Onomichi is a steep, narrow, slightly faded port town on a very narrow strait in the Seto Inland Sea, and it is the mainland end of one of the best cycle routes in the world. The SHIMANAMI KAIDO runs about 70 kilometres from here across six islands to Imabari on Shikoku, on a chain of long suspension and cable-stayed bridges that each carry a dedicated cycle and pedestrian lane separate from the traffic. The first image is a rider on the Innoshima bridge, which is the second crossing of the route.
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What Is Here
THE FIRST CROSSING IS A FERRY, NOT A BRIDGE, AND ALMOST NOTHING WRITTEN IN ENGLISH LEADS WITH THAT. The Shin-Onomichi bridge over the channel is not a sensible cycling proposition, so the route properly begins with a small passenger ferry from the Onomichi waterfront across to MUKAISHIMA, a crossing of a couple of hundred metres that takes about five minutes, costs around a hundred yen with a bike, and runs constantly without a timetable worth consulting. Knowing this is the difference between starting the ride in five minutes and spending an hour looking for a bridge approach.
THE ROUTE IS DESIGNED FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT ATHLETES, WHICH IS WHY IT WORKS. The bridges sit high above shipping lanes, so each one needs a climb, and the answer the engineers chose is a long spiral approach ramp at a gentle gradient rather than a steep pull. A BLUE LINE IS PAINTED ON THE ROAD for the entire 70km, so navigation is essentially solved. Bikes rent at terminals along the way and can be dropped at a different terminal from the one you took them from, which means you can ride as far as you feel like and take a bus back. Fit riders do the whole thing in a day; most people split it over two and stay on an island.
THE TOWN ITSELF IS A HILLSIDE WITH TWENTY FIVE TEMPLES ON IT. The second image is a pagoda above the roofs. The ground rises sharply from the harbour and a signed TEMPLE WALK links twenty five of them up and across the slope, with SENKO-JI the one everybody goes to, reached on foot or by a short ropeway, and the view from above it over the strait and the islands is the best thing in the town that does not involve a bicycle. The PATH OF LITERATURE on the same hillside carries lines from writers who worked here carved into stone slabs, which sounds twee and is quietly good.
THE LANES ARE FULL OF EMPTY HOUSES BECOMING CAFES, AND THAT IS THE REAL STORY OF THE PLACE. Onomichi has been losing population for decades, and because its hillside is all stairways and alleys too narrow for a car, the houses up there became very hard to sell. What has happened since is one of the better small-town revivals in Japan: vacant properties taken on cheaply and turned into coffee roasters, guesthouses, bookshops and galleries, often by people who came for the cycling and stayed. ONOMICHI U2, a converted waterfront warehouse on the quay, holds a cycle-focused hotel where you can wheel the bike into the bedroom, along with a bakery, a bar and a bike shop. The third image is that waterfront.
AND TWO THINGS THE PHOTOGRAPHS HERE DO NOT SHOW, NAMED RATHER THAN IMPLIED. There is a CAT ALLEY on the temple hillside, a lane of about two hundred metres with painted stone cats along it and a resident population of real ones, and it is a genuine small pleasure. And the islands on the route, SETODA AND IKUCHIJIMA especially, are Japan's main LEMON-GROWING district, so the route is lined with citrus groves and every shop sells lemon everything. Neither is in this post's images, and both are worth your time.
THE FOOD IS A SPECIFIC STYLE RATHER THAN A GENERALITY. ONOMICHI RAMEN is soy-based with flat noodles and small pieces of pork back fat floating in the broth, which gives it a richness that is distinct from any other regional ramen in Japan. There are queues at the well known places by eleven in the morning.
When to Go
Late March to May and October to November are the right windows, and for cycling they are the only ones worth planning around. Mild, dry, clear, with cherry blossom on the temple hillside in early April and the citrus harvest in late autumn.
June to mid July is the rainy season, with sustained heavy rain rather than showers, and July to September is hot and very humid, routinely over 30 degrees with high moisture. Cycling 70km in that is a serious undertaking rather than a pleasant day, and the heat section below is not a formality.
TYPHOON SEASON RUNS ROUGHLY AUGUST TO OCTOBER and this coast gets them; a typhoon closes the bridges to cyclists and stops the ferries.
December to February is cool, dry and bright, in the high single figures to low teens, with the Inland Sea at its clearest. Cycling is perfectly possible with wind protection and the islands are empty.
Getting There
THE SHINKANSEN DETAIL MATTERS AND IT CATCHES PEOPLE OUT: SHIN-ONOMICHI IS SERVED BY KODAMA TRAINS ONLY. The fast Nozomi and Hikari services do not stop there, so a rail-pass itinerary that assumes a quick hop will not work as planned. Shin-Onomichi is also about ten minutes by bus outside the town. The alternative is JR ONOMICHI STATION on the Sanyo main line, which is in the centre a few minutes from the ferry and the waterfront, reached by local train from Fukuyama after a shinkansen to there.
Hiroshima is about an hour and a half away, Okayama around an hour, Osaka two and a half and Kyoto three.
In town you walk, and the hill is a hill. The temple slope is stairways and steep lanes, with the ropeway as the way up if you would rather not climb. For the islands you cycle, or take the island buses, which exist and are infrequent.
The Onomichi Packing List
Humid summers, a real rainy season, bridge wind, strong sun over water and a town built on stairs.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is close to ideal for the thing this destination asks of you, which is a long day of intermittent effort: you sweat climbing a bridge ramp, cool rapidly in the wind crossing the span, and warm again on the descent, over and over for seventy kilometres. Wool regulates that cycle and does not hold odour over consecutive riding days, which matters when the luggage is on a bike.
A long sun hoodie for the route, because the bridges and the island roads have no shade at all and you are over reflective water for hours.
A wide brim sun hat for the temple walk, and an insulated water bottle, which on the Shimanami Kaido is a safety item rather than a convenience: see the heat note below.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece from November to March, since bridge wind over water is markedly colder than the air temperature in town.
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, which in the June rainy season is essential and the rest of the year is the wind shell for the crossings.
Walking shoes with grip, which serve the temple stairways and are fine on a rental bike's flat pedals.
Not linked and worth packing: PADDED CYCLING SHORTS OR AT LEAST SOMETHING WITHOUT SEAMS if you intend the full route, because rental saddles are ordinary and 70km is 70km; A SMALL DAYPACK rather than a shoulder bag, since the rentals have limited carrying capacity; CASH IN YEN, because Japanese small towns, the ferry and the island shops are still substantially cash and the ferry has no card reader; AND SUNGLASSES, for glare off the Inland Sea.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Onomichi
Emergency numbers: 110 for police and 119 for ambulance and fire. JAPAN DOES NOT USE A SINGLE UNIFIED EMERGENCY NUMBER, so the two are not interchangeable and 112 does not work. Operators may have limited English and will often transfer to an interpreter, so state the city name first and then the problem. Every Japanese neighbourhood has a KOBAN, a small staffed police box, which is the fastest route to help in person and is also where lost property goes. The JNTO runs a 24 hour visitor hotline in English on 050-3816-2787 for medical help and general emergencies, which is the number to save before you need it.
THE HEAT IS THE REAL DANGER ON THIS ROUTE AND IT IS WORTH BEING BLUNT ABOUT. Japanese summers are hot AND humid, and high humidity stops sweat evaporating, which is the mechanism by which the body sheds heat. Riding seventy kilometres in that, over bridges with no shade and across islands where the next vending machine may be several kilometres away, is how visitors end up with heat exhaustion. If you ride between late June and September: start at first light, carry more water than you think, use the vending machines and convenience stores aggressively rather than rationing, take the salt drinks the Japanese sell for exactly this purpose, and be prepared to shorten the ride to one or two islands. Nobody will think less of you for taking the bus back from Setoda. ON THE BRIDGES, the cycle lanes are separated from the traffic, which makes them safe, but they are high, exposed and windy, and a crosswind on a rental bike with a front basket is a genuine handful. ON THE ISLANDS the blue line sometimes puts you on ordinary roads shared with cars and farm vehicles, so this is cycling in traffic rather than on a protected path throughout. The official Shimanami Kaido cycling organisation publishes the terminal locations, the one-way rental rules and the current route and bridge conditions, which is the source to check rather than a blog.
THE WEATHER CLOSES THIS ROUTE AND THE AUTHORITY IS THE JMA. Typhoons from roughly August to October shut the bridges to cyclists and stop the ferries, and this part of western Japan is also exposed to the sustained heavy rainfall events that cause landslides and flooding on steep ground, which describes Onomichi's hillside precisely. The Japan Meteorological Agency publishes warnings and advisories in English and is the thing to read the evening before a long ride. Warnings also arrive on a Japanese phone automatically. EARTHQUAKES are a national fact rather than a local one, and the instruction is the usual: if the ground moves, get away from anything that can fall, and do not run outside through falling masonry.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Japan, and by almost any measure it is among the safest countries in the world for a woman travelling alone. Its guidance concentrates on natural hazards rather than crime: earthquakes, typhoons between roughly May and October, and volcanic activity.
US State Department travel advisory: the Japan advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/japan, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: Onomichi General Hospital is the main hospital for the town with emergency provision, and HIROSHIMA, an hour and a half away, is the regional centre for anything major. That distance matters on this trip specifically: an injury on an island halfway along the route is a long way from a hospital, so tell somebody your plan for the day and carry a charged phone. Japan has no reciprocal health agreement with the UK or the United States, so insurance with medical cover is essential and should explicitly include cycling; many Japanese clinics expect payment at the time of treatment. Pharmacies are widespread in town and sparse on the islands.
Official health authority: the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. covers the national health ministry guidance for visitors
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Tokyo.
Official tourism authority: the Japan National Tourism Organization. covers Japan nationally, and the city tourism office publishes the Onomichi ferry crossings, the Senkoji ropeway hours and the temple walk map
Takeaways
The route starts with a ferry to Mukaishima, not a bridge. About a hundred yen.
A blue line marks all 70km. One-way rentals mean you can stop anywhere.
Shin-Onomichi takes Kodama trains only. Nozomi and Hikari do not stop.
Do not ride this in July heat without a water plan. Humidity is the mechanism.
Solo women safety assessment: Onomichi is an extremely easy and safe place to travel alone, which is true of small-town Japan generally and of this town particularly, because its visitor economy is cyclists and its guesthouse culture is built around people arriving by themselves. Eating alone is completely normal, including at a ramen counter, and there is no district to avoid and no hour that changes anything. The honest caveats are practical rather than about safety: English is limited outside the cycling businesses, and cash still matters in a way it does not in Tokyo. THE RISKS HERE ARE THE ROUTE AND THE WEATHER. Heat and humidity between late June and September are the most likely thing to go wrong, because humidity prevents sweat evaporating and seventy unshaded kilometres is a long way from a vending machine in the middle; start early, over-carry water, use the salt drinks, and shorten the ride without hesitating. The bridge cycle lanes are separated from traffic and are high and windy, and a crosswind on a rental bike is a handful. On the islands the blue line sometimes shares ordinary roads with cars and farm vehicles. Typhoons from August to October close the bridges and stop the ferries, and this region is exposed to sustained heavy rain that causes landslides on exactly the kind of steep ground the town is built on, so the Japan Meteorological Agency's English warnings are the thing to read before a long ride. An injury halfway along the route is a long way from the hospital in town, so tell somebody the plan and carry a charged phone. 110 REACHES POLICE AND 119 AMBULANCE AND FIRE, there is no single unified number, 112 does not work, and the JNTO visitor hotline on 050-3816-2787 operates in English around the clock.
Reading On
Onomichi sits in the Setouchi region, which this library covers from several directions. The Hiroshima packing list covers the city an hour and a half west that most visitors base in, and the Miyajima packing list the island with the floating gate beyond it. Along the Inland Sea, the Kurashiki packing list covers the canal merchant quarter forty minutes east, and the Naoshima packing list the contemporary art island in the same sea, which with this town makes a Setouchi trip that is cycling, canals and museums rather than temples alone. Further afield, the Himeji packing list covers the great surviving castle, the Kobe packing list the port city, the Osaka packing list the obvious arrival point and the Kyoto packing list the one everybody adds. For the country, the Japan travel guide for women carries the regions, the rail passes and the seasons in full. For why wool suits a long day of climbing and descending in wind, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
