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About Port of JapanA Japanese traveler, on your side of the gangway
Written and run by one person in Shizuoka, who walks these ports with a stopwatch and a bus timetable.
Port of Japan is written and run by Takumi Yamada — a Japanese traveler based in Tokyo who spends part of every month in Shizuoka, his second home, where he runs Port of Fuji with local partners. The aim is simple: that as many visitors arriving in Japan by sea as possible enjoy their day ashore and go home wanting to return. He has visited most of these ports in person (each port guide says whether it was), and who spends an unreasonable number of weekends on Japan's coasts, rivers and mountains. The site grew out of Port of Fuji, our deep guide to Shimizu, after one question kept arriving from cruise passengers: "this is great — but what about the rest of our ports?"
You can follow the port walks on Takumi's Facebook.
Here is the belief the whole site runs on: your hours ashore are precious. Most passengers get one day — sometimes just an afternoon — in each place. We want every one of those hours spent enjoying Japan's culture, food and regional character, not deciphering shuttle timetables or second-guessing a tour brochure. The ports of Japan are gloriously different from each other — a volcano commute in Kagoshima, glowing festival floats in Aomori, a shogun's tuna town under Mt. Fuji — and our job is to hand you each one at its best, sized to the hours you actually have.
The rules behind every guide
The time rule. Every plan is built backwards from your all-aboard time: off the ship 30 minutes after arrival, back at the gangway a full hour before all-aboard, so a plan needs its own length plus two hours of call. Walk-it verdicts. Tours are how this site earns, and we still tell you when a port doesn't need one. Verified facts. Numbers come from what we've measured on the ground or from official sources — and each page says which. Credited photos, no ads. Every image names its photographer; there are no display ads, pop-ups or countdown timers here, and never will be.
Corrections and questions are welcome — a port changes, we'd rather know: takumi.yamada@monogatari-inc.com