Takachiho Gorge — Attraction in Takachiho

One of the highlights of my trip to Miyazaki. This is a place I gave up visiting on my first visit to Miyazaki 10 years ago, as I didn't rent a car because public transportation to this place was very inefficient.

Boat and Parking A small boat ride in the canyon costs 5,100 yen on weekends and 4,100 yen on weekdays for 30 minutes. Online reservations are available from 1 week prior to your visit, and if 2 days prior to your visit, online reservations close and are converted to tickets for visiting travelers. Among the 3 parking lots(free, 300Y, 500Y, you have to pay a fee of 500 yen to park at the 1st parking lot, it is convenient because there is a boat ticket office inside the parking lot. However, the parking lot accommodates only about 30 cars, so it is not easy to find a spot. You have to wait until a space becomes available. The small boat, which you must row yourself, can accommodate up to 3 adults or 4 including children. It wasn't difficult to get a boat ticket in January, but finding a space in parking lot 1 seemed to be more difficult.

Ticket Reservation Even if you reserve a ticket online, you must stop by the boat office and exchange it for a numbered ticket. If you go straight to the boat landing, you have to climb up the steep stairs again, so don't forget to exchange it. If you haven't booked tickets in advance, it's a good idea to secure your tickets when you arrive at the ticket office. For tickets purchased on-site, you cannot specify a time and you must ride immediately after purchasing the ticket. In January, if you arrive early in the morning even on a weekend, there are still a lot of tickets left, but they are often sold out during the warm season.

Overall Review Although the view from the boat is beautiful, I think the price of 5,100 yen (weekends) for 30 minutes is a bit expensive. Even if you don't take a boat, you can enjoy the scenery from the bridge. I was worried that 30 minutes would be short, but when you actually row the boat, the section the boat can operate on is very short, so you don't need more time. Takachiho Gorge is very beautiful and well worth a visit, but I'm not sure it's worth paying the price to dodge other boats in the...

This gorge is even more than what was expected! First things first, travel from Sasebo is about 3 1/4 hours drive non stop but there are also tours you can sign up for. I ended up staying in a local hotel the night before as their opening begins at 08:30. Reservations are done online and have an English based page to make it easy for foreigners. There is a separate line for non reservations however, they have limited “tickets” to sell so I’d recommend you make a reservation. Tickets were under $50 for 2 people, so reserve online! The location is away from the city and around the mountains, rather remote area and very scenic routes to reach it. The gorge itself is a gorgeous river bank where you yourself can row a boat around to enjoy with family or a significant other. The waterfalls are breathtaking and you can easily wind up underneath one. Make sure to show up early as it does get kind of full trying to row your boat amongst at least 10 other boats. The gorge isn’t too narrow and everyone ended up pushing each others boat to guide each other along. It was a beautiful experience and weather in the mountains in the early morning was nice and crisp. If you’ve no experience rowing a boat it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it, I even got a quick lesson before drifting off. There’s a picture of a map attached and has all sorts of other activities and shops and food to eat and see throughout your visit and is packed full of wonder. The Cremia ice cream is the best, sorry no photo, but there’s so much to see and try. I didn’t take very many photos because I was always distracted by the shops and food they were selling, the coy ponds are also very pretty and there’s even duck food you can buy to feed the wandering ducks. It was a great trip and can be an amazing one for you and...

100% worth to go there. It a very beautiful place and specially the boating part. Although, for the boating ticket you have to book online but we forgot to book one day before and in the next morning their website shown all tickets booked but when we went there, there were very few people and tickets are easily available. I would suggest to please wear sports shoes as you have to walk a lot if you are not going by your own vehicle. We took bus from Kumamoto and it dropped us far from the gorge. We have walked a lot. And from George to the Amano Iwato shrine we took a taxi which costs us around 3000 yen, taxi phone number you will get from George only. Also to reach the shrine, again you have to walk a lot. In evening around 4 pm we have return bus booked to Kumamoto. So there was a bus scheduled from shrine to the Takachiho bus stop ( shared picture of bus stop) but unfortunately it did not come on time and we have waited a lot. Also, these days many bus services are less due to less number of visitors and tourists. So please keep check on bus schedule. Please book taxi if you stuck somewhere. Due to COVID, tourist are v less at all places so it's quite good for us to explore places nicely. In small places, like unzen, Takachiho, etc, the bus stops are not like Tokyo. So it was quite difficult to identify them..lol.. And also no English at all. So it was quite difficult for us. But the people are v...