Before we went to Japan, people asked us whether there were camp-sites there. Well, there certainly are. A great many are given in the Touring Mapple guides we used and before leaving, Remy had also found many in openstreetmap.org and put them on the GPS. There were hundreds of them ...
Well, there were, but we hardly used them because:
- they couldn’t be found
- they were so high up that you didn’t want to undertake such a climb at the end of the day
- they were closed (and only opened in the middle of the summer)
- we should have reserved a place (once we weren’t allowed to stay on a nearly empty site because we hadn’t reserved a place three days before ...)
- they had no showers or toilets
- the reception closed at 16.00. Arriving at 18.00 is no good, even if the personnel is still around and you tell them you have cycled 100 kilometres and are tired and don’t know where else to go and feel sorry for yourself and ...
There are also places you think are campsites but are not sure ...
Sites with owners and a Reception were rare, at least we only had a few. However, the sites are very cheap, as you can see from examples of the ‘real’ ones (further on this page).
As one is allowed to camp anywhere and there are many (really many) public lavatories and taps for drinking water everywhere, we often just put our tent up where we liked.
Literally ...
Here is a selection of our camping spots:
(Click on the photos to enlarge)
On the beach:
In a park:
In a (school) playground:
On the side of the road or under a viaduct:
Proper campsites:
Places we thought were campsites:
Other special spots:
