The bucket-list things to do — and who runs each one.
Here’s the bucket list for your day ashore: the most extraordinary thing to do at each stop, who runs it, and how to book it direct — so you can weigh it against your ship’s excursion and pick what suits you.
In port at Akita, the bucket-list move is Kakunodate Samurai District & Sake Brewery Private Tour. Below: 1 bucket-list things to do on a Akita port day — worth weighing against whatever your ship offers.
Step inside Japan's most perfectly preserved samurai quarter — blackened cedar fences, centuries-old bukeyashiki mansions — then toast the day at a historic sake brewery. This is feudal Japan at its most tangible.
We have not yet verified a bookable operator and price for
this one, so we are not quoting either.
Encounter the fearsome Namahage demons — Akita's most iconic UNESCO-listed folk tradition — at their sacred mountain stronghold on the dramatic Oga Peninsula, with sea-carved cliffs as your backdrop.
We have not yet verified a bookable operator and price for
this one, so we are not quoting either.
Slip into a centuries-old outdoor hot spring deep in a beech forest at Nyuto Onsen, one of Japan's most revered onsen villages, where milky, mineral-rich waters have healed pilgrims since the Edo period.
We have not yet verified a bookable operator and price for
this one, so we are not quoting either.
Gaze into the impossible cobalt depths of Lake Tazawa — Japan's deepest lake at 423 metres — and stroll its forest shoreline beside the golden statue of Princess Tatsuko, a scene of rare, mythic beauty.
We have not yet verified a bookable operator and price for
this one, so we are not quoting either.
Spend a curated half-day in Akita city itself — the cherry-blossom moat of Kubota Castle ruins, the gravity-defying Kanto lantern festival performance, and a Hiroshi Sugimoto–designed art museum in a single elegant circuit.
We have not yet verified a bookable operator and price for
this one, so we are not quoting either.
Wander the extraordinarily preserved homes of Akita's Meiji-era merchant elite in Yokote — three grand mansions open exclusively to visitors who know to seek them out, each a time capsule of wealth and Japanese craft.
Book itAkita: Masuda Walking Tour with Visits to 3 Mansions$42 per person
Your day in AkitaNothing picked yet — tick what you fancy
$0for two, booked direct
Now plan the rest of it
You know what to do on the day. Here is the trip it belongs to —
each one opens as a whole plan, not a list: where to fly in, every port, what it runs.