Things to Know Before Visiting Shirakawa-go

This pretty village of pointy-roofed thatched houses is rapidly becoming a must-see for those travelling around Central Japan, but if you’re visiting, especially if you’re stopping off as part of your journey between Kanazawa and Takayama, there are a few things you need to know before you go to enjoy your visit fully. Like these…

Article by Helen Foster. Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. See our Affiliate Disclosure.

1. Book The Bus in Advance

The early morning buses are reservation only (as are most of the others throughout the day), and they do sell out, so make sure you have a booking – especially if you want to leave on one of the first buses out of Takayama or Kanazawa.

The bus company that runs between the two spots is the Nohi Bus, and you can reserve it here. Bookings open a month before the date of travel. It currently costs 2800 to go to Shirakawa-go from Takayama or Kanazawa.

It’s probably also a good idea to book your return or onward journey – if you get to Shirakawa-go and decide to leave early or love it so much you want to stay longer, you can easily change your ticket on the website for a small fee.

Note: If you’re using the Hokuriku Arch Rail Pass, you either have to take an unreserved bus (which get to Shirakawa-go a bit later in the AM), or make your booking for a reserved one by phone. This is one of the reasons I didn’t use this pass when I traveled this route.

2. Avoid Carrying Luggage

Many people visit Shirakawa-go as they transit between Takayama and Kanazawa, which makes sense as it’s halfway between them – but this means a lot of people arrive with luggage.

The problem with this is that there are only a handful of lockers, and once they are gone, you have to join the queue to store your baggage at the luggage office – and it can get looonnngggg.

When I was in Shirakawa-go, all the lockers were full by 9 am, and by 10.15 am, the queue for the luggage was huge, leading to people wheeling giant suitcases around the town.

So, ideally, ship your luggage – while the shipping companies say to allow 48 hours for delivery, but because Takayama and Kanazawa are pretty close together, your bag will likely arrive faster than that.

I sent mine from the hotel in Takayama at 4 pm the afternoon before I went to Shirakawa-go. It arrived at my hotel in Kanazawa precisely as I did at around 1 pm the next day. Find out more about shipping luggage here.

3. What to See When You’re There

The houses are the main draw. There are 114 of them in the town, with the distinctive gassho style with steep triangular roofs. The name comes from the fact that the roofs look like hands held in prayer – the Japanese word for which is gassho.

The roofs are designed this way to stop the heavy snowfall that hits the region in winter from damaging the roofs. However, as pretty as they are, I discovered that simply walking around the village admiring them gets a bit dull after a while! You can only take the same photo about 50 times before the novelty wears off, so make sure you know what else there is to see in Shirakawa-go.

1. Visit the Museums

Most of the houses are residential, but four are open as museums for visitors. They are…

The Kanda House. Open 10 am to 4 pm (closed on a Wednesday). The Kanda family were sake brewers; this house has been in the village since 1850.

The Nagase House. Open 9-5, seven days a week. The family that owns this 5-storey house still lives in part of it (although visitors don’t have access to this bit). The rest of the house allows you to see how the houses are built, but it also has a small museum of tools and other artifacts used in rural life. Three generations of the family were doctors, so there’s also a display of medical equipment.

The Wada House. Open 9-5, seven days a week. This is the largest house in Shirakawa-go, and, like the Nagase house, it is still occupied. You can visit the first and second floors.

Tajima House and Silk Culture Museum. Open 9-4.30, seven days a week. The owner/guide of this house speaks good English. He raises silkworms, so as well as telling you about the house, he will also explain about silkworm production in the area.

Entrance fees to each house vary slightly, but expect to pay under 500 yen per person.

2. View the Town from Above

The Observation Deck gives an excellent overview of the town – and is particularly pretty when snow is on the ground.

It takes 15 minutes to walk up there, or there is a bus that runs at 20-minute intervals during peak periods – it gets less frequent around lunchtime, so if you don’t want to walk, check the timetable here to make sure you don’t get caught out.

The bus costs 300 yen.

3. Eat Pudding

Pudding is one of the great Japanese desserts. It’s kind of like creme brulee or creme caramel – and pretty much every town has its own pudding shop.

The one in Shirakawa-go is immensely popular, has great reviews, and has super cute bottles.

It’s called Shirakawago Purin no Ie. It opens at 10am – it’s closed on Wednesday, so, don’t go then if you’re on a pudding tour of Japan.

4. Cross the Bridge

If you haven’t had enough of pointy-topped houses on the east side of Shirakawa-go, you can cross the bridge to the west, where there is a museum with houses, craft shops and more.

The houses in the museum are all homes where the family who owned them has left the village for good. Rather than have them stay empty or unmaintained, the houses were moved into the open-air museum site to be preserved for the future.

It’s open 9-4 pm in winter (closed on Thursdays). Summer hours are slightly longer, and there are no closing days.

5. Lunch on Soba or Hoba Miso

These are two of the traditional dishes in this area, and most of the restaurants in Shirakawa-go will serve one of them.

Soba Dojo, which is located at the open-air museum, has a soba dish with the revered Hida beef, which can help you cross that off your list as well. Or visit Sobo Wakimoto, who make their buckwheat soba by hand every day. Soba Nomura is another good choice, but it might be a little difficult to get a seat in, as it only has 12 of them.

Hoba Miso is a dish with grilled meat and vegetables on a magnolia leaf. You’ll find it at Moto no Sho, Restaurant Arai and other places around town.

You can also pick up takeaway snacks like gohei mochi, tochi mochi (made from horse chestnuts) and hida beef skewers, croquettes or onigiri.

4. Don’t Make My Mistake

Normally, when I visit a place, I spend two or three days going through Google Maps looking for interesting sights, shops and cafes.

For some reason, I didn’t do this in Shirakawa-go. I think I just thought I wouldn’t be able to write anything different from the other ‘what to do’ guides that I did look at, so I wasn’t going to bother writing a post on it.

I also thought that, in such a small town, I’d just find things as I wandered – but that didn’t happen – especially as when I first arrived, nothing was open yet.

When the crowds started arriving at 10 am, I’d already circled the village aimlessly a few times, and frankly, I was bored.

Knowing I had a huge list of things to do in Kanazawa, I decided to cut my losses and run after 90 minutes rather than the four hours I had planned to spend in the town originally. Part of me has no regrets as I did need the extra time in Kanazawa; another part of me feels I didn’t do the place justice.

However, if I had made the list above before my visit, I’d definitely have stayed longer to try some of the unique foods.

So, my advice is to go with a bit of a plan as to what you want to see and how to see it so you don’t miss out.

5. Try And Beat the Crowds

The first bus of the day arrives in Shirakawago at 8.10 – I was on the second bus that arrived at 8.40. This is magical as it allows you to see the village with only a handful of people.

The crowds start to increase around 10 am when the day trip tour buses start to arrive, so definitely get here before then if you can – but, remember, not everything opens first thing, so plan your day so you’re not aimlessly wandering in circles as I was.

If I did this trip again, I would get the first or second bus from Takayama and walk around the main part of the village as soon as I arrived. I’d then go up to the Observation Area on the first or second departing bus.

After taking in the view, I’d come back and visit at least one of the museum houses and buy pudding or some other interesting snacks as soon as the places open.

If you haven’t had enough pointy houses by this point, then I’d explore further in the village, either heading north up toward the area where the Three Houses view is listed (noting the point about this below), checking in on the shrines and cute things like the firehouse on the way. I’d then get an early lunch before the crowds in one of the restaurants on this side – these can get very busy around normal meal times so, try and eat off-peak.

Or, head to the west of town to see the open-air museum and have lunch on that side of town.

Any time left over could then be spent pottering around the shops in town before the bus.

6. Season Matters

Shirakawa-go is pretty at any time of year, but I think another reason that I wasn’t blown away by it was that I was there in May, so there wasn’t really any distinguishing about the landscape – the trees were green, the grass was green, the shrubs were green.

I think if I’d been here during autumn leaves or during the snowy season, when the place does look magical, it might have been different.

7. Know The Dates of the Light-Up

The Shirakawago light-up event takes place in the depths of winter and shows the houses with their lights on covered in snow.

It’s an annual event, and always very popular – but from January 2025, it is only open to those who have made advance reservations.

The dates of the light-up are January 13th, 19th, 26th and February 2nd.

On these dates, normal tourists will not be allowed to enter the village after 3 pm. Only those with the official tickets to the light-up can enter.

The official site with all the details is here.

Nohi Bus are offering tours to the light up. At the time of writing, they have sold out for the 2025 event – but check here for cancellations.

8. Be Aware of What’s in the Houses

As I said, there are a number of open gassho houses that you can explore in Shirakawa-go but, there are a few things to be aware of in these.

One – they can use ladders. I can’t use ladders due to a fear of heights, and, at the time I visited, I also had a mobility issue, which meant I was even a bit cautious on normal stairs, so I could only really see half of what was in there.
Some of the houses will also ask you to remove your shoes, so you’re walking on shiny wooden steps with socks – if you are unsteady on your feet, make sure you have socks with a grip.

The second thing is at least one of the houses (I visited Kanda House) had the traditional fire on, and while it was atmospheric, and smelt nice at the time, I stank of wood smoke for the rest of the day.

9. The Famous Three House View is No Longer Accessible

It was one of the most famous views in the town, but the farmer who owned the land you needed to walk across to see it has closed off the access, so it’s no longer visible.

On this note, remember that Shirakawa-go is not a theme park. People live here, so please don’t trespass on people’s property to take photos and don’t try to enter any houses that aren’t officially open to the public. You might think I don’t need to say this, but people are doing it.

10. You Can Also Visit Gokayama

Shirakawa-go is the most famous gassho village, but it’s not the only one. Gokayama is just a short drive away, and there is a local bus service between the two if you want to combine both villages.

Because it’s not as easy to get to, Gokayama is much quieter and less tourist-driven than Shirakawa-go. The main areas to visit are Suganama and Gokayama Gassho no Sato.

I’d have liked to do this but I didn’t know how to get between the two. Now I do!

Check the bus timetable here if you want to visit Gokayama and Shirakawa-go on the same day. This will be a whole day visit as the buses aren’t that regular, so make sure you know the timings before you leave.

So there you have it. The post I wasn’t going to write on Shirakawa-go – I needed to know all of the above during my day there, so I hope it helps you get the most out of your visit, too.

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