Wakayama Prefecture is located just south of Osaka, blessed with beautiful beaches and untouched nature. Here, I will guide you out on a fast-paced trip from Osaka by car away from the bustle of the busy Japanese cities for a day at the beach & nature!

Wakayama Prefecture in Two Days (By Car)

Hi! Welcome to another trip guide of mine! 

⚠️ This is a trip designed for driving. 🚘

⚠️ This is more of a fast-paced trip with long hours of driving, made for those who may not have a lot of time in the country but still want to get out of the city. If that isn't your thing or your situation, you can extend your trip and/or tailor some of the activities to your liking. I will try to provide some alternatives along the way.

This was a trip that I personally took myself, and it worked for me. Of course, this might not be your travel style - so again - please feel free to change, tailor and look into the areas on google maps yourself for more activities to suit your taste!

Let's get some ⚠️ disclaimers out of the way before we start:

⚠️ It will be very difficult and time consuming to do this trip without a car, so you want to attempt this using public transport (the Shinkansen does not run here), please consider extending your trip by a day or two.

Wakayama is often a forgotten destination in the Kansai area for most tourists. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the prefecture name wasn't even on your radar to begin with. It really isn't very popular, unless you are an avid hiker as the famous multi-day Kumano trail starts and ends here. 

But today, we won't be hiking. And hopefully we'll still be able to enjoy some of the nature that Wakayama's got to offer!

Car rental! If you can start as early as 7AM or 8AM, I would recommend it. Earlier you go, more beach time! Woot!!

Shirahama, Wakayama, Japan

Nachikatsuura, Wakayama, Japan

I personally skipped this spot during my own trip, because I wanted to make it to my hotel before 3PM just before check-in and make full use of beach time.

⚠️ Please book your accommodations a few months in advance. Especially during the peak summer season (late June - August), you will find your choices will be far & few. Prices will also sky rocket.  

This is one hour south of Osaka and it's a nice little spot to stretch your legs. The view here is absolutely spectacular and if you come here at the right time, you might see farmers harvesting mikan from the farms all below this viewpoint.

Arida (and Wakayama) is famous for its mandarin oranges (or "mikan"), and at this viewpoint, you can actually see fields of mikan farms near and far. 

🔰 From here, we will make our way another hour south to the beach resort town of Shirahama.

➡️ If you would like to see more coastal areas along the way, you can use Google Maps to see if any areas between Arida and Shirarahama!

But if you and your party are feeling peckish and would prefer to have an assortment of foods for various dietary needs, I would say this is your best bet.

This is mostly a fish market, but it has other foods and some souvenir shops for shopping too.

You can choose to forego this, because quite frankly, the entry fee is a bit steep for just a cave. But there's a cool little shrine in there and some natural occurrances if you can time high tide correctly to see the waves hit the cave walls. 

So it's a good place to kill time if you're still waiting for check in, or if there's party members who might not want to spend all day at the beaches. 

As this is a two-day trip, this guide assumes you will be staying at Shirarahama. And the reason why I have chosen to push my beach visiting to late afternoon is because parking fees in the area is rather steep (around 2500yen per day) and it would be more strategic to park at your accommodation during check-in time.

During peak season, parking will also be far and few so if you want to save on parking, this might be a good route to go.

BUT PLEASE - call or contact your accommodation to see if they have private parking on site first. If they don't, then what I've said does not matter.

とれとれ市場 - 食事コーナー 

南紀白浜温泉-白良荘グランドホテル【公式】-白浜での海水浴・観光に

This hotel has parking on site and it has direct beach access, which made it extremely convenient for me to come and go out of the beach as I please.

From here, I mostly stay at the beach, enjoyed our half-board and the onsen facilities at the hotel.

We stayed at the beach until 11AM the next day, and took the car out the next day.

We start day 2 at the beach one more time, making use of our hotel room to sort ourselves out and dry our things.