops that join together.
• Les Archives du Cœur, by Christian Boltanski, brings together recordings of heartbeats in a cabin beside a beach. You can have your own recorded there, for ¥1,570.

Watch out: At the Chichū as at the Teshima Art Museum, if the online tickets are sold out, there are no sales on the spot on the day. Book these two slots first, before the ferry and before the hotel. The other bookings in the country are in what to book in advance in Japan.

Monday on Naoshima, Tuesday on Teshima: the trap of closing days

The well-known trap is Monday, but there are two. On Mondays, Naoshima loses the Chichū, the Lee Ufan Museum, the new museum and the houses of Honmura. On Tuesdays, it is Teshima that closes, and the boat that links the two islands directly does not run that day.

• Monday public holiday: the museums open, and close the following day. The rule also applies to Tuesday on Teshima.
• From December to the end of February: Teshima closes from Tuesday to Thursday.
• Announced maintenance closures: the Chichū from January 12 to March 19, 2027, the Naoshima New Museum of Art from November 24 to December 12, 2026.

A Monday on Naoshima is not entirely lost: the Benesse House Museum opens all year round, and Yayoi Kusama’s two pumpkins are in the open air. But it is not the day you make the crossing for.

How do you get to Naoshima and Teshima by ferry?

Two departure ports, depending on which side you are coming from.

• From Uno (Honshū side): 50 minutes by train from Okayama to Uno on the JR Uno line, a 3-minute walk from the station to the port, then a 20-minute crossing to Miyanoura, the main port of Naoshima, for ¥370. It is the most frequent link, with more than fifteen departures a day.
• From Takamatsu (Shikoku side): about 60 minutes by ferry to Miyanoura for ¥680, or a high-speed boat at ¥1,590. Eight departures a day.
• For Teshima: about 35 minutes by high-speed boat from Takamatsu to the port of Ieura, ¥1,450, with timetables that change according to the day. A ferry also leaves from Uno for Ieura and Karato.
• Between the two islands: a high-speed boat from Miyanoura to Ieura, ¥820, six days out of seven from March to November.

Tip: The ferries are few and cannot be booked. Build each day from the boat timetables, then choose your museum slots, and not the other way round. In busy periods, be at the pier thirty minutes to an hour before departure.

If you are traveling by car, leave it on the mainland: taking it on board is expensive and pointless. Our guide to renting a car in Japan details the rest.

How do you get around on the islands?

On Naoshima, a town bus at ¥100 links the port of Miyanoura, the village of Honmura and the Tsutsuji-sō stop. From there, a free shuttle serves the Benesse House Museum, the Lee Ufan Museum and the Chichū. Bikes can be rented in Miyanoura and Honmura, but they cannot go everywhere: the museum area, between Tsutsuji-sō and the Lee Ufan Museum, is private land closed to bikes, cars and motorcycles, except for guests of the Benesse House hotel.

On Teshima, a shuttle at ¥400 runs on the island, and bikes can be rented at the ports of Ieura and Karato. Their number is limited: the island’s tourist office asks you to call before coming.

Where to stay: on the island or on the coast?

Base	For whom	The trade-off
Takamatsu	Two island days without repacking, both islands by direct link	An hour by ferry to Naoshima
Uno or Okayama	Travelers arriving from Honshū, by train	The shortest and most frequent crossing to Naoshima, and a ferry for Teshima too
Naoshima	Those who want the island in the evening and the morning	You have to take a boat again to see Teshima

Takamatsu is the base our itinerary chooses: by staying near the station, you are a few minutes’ walk from the ferry terminal. On the island, Benesse House is both a museum and a hotel, opened in 1992: its residents enter the museum free of charge and can walk around the galleries at night.

So, how should you organize Naoshima and Teshima?

Take two days, from Wednesday to Sunday, outside winter and its closures. Book the Chichū and the Teshima Art Museum first, then build the rest around the ferry timetables. With a single day, choose Naoshima, and never a Monday.

This program is a suggestion to adapt, not a product: with us, the two islands conclude the Shikoku stage, and the other shore of the Seto Inland Sea, from Hiroshima to the Shimanami Kaidō, is in San’in and Setouchi in 15 days. For the region away from the major sights, read the San’in coast and Shikoku without the crowds, for the season, when to go to Japan, and for all the other regions, the Japan page.