Where do Tokyo’s best chefs eat tonkatsu and sushi on their days off? Where does the expert organizer Marie Kondo buy her pajamas? We asked 24 Japanese cultural luminaries, including architects, fashion designers and artists, to share the places they love most across the country. The only criterion was that each choice be somewhere they personally and enthusiastically recommend. The resulting list of over 100 places — arranged below by island and, within that, by prefecture, in alphabetical order — isn’t a typical or comprehensive guide. But it is, hopefully, full of surprises for even regular visitors to Japan, ones who might not yet have climbed the steep wooden stairs of the Kasamori-Kannon Temple in Chonan, eaten Italian food on the coast of the wild Noto Peninsula or camped on uninhabited subtropical Hamiya Island. — Danielle Demetriou

Index

• Hokkaido
• Honshu
• Kyushu
• The Experts

Hokkaido

Hokkaido

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“The water of the Blue Pond, two to three hours from Sapporo by car, is so vividly blue that visiting is like stepping inside an artwork.” — Taiki, model and producer