Izu 2026

At the end of May, my husband and I took a 3-day road trip down to Izu.

The hot spring town of Shuzenji was our final stop on our Izu road trip before heading back home to Tokyo. To be honest, we weren't really planning on checking it out, save for the fact that our return route basically passed by the town anyway, so then we figured we may as well stop.

Making our way up the west coast of the Izu Peninsula, we passed by the town of Toi. Toi is most-famous for its gold mine - it was the second largest gold mine in Japan and was estimated to have produced over 40 tons of gold. Today you can visit a museum to tour the remains of its mine.

The Tombolo Land Bridge is a rather interesting feature along the Dogashima coast in Nishi-Izu. It's a pathway leading to an island, only accessible at low tide. At other times, it's just a random island off the coast and it doesn't look crossable at all.

After visiting the Muroiwa Cave we chose to have a quick stop in the local town of Matsuzaki. On our drive in, we saw it had been designated as one of Japan's "Most Beautiful Villages". There's a fair few of these villages scattered across Japan.

We kicked off the final day of our Izu road trip with a drive to the Muroiwa cave, which is next to the town of Matsuzaki. This was another one of those random "I saw it on Google Maps"-type finds but it was quite a fun little detour. The parking lot for this one really is quite random.

Nishiizu Auto Camping Ground (西伊豆オートキャンプ場) is where we spent our second night on our 3-day Izu roadtrip. After heading down along the eastern coast to the town of Shimoda, we then cut across west through the Izu Peninsula out to the town of Matsuzaki.

Near the town of Shimoda in Izu is Cape Tsumeki, a picturesque lookout with a lighthouse. It's particularly famous when its daffodil fields bloom in winter - so we came in a bit of its off-season, but it was still beautiful nonetheless.

Shimoda is a town on the south-eastern end of the Izu Peninsula. To be honest, the only reason we planned to stop here was that I had spotted a cute coffee shop on Google Maps.

When I think of Izu, one of the first things that comes to mind (other than Mt Omuro) is the Jogasaki Coast. This is a hiking trail that stretches for 9km along the eastern coast of Izu. The terrain was actually created by lava flowing from an eruption from Mt Omuro around 4000 years ago.

After driving out from Tokyo, we spent our first night on our Izu roadtrip camping at the Kusamakura Camping Ground (くさまくらキャンプ場).

Cape Manazuru in Kanagawa prefecture is a scenic spot that juts out from the coastline and is home to the Mitsuishi ("three rocks"). The two largest are joined together with Shinto ropes and there is a tiny little torii gate jutting out of the top of the rock as well.