Shimane · Oki IslandsNo.829★★Open in map →
Oki Islands Global Geopark
An island group in the Sea of Japan, walled with sea cliffs and built around a caldera the sea has flooded. The ferry from the Tottori coast lands at Saigo Port, where the geopark museum sets out how to read the rest of the archipelago.
- FromSakaiminato Port
- ~2 hr 30 minFerry from Sakaiminato
- Get off atSaigo Port (Oki Kisen ferry, Dogo Island)
- From there
- Oki Islands Global Geopark
The sweet spot
These are not undiscovered islands. They are a designated geopark with a museum, marked trails and signed viewpoints. What keeps them quiet is the crossing — a couple of hours of open sea filters out the day-trip traffic, so even in high season the cliff paths carry a fraction of what a mainland viewpoint would.
Where it is
Open Shimane in the map →What to look for
- Oki Nature Museumthe geopark's exhibition at the port, laid out along its three themes of ground, life and people
- Saigo Portthe arrival harbour on Dogo, with the tourist office and the inter-island boats in one complex
- Rosokujimaa candle-shaped sea stack off the Dogo coast, seen from the water in the last light
- Kuniga Coast and Matengaia wall of sea cliffs on Nishinoshima rising to 257 metres, with a footpath along the top
- Dozen calderathe flooded crater between the three western islands, read best from a hilltop on Chiburijima
How to actually get there
- Sakaiminato or Shichirui → Saigo Port, Dogo (Oki Kisen ferry about 2 hr 30 min, or fast boat about 1 hr).
- Saigo Port → the geopark museum in the Oki Geo Gateway building (about 1 minute on foot).
- Dogo → Beppu Port, Nishinoshima, or Hishiura Port, Nakanoshima (inter-island boat).
- Beppu Port → Kuniga Coast (local bus or taxi) for the clifftop path.
- Oki Kisen ferry from Sakaiminato
- Oki Kisen runs car ferries and a fast boat to Saigo Port on Dogo from Sakaiminato in Tottori and from Shichirui in Matsue. The operator gives the ferry crossing as about two and a half hours and the fast boat as about one. Sailings are seasonal and fill up in summer, so book the crossing before you book a bed.
- Return by sea or by air
- Return sailings leave Saigo Port for both mainland ports, with fewer departures late in the day and through the winter. Oki Airport on Dogo also has mainland flights. Build a buffer into the last leg, because rough weather cancels crossings and there is no road out.
About the place
The Oki Islands lie off the Shimane coast in the Sea of Japan: four inhabited islands and a scatter of uninhabited rocks and stacks. Three of them — Nishinoshima, Nakanoshima and Chiburijima — stand on the rim of a drowned volcanic caldera, which is why the water between them behaves like a sheltered inland bay. The fourth and largest, Dogo, holds the main harbour and the airport. The geopark treats the whole group as one text with three chapters: how the ground was made, what grew on it once it was cut off from the continent, and how people lived off both. Boats, not roads, are the connecting tissue.
How to enjoy it
Give the islands two nights rather than one. The crossing takes most of a day at each end, and the inter-island boats keep their own timetable, so a single night leaves you looking at a harbour. Start at the museum by the port, then go out to the cliffs — the rock makes sense once you have seen what it is made of. The fast boat halves the sea time but does not run right through the winter, so check which service is operating before you fix dates.
Background & history
The islands were the country's standing place of exile: Emperor Go-Toba was banished here, and Emperor Go-Daigo after him, and the courts that followed them left shrines, tombs and a poetry tradition on the islands. That history sits alongside a working island culture of bull sumo and village festivals that the geopark counts as heritage in its own right. The group was certified as a Global Geopark in 2013 and now carries the UNESCO label.
Before you go
- Cash
- Ferry tickets are bought at the port counter before boarding, and the fare depends on the class of seat you take. The geopark museum charges admission. Carry cash on the islands rather than assuming cards.
- Good to know
- The fast boat pauses for part of the winter and every sailing on this stretch is weather-dependent. Cliff paths are unfenced in places, and the wind on the west-facing coasts is stronger than it looks from the car park.
- Another way
- From Matsue, use Shichirui Port on the Shimane side instead — the same operator sails from both. Flying into Oki Airport turns the crossing into a short hop and buys back most of a day.
- After you get off
- The museum is inside the Oki Geo Gateway building at Saigo Port, a minute from the gangway. The tourist office and the inter-island boats are in the same complex, so plan the rest of the trip before you leave the building.