Best Summer Spots in Hokkaido (incl. some off-the-beaten track alternatives!)

Getting familiar with Hokkaido and all of the amazing spots it has to offer can be very tricky when there’s such little information on offer – in English anyways!

What makes things even more limiting is the fact that Hokkaido is more widely known for winter over any other season.  And this is a fair call, as the snow here is pretty unreal.  It’s long, it’s powdery and it’s a wintery wonderland.  But in spite of all that, I believe that all of the seasons in Hokkaido have SO much to give.

After shooting a few days with the Travel Hokkaido team on the road at some of the team’s fav spots, I realised that after 1-year of living in Hokkaido, I had only been to half of them.

Useless..

I thought I’d done my research and tried hard to find some good spots (like the ones we were at) – but why weren’t these places on my list?  Problem was, there was no English info on them.  And even when there was, the pictures weren’t THAT great, and the addresses were shabby as heck.

But even still – there were no visuals of these places!  Which is why I’m SO glad I was able to spend time out at these locations with my camera.

I’m a visual person.  If I’m going to go on a trip somewhere, my immediate go-to is the images section of the google search & instagram.  If these look cool/visually pleasing then that’s where I’m going.  I probably look to those more than I do at the reviews of places to be quite honest.  And the places we went to were GORGEOUS!  And that was on a cloudy day!  They’re even better on a sunny one.  Not only that, but I would say that these are definitely some of the best summer lavender spots in Hokkaido as well.

In saying that, here’s the info that I WISH I had access to prior to my trip WITH the visual aid of the video.

Not all of these locations are explicitly a part of the tours that Travel Hokkaido lists, however they are definitely a place we’d love to travel to more often. Should you want to go to some of the lesser known places (where most tours don’t seem to go to) please ask us about it, we’d love to take you!

At the bottom of the page, I’ve also provided the 2-day itinerary that we followed for the shoot if you’d like to make the journey to each of these places yourself.

Give the video below a watch and look to my list for the shoot locations 🙂

This was the first location that we went to and it is absolutely stunning.  The lavenders were blooming beautifully & in the distance you could see the cityscape of Sapporo.  I feel like this is a great combination of the Furano lavender with the views from Mt Moiwa BUT with no crazy crowds.

The best!!

This is an easy one to integrate into any Sapporo city itinerary (or tour), and if you’re in the area already, why not? 🙂

It’s about 35-45min drive from downtown Sapporo (no public train or bus run to this location).  It’s an easy drive, but some parts can be steep.

(Note: that because there’s a parking gate, it doesn’t allow you to enter by motorcycle)

An awesome place created by the famous Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

The structure really blew me away – the buddha is huge!  It’s as gorgeous as it is from the outside, as it is on the inside, and after showing a lot of my friends pictures of it I couldn’t believe how ‘unknown’ it is.  It was great for us though because there were pretty much zero crowds (on a beautiful day around lunch time?!) so we could really take our time to appreciate it.

Along with the hill of Buddha, covered in beautiful lavender, there is a huge line of Easter Island head statues as you drive through the fenced off area as well which are awesome to take a few pics of.

After living in Sapporo for 1 year, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t come across this place before.  This is another really easy one to integrate into any Sapporo city itinerary (or tour).  You could even do it like us and see a few together on the same day!

By car: 40min drive from downtown Sapporo (again, no public train or bus run to this location).

By train & bus:  From Sapporo station ride the subway about 20mins on the Namboku line (green) to Makomonai station (the end of the line).  From here, catch the 106 bus to the destination bus stop and walk 7mins to the hill of Buddha.  Total trip duration about 55mins, cost 660 yen one-way per person.

All of our kayaking shots were taken here.  What you don’t see in the video though are the beautiful local surrounding shops and park areas around the lake for you to enjoy also.  It’s the perfect day spot out for a picnic.  There’s also a wonderful guest house here (run by the same company that helped us with the kayaking) if you’re keen to spend a night or two here as well!

Unfortunately due to the weather on the day of shooting we weren’t able to go out on to the open lake, but we were still able to paddle through the river portion near Yamasentetsu Bridge 🙂

I’ve been on a clear day, and the water is SO blue and SO clear.  Come with us on one of our Toya tours and we can hopefully show you it in person in all of it’s beautiful glory 😀

About a 2hr drive from Sapporo (once again, no public transport out to this spot!)

This location is like Horomi Pass mixed with Lake Shikotsu – a lake and lavender combo!  I honestly can’t believe this place isn’t more widely known, but I’m happy it isn’t because we got to have the whole place to ourselves 🙂

Right next to the lavender fields is the beautiful Lake Kanayama.  Although it isn’t as big as Shikotsu, it’s still a really beautiful spot for a picnic or for a nice family walk along the sandy edge.

This place is virtually empty of people (especially comparing to some of the other spots in this article) so it’s super easy to get beautiful secluded shots.  If you’re looking for a lavender filled picnic spot, or a quiet place to dip your feet in the water, THIS is it!  You could visit here on your way to the Furano area or integrate into one of our day tours to Furano/Biei  for the most perfect flower filled day 🙂

A scenic 2-2.5hr drive from downtown Sapporo will get you there. Unfortunately because of it’s exclusivity, there’s no public transport to this spot.

Tomita Farm is definitely the most popular, most famous location that we visited during this shoot.  And that’s fair enough because it – is – GORGEOUS!

The space itself is such a large and glorious display of beautiful lavender, and more!  Although lavender is the big attraction here, there are many more flowers on display than pictured.

Because this place is so large and so well kept, with a few souvenir shops and a great number of ice cream stalls scattered along the pathways, it’s definitely a great reward to visit after such a long trip out there.  But be warned, it WILL be busy!  We recommend getting there early in the day before the big tour buses roll on in.  We like to travel on the smaller scale and to visit when there are smaller crowds.  We’d love for you to join us this summer!

By car – About a 2.5hr drive from downtown Sapporo on the Doo Expressway (expressway fee’s will apply!) Exit at the Mikasa IC.

By bus – 2.5hr ride on the Chuo Bus (Kosoku Furano-go) from Sapporo Station bus terminal to Furano Bus Terminal (cost one-way is 2,260yen) then a 25-minute walk (or taxi 5min for about 800 yen).

By train – Two trains must be caught to complete the 2.5hr trip. First a train from Sapporo station to Asahikawa station (1hr25m) and then to Nakafurano station (1hr15m). This way will cost you 5,470 yen for a one-way each. Then a 25-min walk to the location (or a 5min taxi for about 800 yen)

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but this spot actually blew me away.  It’s not quite as big as Tomita farm, but I think it’s by far the prettiest flower fields that we went to.  If you’re a lover of flowers then this is where you want to go.

The layout of the place is what makes it so great – you can be on the higher side of the flower fields and there’s nothing interrupting your vision to see the other flowers and mountains in the distance.  The view is stunning.

As well as the flowers, they also have a cute ‘train’ that circles the fields for you to ride, some buggies for the more adventurous ones, and a market for you to pick up some snacks or souvenirs at the front entrance.  This is a great stop that we can make a part of our Furano/Biei tour if you’d like to tick a lot of boxes at once!

By car – A 2.5hr drive from downtown Sapporo

By train – From Sapporo station, catch the JR Furano Line to Bibaushi Station (with a transfer at Asahikawa station) + walk 25minutes. Or catch the JR Furano Line to Biei Station (with a transfer at Asahikawa station) for and catch a 12-minute taxi (about 1,500 yen). Either train option will cost 5,560 yen one-way each.

Although the following is not an official ‘trip’, this was our schedule for the shoot with the approximate times.  It was a very loosely scheduled couple of days but it was a great!

If you’d like to organise a 2-day summer road trip in Hokkaido to all of the places above, I’d highly recommend doing it in this order.

9am – Leave Sapporo Downtown

11am to 12.30pm – Minami-Furano

12.30 to 1.30pm – Lunch (on our way to Tomita Farm)

2pm to 3pm – Tomita Farm

4pm to 5.30pm – Shikisai no Oka

5.30pm – Leave for home

So which ones are you adding to your summer itinerary? 😀

We’d love to hear about your itinerary plans in the COMMENTS below!  Or get in touch with us here if you’d like to know more – we’re always happy to help 🙂