Pick your hours and you get a finished day — every step timed from the gangway and back, and each route says how much room it leaves you before all-aboard. Swap anything you don't fancy.
Round trips are measured from the gangway and include getting back. Two stops in the same direction overlap, so a real day usually comes in under the total you see, never over it.
① No bus route serves Kochi New Port. On ship days the prefecture and city run a shuttle to Harimaya-bashi Kanko Bus Terminal (free in 2025–26; a fare is under study), ~25–30 min; some lines also sell their own shuttle
No shuttle on your call? A pre-arranged taxi is the only independent way in.
¥1,500 day ticket (Katsurahama version — includes free trams in the flat zone)MY-YU 6 a day on weekdays, 9 at weekends, plus the hourly Tosaden Katsurahama-line bus — together 1–2 an hourNo Suica — coins
How to get there
① MY-YU sightseeing loop bus from Kochi Station or Harimaya-bashi
Paper or mobile ticket; no IC. On Sundays, the street market may be the better day anyway.
The one rule: be back on board 60 minutes before all-aboard — every day above already banks it.Phones auto-switch to local time, but all-aboard runs on ship time. Check the daily programme's clock, not your lock screen.More to pick from on the Kochi guide and theTop 10.
MY SHIP DAY — fill this in before you walk off
Ship
Date
Docked at (berth)
All-aboard (SHIP time)
My deadline = all-aboard − 60 min
Last shuttle back
Phones auto-switch to local time; all-aboard runs on ship time. Write both if they differ.
GETTING AROUND — the facts that don't change by day (today's times: ship's program or Google Maps)
City centre (Harimaya-bashi): ① No bus route serves Kochi New Port. On ship days the prefecture and city run a shuttle to Harimaya-bashi Kanko Bus Terminal (free in 2025–26; a fare is under study), ~25–30 min; some lines also sell their own shuttle
Castle & Hirome Market: ① From Harimaya-bashi: Tosaden tram to Ohashi-dori — castle and market are side by side Fare ¥230 flat. every 5–10 min.
Katsurahama beach: ① MY-YU sightseeing loop bus from Kochi Station or Harimaya-bashi Fare ¥1,500 day ticket (Katsurahama version — includes free trams in the flat zone). MY-YU 6 a day on weekdays, 9 at weekends, plus the hourly Tosaden Katsurahama-line bus — together 1–2 an hour.
SHOW THIS TO A TAXI DRIVER — 運転手さんへ
Please take me back to the cruise ship (Kochi port)
クルーズ船乗り場までお願いします
Kochi Castle
高知城
Hirome Market
ひろめ市場
Katsurahama beach & Ryoma
桂浜
Tosa washi & forged knives
土佐打刃物
Point at a line. Taxis are metered and honest; tipping is not expected in Japan.
THE TWO-MINUTE PORT TALK — read aloud at breakfast
Sakamoto Ryoma. He held no office, commanded no army, and was murdered at 31 — a month before the shogunate he helped topple actually fell. Japan has been in love with him ever since, and nowhere more than here.
Katsuo tataki. A metre of rice straw burns at around 800°C for less than a minute. The outside of the fish cooks; the inside does not. Everything about this dish is that thirty seconds.
Yosakoi. Most Japanese festivals are centuries old and unchangeable. This one was designed by a chamber of commerce seventy years ago, has almost no rules, and has spread further than any traditional festival in the country.
Tosa paper & blades. Kochi is 84% forest — the highest of any Japanese prefecture — with fast clean rivers running through it. That single fact produced both the thinnest handmade paper in the world and the knives Japanese farmers have used for six centuries.
The one rule: be back on board 60 minutes before all-aboard — every plan above already banks it. · Free guide: port-of-japan.com/kochi/ · By Takumi Yamada, Tokyo, Japan
