Hakone – The Perfect Family Weekend Getaway

Hakone is a beautiful, mountainous area popular for it`s natural onsens, hiking and views. Only 90 min from Shinjuku, it`s a perfect long weekend getaway.

Directions:
Take the Romance Car from Shinjuku Station to Hakone-Yumoto Station.

Things to do:
The Hakone Open Air Museum: A perfect place to spend the day enjoying the beautiful landscape, crisp mountain air, sculptures, the Picasso collection, and for kids, great sensory & tactile pieces to play around on – there`s also an area where kids can feed huge Koi.

The Hakone Ropeway: An aerial cable car overlooking the beauty of Hakone and where on a clear day you can see Mount Fuji. It takes you from Sounzan Station to Togendai Station where you can then take a the Hakone Sight Seeing Cruise Ship to cruise Lake Ashi, a perfect ½ day excursion with the kids. You can either take the ship and ropeway back or take the Hakone Tozan Bus back to the Odawara area. The kids can enjoy all the different modes of transport (I recommend getting the Hakone Free Pass for unlimited use of Odakyu affiliated buses, trains, boats and ropeways within the Hakone free area).

Accomodations:
A friend of mine suggested we stay at the Hyatt Regency for my mother`s first visit to Hakone – it was pricey but the room was huge, the onsen was right downstairs and the food was delicious! As an added bonus, every evening there is a free happy hour in the lounge – juice, beer and spirits for free! You can relax with a drink while the kids play with foam blocks, chess and go boards in the reading area.

Another alternative to getting a hotel is renting family-friendly apartments through airbnb.

We LOVED Hakone. It`s definitely a place we will visit again.