In the fall of 2025 I had my longest bike trip till now, and probably ever. The plan was never to cycle from the northern most point to the southern most point, since I wanted to explore more than simply racing to the end. I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't try to make my plan go from the north to the south, but I would have needed at least one more month (if not two) if I had aimed to cover everything I wanted to see in one go. So instead I prioritized a little bit of everything, Hokkaido in the north, the Japanese alps, and Sado in the middle, Yakushima island and Nagasaki in the south.

To make it easier for myself I've split the travel journaling into three parts, one for Hokkaido, one for Honshu, and the last part about my return to Kyushu. I've finally finished writting about Hokkaido, so I'm shaing it all with you.

Verdict (TL;DR)

I’ve cycled in a lot of places in Japan, and Hokkaido was yet another great place to bike! I’ve heard a lot of people saying it’s a bit like Norway, but I don’t necessarily agree, except for maybe Higashikawa which had a very Nordic vibe. What I do know is that I want to go back to explore more of this exciting island with beautiful forests, quiet roads, great scenery, great people, and some astonishing hikes.

One of the highlights was visiting the northernmost islands Rishiri and Rebun. Next time I should plan to visit Okushiri island too. Following my route heading east, before crossing the mountains over to Sapporo, there were hardly any foreign tourists. The towns are also spread quite far apart, so I really got that remote feeling while cycling.

Read the whole post:
https://kyrremann.no/bikepacking/japan/2025/hokkaido

You can read about my gear here:
https://kyrremann.no/bikepacking/japan/2025/three-months-in-japan

PS: I also have a newsletter if you want to know when I'm finished writing about Honshu, the japanese alps, and Sado island.