Rustic Japan -A Guide to Rural Japan & Off-the-Beaten-Path Countryside- 日本語

Chubu & Hokuriku

Sado Island: A Night in a Ship Captain's House Over 100 Years Old

Niigata Prefecture

Sunken irori hearth with an iron kettle hanging from a pot hook, in a room of lacquered red wooden walls and drawers
Where
Niigata Prefecture
When
July 2026, 3 days, 2 nights
Route
Tokyo Station → (JR Joetsu Shinkansen Toki, 2 hours) → Niigata Station → (taxi, 10 min) → Niigata Port → (Sado Kisen ferry, 2 hours 30 min) → Sado Island → rental car
Cost
¥60,000

For many Japanese people, Sado Island is one of those places they’ve heard of but never actually been to.

Sado Island belongs to Niigata Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu, Japan’s main island. It sits out in the Sea of Japan, and maybe because it’s a fair distance from Tokyo, it doesn’t get many tourists.

What comes to mind when I think of Sado Island is the tarai-bune. As the name says, a tarai-bune is a washtub (tarai) made into a boat. You move it by swaying the oar from side to side rather than back and forth. It’s a boat I’ve never seen anywhere in Japan except on Sado Island.

Tub boat carrying two passengers in life jackets on a calm Shukunegi inlet, with a blue banner reading "Shukunegi tub boat"

I wanted to ride a tub boat. That was the whole reason I set off for Sado Island.

From Tokyo, I took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Niigata Station, then a taxi from the station to Niigata Port. There’s more than one port in Niigata, but if you tell the taxi driver you want to go to Sado Island, they should understand. From Niigata Port, you take a boat to Sado Island.

A large Sado Kisen ferry docked at Niigata Port, with a truck parked on the quay beside it

On the boat to Sado Island, you can play tag with seagulls who are after your snacks. Up close, seagulls have scary eyes. The eyes of a hunter.

Seagulls perched on life raft canisters on a ferry deck, with Niigata Port under a cloudy sky behind

Today’s prey: Kappa Ebisen, a popular shrimp-flavored snack whose slogan says that once you start, you can’t stop. Seems that goes for seagulls too.

Passengers on a ferry deck leaving Niigata Port hold up shrimp chips to seagulls flying alongside on a cloudy day

Once on Sado Island, I rented a car. There are buses, but they don’t run often.

Tonight I’m staying at Isaburo, a whole-house rental in a hamlet called Shukunegi. The inn’s website does have an English version, so I assume foreign visitors can stay there too.

Exterior of Isaburo, a two-story wooden rental house with dark plank walls and a stone name plaque, in Shukunegi on Sado Island

The inn is a private home built long ago by a man who worked as a ship’s captain in Shukunegi, and it’s more than 100 years old. Back when the kitamaebune (merchant ships that plied the Sea of Japan) were in their heyday, Sado Island was apparently a stopover between Hokkaido and Kyoto.

Tatami room in an old Shukunegi house on Sado Island, with hanging scrolls, a figurine, and yellow flowers in alcoves

It even has an irori (a sunken hearth), so it must have been a very fine house for its time. It’s still a fine house.

Sunken irori hearth with an iron kettle hanging from a hook in a glossy wooden-floored room of an old house

There are windows set up high. Apparently they’re there to let the smoke out.

Dim interior of an old wooden house with high lattice windows, a thick rope hanging from above, and small shrines below

The floor creaks as you walk. It’s a nice sound.

Wooden-floored room with two rattan chairs and a low table, latticed windows overlooking a tiled roof

Tomorrow, the tub boat.

To be continued