Yakushima West Drive 2026: Ohko Falls, Yokogawa Valley, Seibu Rindo and Inakahama

📍 West-coast loop 🚗 120 km · 5–6 hours 🦌 Monkeys, deer, sea turtles 📅 Updated May 2026

Most Yakushima travel writing focuses on Jomon Sugi. The week I spent on the island, I learned that the better story is what happens when you turn the steering wheel the other way — west, away from Anbo, around the unmarked curves where the road becomes single-lane and the forest meets the sea without a buffer. There is one waterfall most tour groups stop at, one beach where loggerhead turtles still nest, and ten or fifteen kilometers of road where you have to stop the car because monkeys are sitting on it.

This is a guide to that drive: how to plan it, what to actually stop for, where the photos in your head are versus where they aren’t. About 120 km of road if you do the full loop, 5–6 hours of driving with stops, and the only place on Yakushima where you’re likely to spend an entire afternoon without seeing another tour bus.

Why almost nobody does this drive

Yakushima’s tour-bus rhythm is built around two things: the Jomon Sugi shuttle from Yakusugi-shizen-kan, and the Shiratani Unsuikyo trail outside Miyanoura. Both are in the eastern half of the island. Most tour groups don’t come west of Kurio because the road narrows, the bus drivers don’t want to deal with it, and there are no big-name attractions east of Yakushima Lighthouse to justify the detour.

The result, if you have a rental car, is that you can drive most of an afternoon on Seibu Rindo, the UNESCO World Natural Heritage buffer zone, and pass three other cars total. I drove the loop on a Saturday in late August. Between Kurio and Nagata I saw two cars, one cyclist, six monkeys, and a deer that didn’t move out of the road for thirty seconds. This is the unhurried Yakushima.

Renting a car: where, when, how much

You need a rental car. There’s no other practical way to do this loop — the public bus loops the southeast half of the island and stops well before Kurio. Rental options:

• Yakushima Airport — Toyota Rent-a-Car, Times Car Rental, and a couple of local agencies. The airport agencies are cheaper than Anbo agencies. Around ¥6,000–8,000 per day for a compact in 2026.
• Miyanoura Port — Several agencies are in walking distance of the ferry terminal; useful if you arrive by Toppy/Rocket from Kagoshima.
• Anbo — Limited options, slightly higher prices, but convenient if you’re staying there.

Reserve before you arrive, especially in Golden Week, August, and the cherry-blossom shoulder. The island has only about 250 rental cars total. International driving permits work; an English-speaking agent at Toyota Rent-a-Car at the airport speaks the basics. ETC cards are not needed; there are no toll roads on the island.

Stop 1 · Ohko Falls

The walk from the parking lot to the base is about ten minutes on a flat stone path, with handrails on the steep parts. After heavy rain — which on Yakushima is most days — the spray reaches the parking lot. In summer, the pool is shallow enough to stand in; locals come here with kids in inflatable rings. There’s a small shop near the parking selling shaved ice and tankan oranges, the local citrus.

Practical note: the “walk behind the falls” experience exists at Ohko in a half-true sense. There’s a rocky overhang you can scramble onto where you’re technically behind the column of water. It’s slippery, marked unofficial, and people do it all the time. Only attempt this if the water level is low; if the river looks brown after rain, stay on the main viewing path.

Stop 2 · Yokogawa Valley

To find it: a small dirt pull-off on the inland road south of Kurio, with a hand-painted sign. The path down to the river is a five-minute scramble — no railing, mossy roots, easier than it sounds in dry weather and harder than it sounds after rain. Bring water shoes; the river bottom is granite gravel between the smooth slabs.

Stop 3 · Seibu Rindo, the UNESCO buffer road

You drive at 30 km/h. There are no shoulders, no places to legally pull off and walk into the forest, no exits. The point of the road is to be in the forest with the wildlife — not to stop and start fragmenting their habitat further. You can stop the car briefly if there are monkeys on the road, but you don’t get out. This rule sounds restrictive until you understand the alternative: hundreds of cars per day, hours of monkey-feeding photos, and a habitat broken in two.

What you will see: yakuzaru (Yakushima macaques, a small endemic subspecies of the Japanese macaque) sitting on the road in family groups; yakushika (Yakushima sika deer, also smaller than the mainland version) crossing in front of you; and a forest canopy so close on both sides that the road feels like a tunnel.

One detail people miss: there’s no cellular signal for most of Seibu Rindo. If you break down, you walk to the next car. Plan accordingly — full tank of fuel, water in the car, and don’t do this drive after sunset.

Stop 4 · Nagata Lighthouse and Inakahama Beach

The lighthouse first — Nagata-misaki Toudai, built in 1897, white-painted brick, perched on a cliff with a 270-degree view over the East China Sea. There’s a small parking lot, a 200-meter walk to the lighthouse, and a viewpoint where on a clear day you can see the active volcano on Kuchinoerabu-jima 12 km offshore. It’s a five-minute stop.

Then a few kilometers down the road: Inakahama Beach (永田いなか浜). About 800 meters of fine pale sand, walled by green mountains, with water that turns turquoise in the afternoon sun. It’s the largest sea-turtle nesting site in the northern Pacific — loggerhead turtles come ashore between May and August, in some years more than 6,000 nests in a single season. The beach is open to walk on during the day; from May through August it’s closed at night except via guided turtle-watching tours, run by the local conservation NGO.

The water at Inakahama looks like a Caribbean tourist photo and isn’t. There’s a strong rip current most of the year, no lifeguard, and swimming is officially discouraged outside the marked area near the river mouth. If you’re looking for an actual swim, do that at the smaller Issou-kaisuiyokujou further around the coast.

The full driving order, as I’d do it again

What to bring in the car

• Full tank of fuel (no stations west of Anbo on this loop)
• Bottled water, 1.5 L per person
• Lunch packed in Anbo or Miyanoura (no convenience stores after Kurio)
• Swimwear + microfiber towel + water shoes (Yokogawa or Inakahama)
• Mosquito repellent in summer (Yokogawa is buggy in July-August)
• Offline map (Maps.me or Google Maps offline pack of Yakushima)
• Cash for the parking and shaved-ice shop at Ohko (¥500 + ¥400)
• Light rain shell (the west coast has its own micro-weather)
• Plastic bag for any wet swimwear on the way back

Frequently asked questions

Last updated: May 2026 · Visit: August 2024, full west-loop drive on a single afternoon.
All photos by Nobutoshi.