Unusual Expedition

Kyushu, Shikoku And Setouchi Photography Journey

The Japan photography tour opens gently in Fukuoka, gateway to Kyushu. From the airport we drive straight into the wooded hills of Sasaguri to photograph Nanzo-…

Kyushu, Shikoku And Setouchi Photography Journey – Japan photography tour

Country
Japan
Departure Dates
25 Sep 2027 To 05 Oct 2027
Tour Code
JAP20270925G1
Tour Leader
Joseph Mak

Room Type And Pricing

  • Single Room: S$10,400
  • Share Room: S$8,850

Tour Itinerary

Day 1 | Fukuoka Temples | Dazaifu

The Japan photography tour opens gently in Fukuoka, gateway to Kyushu. From the airport we drive straight into the wooded hills of Sasaguri to photograph Nanzo-in Temple, home to one of the world's largest bronze reclining Buddhas, its forty-one metre figure resting among cedar shadows. Nearby Nyoirinji, the Frog Temple, offers a playful counterpoint with thousands of frog figurines crowding its terraces. The afternoon belongs to Dazaifu Tenmangu, the great shrine of the scholar deity Sugawara no Michizane, where the camphor-lined approach street, ponds and vermilion bridges give endless frames. By evening we settle into the Grand Hyatt in central Fukuoka, cameras already warmed up for the eleven days ahead.

Meals: Lunch, Dinner

Day 2 | Itoshima Coast | Okawachiyama | Kumamoto

Morning light on the Itoshima coast starts the day at Sakurai Futamigaura, where a white torii gate frames the paired Meoto Iwa rocks offshore, one of northern Kyushu's most photographed seascapes. Inland, Shiraito Waterfall spreads its threads of water down a mossy rock face, a cool contrast to the coast. The afternoon crosses into Saga prefecture to Okawachiyama, the secret kiln village where Nabeshima porcelain was once guarded in a walled mountain valley; its brick chimneys, stacked kiln walls and painted bridges reward slow, deliberate photography. We finish the drive south into Kumamoto for the night, the first long leg of this Kyushu photography tour completed at an easy pace.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 3 | Kumamoto Castle | Tsujun Bridge | Takachiho Gorge

Kumamoto Castle opens the day, its massive curved stone walls and black-and-white keep among the most photogenic castle architecture in Japan. From the city we climb into deep countryside to Tsujun Bridge, the elegant 1854 stone aqueduct that arcs over a river valley and still releases dramatic water jets on discharge days. The road then winds into the mythic heart of Kyushu at Takachiho Gorge, where basalt columns plunge to the jade-green Gokase River and the ribbon of Manai Falls drops into the narrows. Every Japan photography tour needs one day that feels legendary, and this is it. We sleep in the quiet hot-spring hamlet of Oku-Kurokawa, dinner served kaiseki-style at the ryokan.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 4 | Hells Of Beppu | Yufuin

Steam rises everywhere in Beppu, Japan's hot-spring capital, and the morning is spent among the Hells, the jigoku ponds too hot to bathe in and too colourful to walk past: the cobalt Umi Jigoku, the rust-red Chinoike Jigoku, bubbling grey mud pools. It is one of the most surreal subjects on this Kyushu photography tour. After lunch the coach climbs over the ridge to Yufuin, a resort town arranged beneath the twin peaks of Mount Yufu. The afternoon wanders Yufuin Floral Village and the shop-lined Yunotsubo Street to Lake Kinrin, whose warm spring-fed water breathes faint mist even on mild days. We stay in Yufuin, soaking in the onsen-town calm.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 5 | Lake Kinrin Sunrise | Route 94 Ferry | Dogo Onsen

Dawn at Lake Kinrin is why photographers stay in Yufuin: on a cool morning the warm water exhales mist that drifts across mirror reflections of Mount Yufu, and we are on the shore for first light. After breakfast the tour changes islands, driving to Saganoseki and boarding the National Route 94 ferry across the Hoyo Strait to Misaki on Shikoku, the only sea crossing of the journey where the road itself rides the boat. On the Ehime side we visit the Tenjin Sanshi washi paper workshop, where sheets are still lifted by hand from vats of fibre. Evening brings Dogo Onsen, among Japan's oldest hot springs, its lantern-lit bathhouse lanes made for night frames.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 6 | Matsuyama Castle | Kure Market | Nikobuchi

Matsuyama Castle rides its hilltop above the city, reached by ropeway, and the morning is spent among its turrets, gates and views over the Seto sea. The coach then follows the mountainous spine of Shikoku south to the fishing town of Kure, where Taishomachi Market serves lunch straight from the boats, choose your fish and it is grilled on the spot. The afternoon's reward is Nikobuchi Waterfall on a tributary of the Niyodo River, a pool of such improbable turquoise that locals call the colour Niyodo blue; early afternoon sun angles light the water best. We end at a quiet lakeside hotel near Sameura, deep in the island's green interior, a slower, rural chapter of this Japan photography tour.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 7 | Rice Terraces | Udatsu Townscape | Kurashiki

A day of rural Shikoku textures. From the Oishi Observation Deck the rice terraces step down the valley in ripening late-September gold, and the mountain road then leads to Ootodoro Waterfall thundering through its forested ravine. In Wakimachi the Udatsu Townscape preserves an Edo-period merchant street, its namesake udatsu fire walls rising decoratively above indigo-trader houses. After the strange eroded towers of the Awa Sand Pillars we cross the Seto Inland Sea to Honshu, arriving in Kurashiki as the lanterns come on: the Bikan Historical Quarter's canal, willows and white storehouse walls are at their most photogenic in evening light. The night is spent in neighbouring Okayama, our Setouchi base for two nights.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 8 | Shodoshima Island | Okayama Korakuen

The Setouchi Inland Sea takes centre stage as the morning ferry glides from Okayama out to Shodoshima, olive island of calm harbours. At Yama-Roku Shoyu, soy sauce still ferments for years in cedar barrels beneath blackened rafters, a dim, aromatic interior that rewards careful handheld work. The Twenty-Four Eyes Movie Studio preserves a 1950s fishing village film set on the shoreline, all wooden schoolrooms and nostalgic lanes. Back on the mainland by late afternoon, we walk Okayama Korakuen, one of Japan's three great landscape gardens, its lawns, ponds and borrowed view of Okayama Castle composing themselves in the soft pre-dusk light. A relaxed island day in the middle of the Japan photography tour.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 9 | Hiroshima | Miyajima | Itsukushima Shrine

History carries the morning west to Hiroshima. At the Atomic Bomb Dome we photograph with restraint, the skeletal dome mirrored in the river beside the Peace Park. Hiroshima Castle's reconstructed keep rises from its wooded moat nearby, and a stop at THE OUTLETS HIROSHIMA gives the group a breather before the short crossing to Miyajima. The island evening is the day's real subject: Itsukushima Shrine's vermilion corridors stand over the tide, and the great torii appears to float as the light falls and the lanterns come on. Because we sleep on the island at Hotel Miyajima Villa, the shrine at dusk and dawn belongs to us rather than to the day-trip crowds.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 10 | Miyajima Sunrise | Rurikoji | Mojiko Retro | Fukuoka

Sunrise on Miyajima is the tour's final signature shoot: before breakfast we are at the waterfront as first light finds the great torii, the tide deciding whether it floats on pink water or stands on rippled sand. The ferry and coach then carry us west into Yamaguchi, where the five-storey pagoda of Rurikoji Temple, six centuries old, rises from its lakeside park in perfect proportion. The afternoon ends the loop at Mojiko Retro on the Kanmon Strait, a harbour district of preserved Meiji and Taisho buildings, brick customs houses and station clock towers glowing as the sun drops. By evening the Kyushu photography tour is back where it began, at the Grand Hyatt in Fukuoka.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Day 11 | Fukuoka | Singapore

Eleven days after landing, the journey closes where it began. After a last Fukuoka breakfast the coach makes the short run to the airport for the flight home to Singapore, memory cards holding a complete cross-section of western Japan: reclining Buddhas and secret kiln villages, the jade narrows of Takachiho, steaming hells and misted lakes, ferry decks on the Seto Inland Sea, indigo merchant streets, canal-side Kurashiki, and the torii of Miyajima floating at both dusk and dawn. Few routes gather Kyushu, Shikoku and the Setouchi coast into one unhurried loop, which is exactly what makes this Japan photography tour worth the flight. Until the next departure.

Meals: Breakfast

Tour Photos

Kyushu, Shikoku And Setouchi Photography Journey – Japan photography tour photo 1 Kyushu, Shikoku And Setouchi Photography Journey – Japan photography tour photo 2 Kyushu, Shikoku And Setouchi Photography Journey – Japan photography tour photo 3

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