June 12 2025 / Japan / Letters from Japan /

Cycling the Shimanami Kaido in Two Days

The Shimanami Kaido is a roughly 70-kilometer cycling route that connects Japan’s main island, Honshu, to Shikoku via a series of seven bridges and six islands across the Setouchi Inland Sea (a region poetically depicted in Donald Richie`s The Inland Sea).

Bikers on a bridge along Shimanami Kaido

The cycling trail for the majority of the route follows the car road, with lanes dedicated to cyclists in most sections (which are wider than the terrifyingly narrow bike lanes of Tokyo).

The trail offers a relatively unique way to experience the Setouchi region, which is bordered by seven prefectures (Hyogo, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Kagawa, Tokushima, and Ehime) and is home to more than 700 islands.

While I would not count the Shimanami Kaido among the most scenic outdoor experiences in Japan, there are a few things that make it stand out to me, turning it into a rewarding trip each time.

First, there’s the thrill of riding across six different bridges, each with its own level of appeal. The pièce de résistance is undoubtedly the 4-kilometer-long Kurushima-Kaikyō Bridge, once the world’s longest suspension bridge, which is either the first or the last you’ll cross, depending on your starting point.

The second point is the excellent visitor infrastructure and ease of trip planning (more on that below)—something not to be taken lightly in Japan, where planning travel can often be an excruciatingly confusing process (e.g., Japan Trip Planning Q&A: Transportation).

Additionally, there are numerous side trip options along the route that take you to art museums, quirky temples, and viewpoints, enriching the overall journey beyond a mere biking trip. While you can complete the trip as a bullet ride in one day, as I once did, you can also easily stretch it to two or three days and still not run out of sights to see along the route (more on side trips below).