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beaches

Take it from a local: This resort island off the coast of Nagasaki is totally worth a side trip

It’s the perfect weekend getaway for Nagasaki locals…and the perfect place to add to a visitor’s itinerary!

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Kuroshima, a remote, heart-shaped island in Okinawa where there are more cows than people

We visit a hidden gem in Okinawa that’s home to fewer than 250 people.

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The joys of fatbiking around Okinawa’s remote Taketomi Island

No other way will get you around the island so smoothly and quickly!

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World’s first Ice Whopper now on the menu at Burger King Japan

Bringing the refreshment of kakigori shaved ice to burgers this summer.

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Where will you go this summer? Here are the top 10 Japanese swimming spots with the nicest water

One lake and nine beaches to add to your summer swimming bucket list!

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Idols from the sea! Massive haul of idol singer photos wash up on Japanese coast【Photos】

Not the kind of trash beach-cleaning volunteer expected to find.

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Beautiful “sandy beach” near Nagasaki Airport is not made of sand…it’s made of glass!

And it doesn’t hurt to walk on it with your bare feet!

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Breathtakingly beautiful beach in often-overlooked part of Japan is like a scene out of Your Name

Chichibugahama Beach looks like a Makoto Shinkai anime come to life, and is well worth a detour off the beaten travel path.
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Freaky-looking Goblin shark washes up on beach, almost puts us off seafood for life 【Photos】

Rare “living fossil” shark that looks like it’s trying to escape from its own face is a great reminder for us to stay out of the water.

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There is a little piece of heaven that only appears for up to an hour a day in Palau

The gorgeous Long Beach lets us in for a brief thirty minutes.

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How much treasure can you find on a Japanese beach with a metal detector?

It’s amazing what you can unearth on a day out at the beach.

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Japanese teams use orange flags as a tsunami alert signal for swimmers and surfers

The new orange flag warning system aims to help those at sea become aware of an earthquake or tsunami before it’s too late.

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Japan may have an image as an all-work and no-play sort of place, but you’ve got to give the country credit for coming up with Umi no Hi. Observed on the third Monday of July, Umi no Hi literally means “Ocean Day,” but “Marine Day” and “Beach Day” would also be acceptable translations. It’s a national holiday expressly created to give everyone a day off to go have fun at the beach, and it just might be the greatest socially accepted reason ever for blowing off work.

This year, Japan got so into the spirit of the holiday that even people in prefectures with no coastline swore they could smell the sea. But was this just a summery olfactory hallucination, or a legitimate Umi no Hi miracle?

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Wacky Japanese beach culture: A ton of fun in the sun!

From whacking watermelons with sticks to burying your friends in the sand or holding sweltering Japanese style BBQs, Japan has a very specific beach culture. We’ve introduced some of these activities before on our site, but this time, we’ve supersized the experience by adding more activities–and extra cheese!

We’ll introduce 13 beach scenes that you’re bound to experience on any trip to a Japanese beach, and present most of them in a six-second Vine video. We picked one of our favorite places to Vine from: Shiraishi Island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea where one of our writers happens to live. This tiny island of 560 people in Okayama Prefecture, is one of Japan’s best kept secrets: the beach is never crowded, the sea is tranquil, the sunsets superb, and the beer never stops flowing.

Get ready to take the plunge into the sea of Japanese beach culture with a local to show you la plage–Japanese style!

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With just a few weeks left before September, beach lovers in Japan are trying to sneak in a few last trips to the coast. A late summer trip to the shore means you’ll have to be on the lookout for jellyfish, but the good news is they don’t seem to be out in full force yet.

The bad news, though, is that Kanagawa Prefecture has something that looks sort of like a jellyfish but is even worse, with some people having spotted the Portuguese man-of-war.

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Israeli bath and beauty product maker Sabon opening beach restaurant in Kamakura

Having grown up a quick drive from southern California’s miles and miles of prime coastline, I’ll admit Japanese beaches can sometimes be a little underwhelming. Among other problems, they’re crowded with day trippers during midsummer, and infested with jellyfish as the season winds down.

One great thing about beaches in Japan, though, are the umi no ie, temporary restaurants/lounges built right on the sand and only operated during July and August. Due to their temporary nature (the buildings are completely disassembled come September), umi no ie used to be pretty bare-bones. In recent years, though, the ones at Japan’s more popular beaches have been attracting some well-known corporate sponsors and collaborative partners, such as Israeli bath and beauty product manufacturer Sabon, which is set to open its first umi no ie next week.

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