As fans of less touristy destinations, we have found this hidden gem in the north west of Fukuoka prefecture. A coastal city that is best known for it’s mountains, beaches, cute cafes and two rocks connected by a sacred rope and white torii gate.
It was quite difficult to research the city, so it was a bit of a struggle for us to navigate the place. Since it is less exposed to tourists, the locals are not very comfortable speaking English. So, how did our trip to Itoshima go?
One of the reason why I want to go to Itoshima than in other cities that can be done with day trip is because we can bike around the city with the beautiful views of the mountains then the ocean.
How to get to Itoshima?
In less than an hour, you can reach Itoshima from Hakata City by train or bus. For us, we took the train to Itoshima, but I think it wasn’t the best option.
By train: There are no intermediate stops from Hakata Station to Itoshima, and the line goes to Misakigaoka Station.
By bus: From Hakata Bus Station, there are direct buses to Itoshima’s tourist spots. This is what we missed, and it’s the easiest route I would recommend.
How to get around Itoshima?
Since our main goal was to ride bicycles around Itoshima, we had to stop by one of the bicycle rental shops in the area. Fortunately, I found an article on where you can rent a bicycle in Itoshima, which saved me time writing about it, LOL. You can read it here: https://itoshima-now.com/en/exploring-by-bicycle-rental-guide/
For us, we rented bicycles at Thalia Coffee because picking them up from the main office was really, really far compared to the coffee shop I mentioned, which is just about an hour away from Sakurai Futamigaura Beach, where the famous couple of rocks and the white torii gate are located.
If you are getting around the city by local bus, make sure to wait at the designated bus stops, which look like this. You can also refer to the link above for the exact bus routes.
Funny though, because we almost gave up on this trip since we didn’t really know how to take their local bus. We even got on a bus whose last stop was far from the tourist area, which was really scary because there were barely any commercial buses in Itoshima. It felt like a bus only passed every 30–40 minutes.
Aside from that, the locals weren’t very good at speaking English, so we had to use Google Translate to communicate, but we still had trouble understanding each other. It was already 11:00 in the morning, which means half the day was gone, and we still hadn’t started exploring the place yet because we ended up in a local town instead.
Good thing the bus driver was very helpful. He asked us to wait because he still had to follow their timetable, so we were very thankful and patient as well. He dropped us off at a bus stop (the bus stop in the image above) and said something about waiting for the next bus there. He didn’t even ask us to pay for the fare! That’s one of a hell of adventure! *whew*
Anyhoo, since we’re back on track, we went to Thalia Coffee Shop to rent bicycles. Good thing, there are still available ones that we have rented for the whole day.
After all the struggles, we’re finally here and riding bicycles together for the very first time here in Japan! Another bucket-list item checked off!
There are many bicycle routes in Itoshima, and the most popular one is the Itoshima Coastal Loop, which covers 80 km and takes a full day of biking. Of course, we’re not doing that LOL. We took the easier route, which takes around 2–3 hours, but we still got to experience part of the coastal loop.
Itoshima has beautiful coastal roads, rice paddies, and scenic mountain views, making the whole trip truly breathtaking and fun! We had such a great time that we ended up stopping to take lots of photos along the way.
When we arrived at Futamigaura’s Couple Stones, our final stop and the goal of our trip, we were in awe of the torii gate, with the two massive stones symbolizing marital unity standing beautifully in the background.
Itoshima, as we expected, has less tourist and that makes us so happy because we can have the spot on our own and be at peace… for a while.
Since we’re a little tired from biking and there’s some tourist lining up to take a picture with the torii gate, we decided to rest at a café right along this beautiful coastal view first. Cafés in Itoshima have adapted to Western-style food like burgers and French fries, so here we are, eating fries in Japan looool!
After we had some snacks, we took pictures of the torii gate and the Sakurai Futamigaura Couple Rock, but we didn’t line up anymore. This spot is better at sunset, but since it was cloudy that day, we didn’t have a choice but to embrace the gloomy ambiance. LOL
It was a very peaceful afternoon with a beautiful coastal view of Japan, but it was time to say goodbye and head back to the café where we rented our bicycles as the direct buses to Hakata also pass by there.
Goodbye Itoshima!
