San'in and Setouchi in 15 days: itinerary and hotels

Name: San'in and Setouchi in 15 days: itinerary and hotels
Brand: Étaperia
Price: 39 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Kylian

Fifteen days on the forgotten coast of the Sea of Japan, from the seven baths of Kinosaki to the dunes of Tottori and the land of the gods at Izumo, then Hiroshima, Miyajima and the six bridges of the Shimanami Kaidō.

Sequenced by Kylian Updated on 5 September 2026

The floating torii of Miyajima at sunset

15 days
46 places
15 nights
sustained pace

Start: Nara
End: Imabari
Main transport: Hire car, essential in the San'in where local trains run infrequently; tram in Hiroshima
Recommended season: April to June and October to November; May, June and October are the best months on the San'in coast, the Inland Sea is good all year; snow crab from November to March

What you get

The complete itinerary: 15 days sequenced Morning / Afternoon / Evening / Hotel
The card of every hotel, with the address and a direct booking link
Quota tickets, fixed-date tickets and surcharges flagged in advance
The country quick guide: weather, transport, formalities, budget
A PDF file of 36 pages

What the price does not include

Flights
Hotel nights
Tickets and admission fees
Travel insurance
On-the-ground assistance during your trip

The travel book preview

The free day in full, with its hotel card. This is the sample.

Day 1

Kinosaki, the town of seven baths

Morning

The road from Nara to Kinosaki

Three and a half hours of driving to the north-west, from the Nara plain to the coast of the Sea of Japan, crossing the Tamba mountains.

Afternoon

The seven public baths

Kinosaki has been a healing town for thirteen centuries: the spring is said to have been discovered in 720 by a monk after a thousand days of prayer. The town, completely destroyed by the 1925 earthquake, was rebuilt identically in wood. The local principle is unique in Japan: the ryokan have small baths, and it is the seven sotoyu of the village that serve as the town's shared bathhouse. Ichi no Yu occupies a building shaped like a kabuki theatre and has a cave bath cut into the rock. Gosho no Yu imitates the imperial palace of Kyoto. Kō no Yu, the oldest, is the one linked to the stork said to have revealed the spring.

Cable car and Onsen-ji

The cable car climbs Mount Daishi for the view over the bay. Halfway up, Onsen-ji, founded in 738, is the temple that protects the springs: pilgrims once had to stop there before they were allowed to bathe, and custom still has it done today.

Evening

Tour of the seven baths in a yukata

After dinner, the canal lights up with lanterns and the whole village is out and about: the clack of geta on the cobbles carries from one bridge to the next well into the night. Two or three sotoyu in the evening are enough, finishing at the Kō no Yu, which stays open the latest.

Good to know

The ryokan provides a yukata, geta and the pass giving free access to the seven baths. Each bathhouse has its own closing day, different from the others: check the list on arrival. Tattoos are turned away at several of the seven.

€39 incl. tax

that is €2.60 per day of travel

Secure payment through Stripe, bank card, Apple Pay and Google Pay
Available immediately in your customer account: online reading with clickable booking links, downloadable PDF for offline use
Method: what is checked, and when

A hotel in the itinerary closed or impossible to find, a place to visit permanently closed?

Within 12 months of purchase, email contact@etaperia.com

Itinerary corrected within 7 days, or refunded in full. Terms in article 12 of the T&Cs, on top of the legal warranty (new tab)

€39 incl. tax · 15 days

Buy

A question before buying? Email Kylian, reply within 48 working hours.

The day-by-day rundown

15 stops, 720 km as the crow flies

Day 1 Kinosaki, the town of seven baths Kinosaki, the town of seven baths Free
Day 2 Basalt, soba and the bridge of heaven Genbudō Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 3 The village where the houses stand with their feet in the water Chion-ji, View Land and Nariai-ji Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 4 The Tottori dunes Tottori dunes Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 5 Matsue, the black castle and Japan's finest garden Matsue Castle Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 6 Izumo, where the gods gather Izumo Taisha Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 7 The silver mine, then Hagi Iwami Ginzan Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 8 The torii above the sea and the blue island Nagamachi, the reverberatory furnace and Tōkō-ji Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 9 The Akiyoshi karst and the Kanmon Strait Akiyoshidō and the Akiyoshidai plateau Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 10 Iwakuni's wooden bridge, then Hiroshima Kintai-kyō Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 11 The Peace Memorial Genbaku Dome Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 12 Miyajima, the shrine island Itsukushima-jinja Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 13 Fukuyama and the port of Tomonoura Fukuyama Castle and museums Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 14 Onomichi, the town of stairways Senkō-ji and its cable car Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
Day 15 The Shimanami Kaidō, six bridges and seven islands The Shimanami Kaidō, six bridges and seven islands Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF

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Country quick guide and logistics

The essentials of the country, scannable in ten seconds.

Weather and when to go

The San'in coast is grey and rainy for much of the year, with snow in winter at Kinosaki and Tottori: May, June and October are the best months.
The Inland Sea, by contrast, is one of the sunniest regions in Japan, sheltered on both sides by mountains.
Kinosaki's snow crab is in season from November to March, and the ryokan are then booked out months ahead.

Transport and permits

The Sea of Japan coast is the least populated region of Honshū: pleasant roads, light traffic, but petrol stations are scarce and close early, and mobile coverage is thin in the mountains between Izumo and Hagi. A car is essential, since local trains run infrequently.
In Hiroshima, by contrast, the tram covers everything.
Two visits depend on the tide: the Miyajima torii, ideally seen at both states within the same day, and the Kurushima whirlpools, more spectacular on the ebb tide.

Formalities and safety

Valid passport, no visa for a tourist stay of 90 days maximum. This stage belongs to the second stay of the Japanese route, the eighty-six-day one. French driving licence plus an official Japanese translation for the car.
The Hiroshima memorial museum is a hard visit, especially the first room: leave room in the rest of the day, and do not follow it straight away with another demanding site. The ceremony on 6 August draws tens of thousands of people.
Each of Kinosaki's seven baths has its own closing day, different from the others, and tattoos are turned away at several of them.

Budget and meals

Japanese yen. Cash is essential throughout the San'in: many small establishments, temples and rural car parks do not take cards, and ATMs are rare outside the towns.
Indicative meal budget: ¥900 to ¥1,500 at midday, ¥2,000 to ¥3,500 in the evening. Fugu in Shimonoseki and crab in Kinosaki fall outside these ranges.
Left to you: the seven-bath pass outside the ryokan, the funiculars and cable cars, the Adachi Museum, Akiyoshidō, the Ine boat, the ferry and visitor tax for Miyajima, and the Shimanami tolls.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly do I receive?

Your Étaperia itinerary, available immediately in your customer account after payment: readable online with clickable booking links, and downloadable as a PDF for the trip. Every day is sequenced Morning / Afternoon / Evening, with the hotel for each night, its address and its booking link, and timed-entry tickets flagged in advance.

How is this better than what an AI gives me?

A generative AI composes a plausible list in seconds, without saying what was checked or when. At Étaperia, every itinerary is sequenced by hand, place by place, with the booking constraints spotted before it is too late to get them. The Method page says what is checked, against which source and on what date.

Can I adapt it to my dates and my pace?

Yes. The days are self-contained blocks: you can shift the departure, stretch a stage or skip a day without breaking what follows. Only timed-entry tickets require adjusting the dates accordingly, and they are all flagged.

What if a hotel or a place in the itinerary has closed?

Email contact@etaperia.com within 12 months of your purchase. If a hotel in the itinerary is closed or can no longer be found, or a place to visit has closed permanently, the itinerary is corrected in your customer account within 7 days, or you are refunded in full. A hotel fully booked on your dates, a seasonal closure or a change in opening hours or prices is not covered. This guarantee comes on top of the legal warranty of conformity; details in article 12 of the terms and conditions of sale.

Who is selling you this itinerary

Kylian, sole trader, SIRET 927 587 709 00035
Consumer mediator: ANM Consommation
Payment handled by Stripe: Étaperia never sees your card number
Publisher, not a travel agency: you book flights, hotels and tickets yourself

In the same country

This module is one leg of the full itinerary: Japan itinerary: 86 days across Kyoto, Shikoku and Kyūshū, hotels and bookings

For a first trip to the country, see instead: Hokkaido in 14 days: Japan's great north from Sapporo to Hakodate

The complete itinerary

The classic itineraries

Or take it one module at a time

To read before you go

Our articles about Japan

Japan

The San'in coast and Shikoku: Japan without the crowds

Two hours from Miyajima, the Sea of Japan coast lines up seven village baths, sixteen kilometres of dunes and a shrine where you clap four times instead of twice.

25 September 2026 Read the article

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