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wish, you can also buy 1- or 2-day do-it-yourself package tours that include round-trip
transportation to Hakone, meals, sightseeing, and hotel stays.
VISITOR INFORMATION Before leaving Tokyo, pick up the “Hakone and Kamak-
ura” leaflet available from the Tourist Information Center; it provides transportation
information for throughout the Hakone area. A color brochure called “Hakone National
Park” includes sightseeing information and contains a map of the Hakone area. See
“Visitor Information,” in chapter 3 for TIC locations. The Odakyu Sightseeing Service
Center, above, also has a wealth of information, including the useful Timetable of Traffic
in Hakone, a booklet which lists the schedules for all forms of transportation in Hakone.
In Odawara, the Odawara Tourist Information Center ( & 0465/33-1521; daily
9am-5pm) is inside Odawara Station. In Hakone Yumoto, the Yumoto Tourist Office
( & 0460/85-8911; daily 9:30am-6pm Apr-Nov, to 5:30pm Dec-Mar) is across the
street from Hakone Yumoto Station.
LUGGAGE If you plan to return to Tokyo, I suggest you leave your luggage in storage
at your Tokyo hotel or at Shinjuku Station and travel to Hakone with only an overnight
bag. If you're traveling onward to, say, Kyoto, you can leave your bags at a check-in
counter at Hakone Yumoto Station, open daily 8am to 10pm (a large bag costs ¥500 a
day). Or if you deliver your bags to the Hakone Carry Service ( & 0460/86-4140 ) at
Hakone Yumoto Station between 8:30am and noon, it will transport your bags to your
Hakone accommodations by 3pm. The next day, it can also pick up your bags at your
hotel at 10am and deliver them to Yumoto Station by 1pm, where they will keep them
until 7pm. The service costs ¥700 to ¥1,000 per bag, depending on the size and weight,
and is available daily year-round.
WHAT TO SEE & DO
If you decide to spend only 1 day in Hakone, you should leave Tokyo very early in the
morning and plan on visiting just a few key attractions—I recommend the Hakone
Open-Air Museum, Owakudani Nature Trail, and, if time permits, Hakone Check
Point and/or Narukawa Art Museum. Keep in mind that most forms of transportation
(like the ropeway), as well as museums, close at 5pm.
If you're spending the night—and I strongly urge that you do—you can arrange your
itinerary in a more leisurely fashion and devote more time to Hakone's attractions. You
may wish to travel only as far as your hotel the first day, stopping at sights along the way
and in the vicinity. The next day you could continue with the rest of the circuit through
Hakone. Or you can opt to complete most of your sightseeing the first day, and then
backtrack to your accommodations or reach it by bus from Togendai, Hakone-machi, or
Moto-Hakone.
ODAKYU TRAIN TO HAKONE
Regardless of whether you travel via the Odakyu Romance Car or the ordinary Odakyu
Express, your train will stop at Odawara Station, considered the gateway to Hakone. If
you've never seen a Japanese castle and won't have another opportunity to see one, con-
sider visiting Odawara Castle, Odawara Joshi-koen ( & 0465/23-1373 ). A 10-minute
walk from Odawara Station (take the east exit out of the station and turn right), this
three-tiered, four-story castle dates from the 1500s, was dismantled in 1870 by the Meiji
government because of its associations with the shogun regime, and was rebuilt in 1960.
Its keep contains a small historical museum relating to the castle, including models of
castles, palanquins used to transport people up and down mountains during the Edo

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