Totally worth a visit if you are in Wakkanai. I was only going to Wakkanai to see Cape Soya but thanks to a friendly passenger on the train ride over from Sapporo, I learned all about this island. He got super excited about Mt. Rishiri in the distance as we approached Wakkanai Station. I thought nothing of it until he pointed to a map he was carrying that explained it’s a volcano.

I was just at Sakurajima the week before, and the idea of having seen one of the southern most volcanoes in Japan, why not see the Northern most volcano.

I arrived at 12:50pm, checked in and quickly ran to the Heartland Ferry Terminal, and with only 10mins to spare, I was on the last ride to Rishiri. Keep in mind the ferry takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes, one way. So it only runs a limited number of times a day. In the winter, it’s 1:55pm last ride to the island. And 5:30pm last trip back from the island.

The ferry ride was awesome, highly recommend chilling on the outdoor deck, no one out there, not cold at all. Nice privacy. S

As we approached Rishiri, its snow covered peak looked sharp and mighty. As we prepared for docking, you get a sweet view of the mountain, totally unobstructed.

Sadly, unlike Sakurajima, no taxi’s were waiting for us. Despite that, I wandered around a bit on foot, but because I had a return ticket for 5:30pm, I had to hang around and not go too far.

Little town near the dock. There is a cool cliffside as well, wish I had more time to explore.

Go, have fun, you will like. Maybe more so in the spring and fall 😅