Shizuoka in 7 Days on a Budget (Daily Costs)
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Seven Days in Shizuoka on a Budget
Seven days is the full spine: Shizuoka City, the Fuji area, a proper Izu Peninsula loop across two onsen towns, and Hamamatsu, everything the shorter 2 through 6-day itineraries each cover a piece of. If you are visiting between July 10 and September 10, this is also long enough to swap a day for a Fuji climb instead of the second Izu day.
Book these before you go:
- A rental car from day 3 through day 6, covering the Fuji area and the full Izu loop
- Ryokan nights in both Atami and Shuzenji ; book weekends ahead
- A Shizuoka FUJI NAVI permit if you are substituting a Fuji climb for day 5, budget the ¥4,000 fee plus a mountain hut reservation, and register well before the July-September window
Day 1: Sumpu Castle Park and Shizuoka City
Sumpu Castle Park, free to walk, Ieyasu’s retirement seat from 1607 to 1616. Dinner at an oden yokocho, dashi-simmered skewers and Shizuoka’s own black hanpen fish cake, a few hundred yen a skewer.
Day 1 running cost (per person, excl. hotel): turret entry ~500 + oden dinner 2,500 = **¥3,000**
Day 2: Miho no Matsubara, Nihondaira, and Tea
Miho no Matsubara’s pine-grove Fuji view, free and a genuine UNESCO Fujisan component, then the Nihondaira Ropeway (about ¥1,250 round trip) down to Kunozan Toshogu, Ieyasu’s original 1617 shrine, a National Treasure predating Nikko’s, with a tea tasting worked in on the way.
Day 2 running cost (per person, excl. hotel): ropeway 1,250 + shrine fee ~500 + tea tasting ~1,000 + meals 2,500 = **¥5,250**
Day 3: The Fuji Area and Mishima
Pick up the rental car and head to Fujinomiya. Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha, head shrine of the more than 1,300 Sengen shrines dedicated to Mount Fuji, sits alongside Shiraito Falls; both are free-to-view UNESCO Fujisan components. Lunch on Fujinomiya yakisoba, a cheap B-1 Grand Prix Hall of Fame dish. In the afternoon, drive to Mishima Skywalk, Japan’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge (400 meters, about ¥1,100), for a Fuji view from the deck if the weather cooperates.
Day 3 running cost (per person, excl. hotel): shrine offering ~200 + yakisoba lunch ~700 + Skywalk 1,100 + other meals 1,500 = **¥3,500**
Day 4: Atami
Drive to Atami and check into a ryokan with an onsen. The MOA Museum of Art (about ¥2,000) has a strong Japanese and Chinese antiquities collection and a bay view; skip it if the budget is tight, Kinomiya Shrine’s roughly 2,000-year-old camphor tree and a free public footbath along the main street cover the same “did Izu properly” feeling for nothing.
Day 4 running cost (per person, excl. hotel): MOA Museum ~2,000 (optional) + meals 2,000 = **¥2,000-4,000** (plus the ryokan rate)
Day 5: Shuzenji, or a Fuji Climb Instead
Drive south to Shuzenji, a “Little Kyoto of Izu” with a hot-spring history running back roughly 1,200 years, and walk the free Chikurin-no-Komichi bamboo path along the Katsura River before a second ryokan onsen night. If you are here between July 10 and September 10 and want to climb instead, base near Fujinomiya on day 3 and start the climb here on your Shizuoka FUJI NAVI permit: budget the ¥4,000 climbing fee plus a mountain hut reservation (prices vary by hut, book ahead), and pack layers, temperatures swing from summer heat at the trailhead to near-freezing overnight near the summit.
Day 5 running cost (per person, excl. hotel): bamboo path free + meals 2,500 = **¥2,500** (plus the ryokan rate, or the ¥4,000 climbing fee plus hut cost if climbing)
Day 6: The Izu Loop
Drive to Shimoda, where Commodore Perry’s Black Ships landed in 1854, and walk free Shirahama Beach, then the Jogasaki coast’s lava cliffs and Kadowaki suspension bridge, and Kawazu’s Nanadaru Seven Waterfalls trail. Stop at a wasabi farm near Amagi, free to walk; Shizuoka grows roughly 80% of Japan’s real hon-wasabi in terraced streambeds fed by cold mountain-spring water. Suruga Bay sits at the northeastern end of the Nankai Trough earthquake zone, worth knowing rather than worrying about as you drive the coast.
Day 6 running cost (per person, excl. hotel): wasabi farm walk free + meals 2,800 = **¥2,800**
Day 7: Hamamatsu
Return the rental car and take the JR Tokaido Line to Hamamatsu. Hamamatsu Castle was young Ieyasu’s own base before Sunpu; the Museum of Musical Instruments backs up the city’s “City of Music” identity, built on being home to Yamaha and Kawai. Order unagi grilled over charcoal for lunch if it is the splurge you have been saving for, Lake Hamana is where Japanese eel farming began, or go the cheap route with Hamamatsu gyoza, dumplings arranged in a circle around a pile of bean sprouts, before the Shinkansen home.
Day 7 running cost (per person, excl. hotel): castle ~500 + Museum of Musical Instruments ~800 + unagi lunch ~2,500 (or gyoza ~900 as the cheaper swap) + other meals 1,000 = **¥3,200-4,800**
Seven-day total: roughly ¥22,000-24,000 per person, excluding hotels, the two ryokan rates, and the rental car (or several thousand yen more if you swap day 5 for the Fuji climb permit and hut). This is a genuinely long single-prefecture trip, and it is fair to instead treat five or six of these days as the Shizuoka leg of a wider Tokyo-Kyoto trip; most travelers do. Whichever way you build it, return the rental car in Hamamatsu or Shizuoka City rather than trying to drop it in Tokyo, one-way fees between prefectures add up fast.