Every first timer to Japan should see Tokyo and Kyoto, and for good reason. Kyoto is Japan’s most historically significant city, home to the imperial court for more than 1,000 years. Tokyo is its modern counterpart, buzzing with energy and so packed with museums, colorful neighborhoods, and experiences that I can’t help but go full throttle until finally I need to remove myself from temptation and escape to rural Japan. Aomori Prefecture fits the bill.
Just three hours north of Tokyo on the Shinkansen bullet train yet far from the crowds making the Tokyo-Kyoto jaunt, Aomori Prefecture offers spectacular mountain scenery, hot springs in abundance, lakes, waterfalls, hiking trails, historic sites, mountain lodges, serious snowfall, and a heavy dose of cultural activities.
Among Japanese, Aomori Prefecture is most famous for its apples (more than half of the country’s apples are grown here) and festivals.
What to know about Aomori Prefecture
Aomori Prefecture is one of six prefectures that comprise the vast northern expanse of Honshu Island known as Tohoku. Tohoku has long been heralded as Japan’s deep, snowy north, which, coupled with rugged mountainous terrain, has isolated the region and helped preserve its traditions through generations.
Because Tohoku doesn’t have the famous historic treasures that lure travelers to Kyoto and southern Honshu, it’s easily overlooked by most international tourists. That makes Aomori a good choice not only for repeat visitors who have already seen Japan’s most famous destinations but also for those seeking a laid-back, authentic experience far from the madding crowds.
If you’ve been tracking the recent stupendous rise of international visitors to Japan, you might know that a record-breaking 42.7 million foreign tourists came in 2025. That’s more than double the 19.7 million who came just a decade earlier. [In the mid-1980s, when I traveled around the country to research and write the first edition of a Frommer’s Japan guide, fewer than 3 million foreigners made their way to Japan every year.]
Of the 42.7 million international visitors to Japan last year, only about 2 million visited Tohoku. Of those, fewer than 400,000 foreign visitors spent the night in Aomori, Japan’s eighth-largest prefecture. Maybe it’s because forests cover almost 70% of the 3,724 square-mile prefecture. Maybe it’s because only 1.2 million people live there. My kind of place.
Getting to Aomori Prefecture
The easiest way to get to Aomori is by Shinkansen, which takes three hours from Tokyo and six hours from Kyoto before continuing north under a tunnel to Hokkaido Island. A Japan Rail Pass is usually the cheapest option if you’re planning to travel more than just one long round-trip stretch, with the JR East Pass your best bet for exploring Tohoku.
You might consider splurging on GranClass, which offers its own Gold Lounge waiting room at Tokyo Station and a dedicated passenger car with plusher seats, complimentary amenity sets, free drinks ranging from coffee to wine, and even light Japanese and Western meals that change with the seasons. It’s like flying first class, but with a view.
Visiting Aomori City
Aomori City, capital of Aomori Prefecture, has about 265,000 residents and serves as a major port. Moored in the bay near Aomori Station is the Hakkoda-Maru, a retired ferry and one of several I took before the Seikan Tunnel extended train travel between Honshu and Hokkaido islands in 1988.
Aomori Nebuta Festival
Aomori City is most famous for its Aomori Nebuta Festival, held annually from August 2 to August 7 as one of Japan’s largest summer festivals. Although no one knows the festival’s exact origins, popular theory says it started about 300 years ago to help farmers stave off “sleep demons,” those pesky spirits that made workers too drowsy to perform their duties during the busy summer season.
To that end, 20 massive lantern floats called nebuta are paraded through the streets, decorated with colorful and––perhaps to the eyes of feudal-era peasants––fearful depictions of demons, samurai, and mythical figures like dragons. Most surprising to me is that nebuta artisans handcraft their masterpieces anew every year, creating massive hollow structures of wire and wood before covering them with Japanese paper and painting designs that pop when lit from within.
Drummers, flutists, and approximately 44,000 colorfully dressed haneto dancers accompany the nebuta through the city. What makes the Aomori Nebuta Festival fun–and probably why it attracts around 2 million people a year–is that anyone can be a haneto dancer. All you have to do is wear the requisite haneto costume, which you can buy or rent, and jump right in. Oh, you should also be able to hop and bounce around for about two hours. The festival culminates on the last night with a huge fireworks display.
If you can’t make it to the festival in August, the next best thing is right across from Aomori Station: the Nebuta Museum Wa Rasse.
In addition to displays about the history of the festival, videos of the parade, and explanations of how nebuta are made, floats from the previous year are on display, along with cutaways so you can peer inside and see their construction. The museum also stages daily music and dance performances related to the festival, along with the chance to try your hand at playing the drums or cymbals. You can even practice that energetic haneto dance.
Other nearby attractions
I should mention that next door to the museum is A-FACTORY, a shopping complex dedicated to Aomori’s love affair with apples. It’s a great place to pick up souvenirs, from sweets to apple cider produced in-house, not to mention a variety of apples.
For a meal, there’s no better experience than the nearby Aomori Gyosai Center (also known as Furukawa Fish Market). I’ve never seen a place quite like this: an old-fashioned market (open since 1965) that lets you create your own meal. First you purchase a set of tickets, one of which you exchange for a Nokkedon (rice bowl). For toppings, you stroll through three aisles lined with some 30 vendors, exchanging a ticket or two for incredibly fresh seafood, sashimi, and vegetables. I love this place so much, I’d come to Aomori City just to eat here.
Easy side trips outside Aomori City
After a day or two you’ll want to wander outside the city, especially because there’s a World Heritage Site just 30 minutes by bus from Aomori Station.
Sannai Maruyama Site
While the Sannai Maruyama Site is just one of 17 archaeological sites listed since 2021 as UNESCO’s Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, it’s the largest and most complete. Excavated sites, reconstructed buildings, and a museum bring the ancient settlement to life. There’s something spiritual about walking the grounds of a people that thrived from 3,900 B.C. to 2,200 B.C.
The sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherer Jomon society came onto the scene about 15,000 years ago. It remained pre-agrarian for thousands of years, probably because of the natural riches afforded by northern Japan’s nut-bearing trees and coastal waterways and because of how attuned the Jomon were to their changing environment. The discovery of buried homes, burial grounds, ceremonial sites, and pits have yielded artifacts ranging from pottery to objects made of stone and antlers.
The Sannai Maruyama Site came to light in the 1990s during construction of a would-be baseball stadium, revealing a settlement of about 500 people whose ancestors had inhabited this spot for an amazing 1,700 years. Three kinds of dwellings have been discovered, including those with bark or thatched roofs and about 300 sod houses. Other finds include 800 burial jars for children, storage pits, quarries for mining clay used in making pots, dumping grounds, and 500 adult graves that were placed along both sides of a road, as though facing each other.
Several dwellings have been reconstructed to demonstrate how Jomon lived, including 15 pit buildings dug into the ground, pillar-supported buildings raised off the ground, a large meeting hall, and a sturdy wooden structure almost 50 feet tall secured using vines and pegs instead of nails. A museum delves more deeply into Jomon history and society, displaying 1,700 items excavated from the site.
I think one of the preconceptions the Sannai Maruyama Site wants to dispel is that, though the Jomon might have been prehistoric, they weren’t primitive. Jade from elsewhere confirms that this was a major distribution center. They fashioned jewelry and clay figurines as a means for self-expression. One of its buildings capitalizes on the summer solstice, just like England’s Stonehenge and Mexico’s Chichen Itza’s pyramid.
But most fascinating to me? The fact that recovered skeletons show no signs of trauma or war, suggesting that the Jomon were a peaceful people. No one knows why the settlement was ultimately abandoned, but I’d say 1,700 years of existence is pretty darn good.
Making your own miso
Another great thing to do near Aomori City is to visit Kanesa Co., founded in 1875 and known for its own Tsugaru Miso, considered especially tasty because of the region’s pure underground water and techniques that have been passed down for generations (Tsugaru is a geographic region covering the western part of Aomori Prefecture). Kanesa offers a free tour of its factory, where English signs explain everything you need to know about how soybeans, rice, and salt are turned into miso.
Kanesa is especially proud of its invention: a granulated miso that lasts a long time (at least three years) without losing its flavor and which can be used just like regular miso. Although you can purchase several kinds of miso at Kanesa’s retail shop, the obvious choice is to make your own.
To make my miso, I was given a plastic bag containing steamed soybeans, which I kneaded and mashed for what seemed like forever before I finally succeeded in turning it into a paste.
I then added rice mold, salt, and yeast before mixing it and placing the miso into a plastic container, which I brought home in my checked luggage. I let it ferment at room temperature for a couple of months (the length depends on the season: one month in summer and up to four months in winter) before putting it in the refrigerator. Miso can last a year, if not longer; I’ve been adding it to soups and as a marinade for salmon. But I also brought Kanesa’s granulated miso for good measure, to ensure I’d have a taste of Aomori for years to come.
Exploring Aomori Prefecture
There’s a lot more to do in Aomori Prefecture than what I’m able to include here, but these should get you off to a good start.
Hirosaki Castle Town
Less than an hour’s ride by local train from Aomori City, Hirosaki is a former castle town established by the first Tsugaru feudal lord in the early 1600s. But unlike most other castle towns from Japan’s feudal era, the castle in Hirosaki has stood the test of time, making it one of just 12 original castles remaining in Japan. Wars, natural disasters, and edicts through the centuries destroyed the rest, though some have been reconstructed like those in Osaka and Nagoya (for more on Japan’s castles, read my blog: Exploring Japan’s Famous Castles–A Journey Through History and Time).
Hirosaki Castle, which boasts a castle keep (under restoration until 2032), three turrets, five castle gates, and triple moats, is considered one of Japan’s top spots for viewing cherry blossoms, proudly brought to you by 2,600 cherry trees of more than 50 varieties. Some of these cherry trees are 100 years old, trained by horticulturists to produce more clusters of blossoms per bud than usual, raising them to celebrity status. Naturally, this calls for a celebration, with the Hirosaki Cherry Blossom Festival held annually from the end of April to early May (for more about cherry blossoms and where to see them, see my blog Japan’s Cherry Blossoms).
Hirosaki also stages its own Nebuta festival the first week in August, except here it’s called the Hirosaki Neputa Festival and features some 80 fan-shaped lanterns that are smaller than those in Aomori City. Legend says the first Hirosaki Neputa Festival was held in 1720 in hopes of quelling an epidemic. If you can’t make it to the festival, Neputa Village displays some of its neputa floats, offers musical performances centered on the local Tsugaru shamisen, and has a restaurant serving regional specialties as well as a Japanese garden.
There’s also a section where artisans produce local crafts, including paper goldfish and apple-shaped ceramic bells. Best of all, you can choose to decorate a craft of your own. I chose to paint a clay whistle in the shape of a pigeon; its plaintive coo sounds way better than my amateurish creation might suggest.
Visitors interested in Aomori crafts should also stop by the Hirosaki Kogin Institute, dedicated to a local embroidery tradition born about 300 years ago in response to the prefecture’s harsh winters. Back then, the shogun controlled daily life, so much so that samurai warriors, merchants, and peasants were all bound by restrictions based on class, from where they could live to what they could eat and wear.
Only nobility were allowed to wear fine silk, while peasant farmers could wear only coarse, loosely woven hemp. To protect against Aomori’s cold climate, women reinforced their family’s clothing by adding cotton stitching, which eventually evolved into elaborate geometric patterns called Kogin-zashi. Today Kogin-zashi is used to decorate neckties, handbags, coasters, and other items, for sale at the Hirosaki Kogin Institute and souvenir shops around the prefecture.
You should also make time to explore a couple historic districts. Southwest of Hirosaki Castle is the Zenringai temple area, founded in 1610 when the second Tsugaru feudal lord ordered all Zen temples from the entire Tsugaru region to be relocated here to protect his castle. It’s now home to 33 temples , most of them along a cedar-lined avenue that culminates in Choshoji Temple.
Kuroishi
For another historic district that harks back to the Edo Period (1603–1868), head to Kuroishi, a nearby village of about 31,000 inhabitants. Kuroishi, too, has its own neputa festival, held the first week of August. By now you might have guessed that Aomori Prefecture has lots of nebuta/neputa festivals—in fact, there are more than 40 of them! The one in Aomori City, however, is the largest and most famous.
Kuroishi’s delightful historic district centers on Nakamachi Komise Street, lined with feudal-era wooden buildings that feature something I’ve never seen before: overhanging eaves that extend over the sidewalk to shield pedestrians from the elements. This architectural component is so rare, it earned Komise a place in Japan’s list of the best 100 streets in the country.
Be sure to drop by the Matsu no Yu Community Center, formerly a public bathhouse that now serves as a tourist information and community center, where you can pick up a brochure and map in English that will direct you to shops along Komise Street.
These include two sake manufacturers, the only ones remaining from the 30 or so that used to be here. Nakamura Kamekichi was established in 1913 and displays what is said to be Japan’s largest cedar ball hanging out front (cedar balls are trademarks of sake factories). In fact, it’s so famous, it was featured in a well-known Japanese TV drama.
I was also happy to come across Idodori, a boutique that sells one-of-a-kind fans, table-top lanterns, and framed art, all crafted from paper used for floats in Kuroishi’s Neputa Festival. In other words, recycled artwork! When I learned that I could make my own lantern, choosing from an abundance of colorful neputa paper, I was all in. So even though I visited in winter, I was able to take home a part of Aomori Prefecture’s famous neputa/nebuta festivals (for more on joining Japanese workshops, see my article, Learning about Japanese Culture One Handicraft at a Time).
Highlights of Aomori Prefecture’s Natural Beauty
Aomori Prefecture is blessed with parks, forests, mountains, natural hot springs, and clear streams. Its largest wildlife sanctuary is the 500-square-mile Shirakami Sanchi, a World Heritage Property straddling Aomori and Akita prefectures and boasting the largest remaining primeval beech forest in East Asia.
Towada-Hachimantai National Park
Equally famous is Towada-Hachimantai National Park, which occupies 330 square miles and is shared by three prefectures. In Aomori Prefecture, the predominant landscape is curated by the Hakkoda Mountains, marked by more than 20 volcanoes and forests of beech and Japanese pine.
Famous for its heavy snowfall, powdery snow, low humidity, and low temperatures, it’s a mecca for winter sports ranging from skiing to snowshoeing to snow hiking from December to May. It’s also famous for its snow monsters, created when ice crystals and snow coat trees and (with a little imagination) make them look like otherworldly creatures on the move.
In summer, hikers come for the mountain peaks and foothills sprinkled with lakes, bogs, marshes, hot springs, and other scenes of striking beauty.
Summer or winter, one of the park’s biggest draws is the Hakkoda Ropeway, about 40 minutes west Hirosaki and one hour from Aomori. Two ski runs have a length of a little more than three miles. Hiking trails range from 30-minute walks to to five-hour treks.
Lake Towada
Another gem of Towada-Hachimantai National Park is Lake Towada, Japan’s third-deepest crater lake formed 200,000 years ago by volcanic eruptions. Its 27-mile undulating coastline is marked by capes, inlets, wooded cliffs, and beech and maple trees that put on a spectacular show in autumn.
According to a 1,200-year-old legend, Towadako (as it’s called in Japanese) is protected by a blue dragon, who came to the lake as a monk. After successfully defeating a lake serpent and marrying the beautiful female dragon of Towadako, the monk transformed into a dragon and was granted eternal life. Nowhere is this legend of the blue dragon felt more deeply than at peaceful Towada Shrine, founded in 807 and closely associated with the ancient Tohoku belief in water gods.
Surrounded by giant cedars and boasting marvelous woodcarvings of animals, the shrine is famous for fortune-telling. According to popular lore, if you buy a piece of paper and throw it into the lake, your wish will come true if the paper sinks.
Towadako is considered one of Tohoku’s least-spoiled lakes, but that hasn’t hindered the sightseeing boats that have long plied the waters between the lakeside villages of Yasumiya and Nenokuchi. I’m sorry to say that they’re now joined by motorboats, as well as rubber rafts, and canoes. This, I guess, is the way of the world; motor boats also mar the tranquility of famous sightseeing spots Matsushima Bay and Itsukushima Shrine.
Oriase Stream
The only river that flows out of Towadako is Oriase Stream, beginning at Nenokuchi and continuing 40 miles to the Pacific Ocean. The clear-running, gurgling mountain stream courses over moss-covered boulders and waterfalls in a gorge hemmed in by a dense forest of ferns, Japanese beech, oaks, maples, and other broad-leaved trees, transforming it into a kaleidoscope of color in autumn.
An eight-mile hiking path parallels Oriase Stream from Nenokuchi to Yakeyama. However, I suggest starting downstream in Yakeyama or one of several other bus stops between the two and then walking towards the lake so that you are afforded the best views of cascading rapids (yes, disappointingly, a road also runs along the stream, but the pathway often diverges from the road, and the roar of swift-running water and waterfalls masks the sound of vehicles).
Oriase is one of my favorite spots in Japan, so imagine my disappointment when heavy snowfall closed access during my last year’s visit. But that’s about the only thing that could keep me away. I remember a busy schedule some years ago that dictated I spend the day inspecting hotels, Japanese inns, and restaurants for Frommer’s Japan. The only glimpses I had of Oirase Stream and its inviting trail were from the window of a speeding car, and I looked at it longingly, like an addict in rehab. By the time I checked into my hotel, located directly on Oirase Stream, it was 8pm and already dark. I was scheduled to depart the hotel the next morning at 8am.
There was nothing to do but arise the next morning at dawn and hit the trail. As it turned out, I had the trail and stream gloriously to myself. Like many other places in Japan, Oriase has become increasingly popular with hikers and bikers, not to mention buses that disgorge tourists at scenic overlooks. But at the break of dawn, the only other person I encountered was a photographer. It’s for moments like these that I travel, and because being alone in nature is one of the things I love the most, it was like paradise on earth.
Examples of places to stay
I see no reason to come all the way to Aomori Prefecture and not stay in accommodations offering hot-spring baths surrounded by nature. There are many options; the recommendations here are worthy of a splurge.
Oriase Keiryu Hotel is a luxury resort and the only accommodation located right on Oriase Stream. Open-air hot-spring baths, rooms with views of the stream, two restaurants, its own shuttle bus from Aomori and Hachinohe stations, and easy access to Oriase Stream and Towada Lake make this a standout.
I also like Tsuta Onsen, located about halfway up Hakkoda Mountain. Records show that hot-spring resorts have been located here since 1147. The present main building dates from 1918 and is gloriously antique, but updated guestrooms offer either tatami or Western-stye beds.
Also on Hakkoda Mountain is the rambling Hakkoda Hotel, one of Japan’s largest log hotels, made from Canadian red cedar and Oregon pine. While its rooms and hot-spring baths are simpler than the other recommendations here, it offers a delightfully rustic dining room serving French cuisine and Japanese kaiseki. It’s surrounded by the woods of Towada-Hachimantai National Park, making it a delightful place to unwind. During my visit in winter, snow depths reached more than four feet high.
Finally, another place for a splurge is KAI Tsugaru, a contemporary hot-spring Japanese inn located outside Hirosaki. It has all the traditional markings of a Japanese inn, including expansive kaiseki dinners fit for an emperor and spacious tatami rooms decorated with shoji screens and hanging scrolls featuring local Kogin-zashi needlework. Highlights include live Tsugaru shamisen performances and the opportunity to learn Kogin-zashi stitching. But best is the open-air hot-spring bath, which became magical during my nighttime soak with gently falling snow. It doesn’t get any better than this.
If this article on Aomori Prefecture makes you want to learn more about Tohoku, see my articles A Pure Land Inspired by Treachery (about Hiraizumi, published by BBC), Japan’s Iwate Prefecture: Wild, White, and Wonderful (frommers.com), Finding Temples, Hot Springs, and Snow Monsters in Quiet Northern Japan (frommers.com), and Fukushima’s Comeback: This Japanese destination is ready for tourists again (CNN).
Blogs I’ve written about Tohoku for this website include Kakunodate Samurai District Among Best in Japan, Basho’s Journey to the Deep North, and Wanko Soba–Japan’s all-you-can-possibly eat Noodle Restaurants.
