Hokkaido
Driving in Hokkaido
What the roads are actually like, what changed on 1 September 2026, and the ¥50,000 hole in the insurance advice everyone repeats.
Read the sheet →Surveyed to date · 9 corridors · 1,358 km
The parts of Hokkaido I've driven, and the numbers for the rest
Every distance, gradient and journey time here is computed from real coordinates — OpenStreetMap road data through an open-source routing engine, and the national elevation model for the passes. Shaded corridors are written up. The hairlines are next.
9corridors
1,358km surveyed
±400 mbase accuracy
Coverage
Where the ink is, and where it's going
Latest sheets
Roads, checked properly
Route 243 230 km Sheet 05 · Eastern Hokkaido · Okhotsk and Kushiro
Abashiri to Kushiro, the lake road
Three lakes sit in a row across the eastern side of the island, each one the flooded scar of something that blew up, and a single day of driving links all three. Two hundred
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Hokkaido Route 2 46 km Sheet 04 · Southern Hokkaido · Iburi
Noboribetsu to Lake Toya, the volcano road
Forty-six kilometres from a boiling crater to a caldera lake, over a pass that tops out just under nine hundred metres — hell valley and its ten waters, the Orofure climb, a mountain that redrew the map three times in a century, and fireworks every night until the end of October.
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Route 5 290 km Sheet 03 · Southern Hokkaido · Oshima
Sapporo to Hakodate, the long way south
Close to three hundred kilometres down the island's southern spine to Hakodate — the paperwork, the coast road versus the toll road, a lake under an active volcano, and the port city with the three-star night view.
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Route 229 70 km Sheet 02 · Western Hokkaido · Shiribeshi
Otaru to Cape Kamui, the blue coast
Seventy kilometres of cliffs, tunnels and improbably blue sea out to Hokkaido's only marine park — with a whisky distillery on the way, and a season that decides everything.
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Route 237 60 km Sheet 01 · Central Hokkaido · Kamikawa
Furano to Biei, the slow way
Sixty kilometres of patchwork hills, lavender and one improbably blue pond — and why it still takes the better part of a day.
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