Okinawa Main Island and Ishigaki are both in Okinawa Prefecture, but they are not two versions of the same trip — they are two different trips. If the ocean, snorkeling, diving and Yaeyama island hopping are the reason you are going south, Ishigaki is the better base. If you want a more forgiving trip with … Read more
Yes, Ishigaki Island is worth visiting — but not for everyone, and not in every situation. If your idea of a great day is clear turquoise water, a sandbar that only appears at low tide, and swapping the city for a slower subtropical pace, the extra flight pays off. If you are on a short … Read more
Cherry blossoms in Ishigaki are a winter experience — not the March–April sakura season most travelers associate with Tokyo and Kyoto. If you are planning an Ishigaki trip around cherry blossoms, the reliable window in an average year runs from late January to mid-February, and the most distinctive place to see them is the Arakawa … Read more
Searching for “ishigaki onsen” online can be confusing: some booking sites label hotel baths as onsen, others call them public baths, and a few blogs even claim the island has a natural hot spring. Here’s the direct answer — Ishigaki is not a hot-spring town like Hakone or Beppu, but it does have three hotel … Read more
If you have one sunset in Ishigaki, the choice comes down to how you want to spend the evening. After visiting all three of the island’s most popular sunset viewpoints with visiting travelers — and returning to one of them on my own — I would narrow it down to three places: Oganzaki Lighthouse — … Read more
Yes, Ishigaki has nightlife — it’s just not the nightlife you’d find in Tokyo or Naha. There are no neon tower blocks or 200-person clubs here. What the island does well after dark is the kind of evening that only makes sense on a subtropical island: drinking and eating around the compact downtown of Misakicho, … Read more