Matsuyama & central Ehime Matsuyama
Shikoku’s largest city: an original hilltop castle, vintage trams, haiku and the gateway to Dogo Onsen.
Ehime destinations
Eleven destinations, grouped by area. Each has its own guide to tours, sights, transport, practicalities and seasons.
Ehime is traditionally divided into three parts: Chuyo, the centre around Matsuyama; Toyo, the industrial east and the Inland Sea islands; and Nanyo, the rural south. We have added the mountains as a fourth group, because the high country behind the coast is a world of its own. Distances are modest — the whole prefecture is about 150 km from end to end — and the JR main line strings most of the destinations together.
Matsuyama & central Ehime
Matsuyama & central Ehime
The capital, its hot-spring quarter, the pottery town on its doorstep and the seaside station an hour down the coast. Everything here is a tram, bus or local train from the city.
Matsuyama & central Ehime 
Matsuyama & central Ehime Dogo Onsen
One of Japan’s oldest hot springs, with a storybook wooden bathhouse at its heart and ryokan all around.
Matsuyama & central Ehime Tobe
Matsuyama’s pottery town: sturdy white porcelain painted in indigo, dozens of small kilns to visit and one of western Japan’s biggest zoos.
Matsuyama & central Ehime Shimonada & the Iyo-nada Coast
A tiny unmanned station with nothing between its platform and the sea — Japan’s most photographed railway sunset.
Imabari & the islands
Imabari & the Inland Sea islands
The Shikoku end of the Shimanami Kaido: a port city of towels and shipyards, and three islands joined to it by some of Japan’s most spectacular bridges.
Imabari & the islands Shimanami Kaido & Imabari
Japan’s great island-hopping cycle route across the Seto Inland Sea, starting from the towel-and-shipbuilding city of Imabari.
Mountains & eastern Ehime
Mountains & eastern Ehime
The Ishizuchi range and the cities at its feet — a sacred summit, copper-mine ruins in the forest, spring-water towns, cool highlands and thunderous autumn festivals.
Mountains & eastern Ehime Mount Ishizuchi & Saijo
The highest peak in western Japan — a sacred summit climbed by iron chains — above a city where pure spring water wells up in the streets.
Mountains & eastern Ehime Niihama
An industrial city with a spectacular secret: the mountain ruins of the Besshi copper mine, the “Machu Picchu of the East”.
Mountains & eastern Ehime Kuma Kogen & Omogo Gorge
Ehime’s cool highlands: an emerald gorge at the foot of Mount Ishizuchi, cliff-side pilgrimage temples and the grassy ridges of the Shikoku Karst.
Southern Ehime (Nanyo)
Southern Ehime (Nanyo)
Down the line from Matsuyama the pace slows: preserved merchant streets, a riverside castle town and, at the end of the railway, the bull-sumo port of Uwajima.
Southern Ehime (Nanyo) Uchiko
A beautifully kept merchant town that grew rich on wax, with a working kabuki theatre and a street of cream-walled townhouses.
Southern Ehime (Nanyo) Ozu
The “Little Kyoto of Iyo”: a riverside castle town with a timber-built keep, an exquisite cliff-top villa and summer cormorant fishing.
Southern Ehime (Nanyo) Uwajima
A far-south castle town of bull sumo, pearls and sea bream on rice, at the end of the railway line.
Ready to go?
Book your Ehime experiences before you fly
Guided walks in Dogo Onsen, private guides in Matsuyama, sake breweries and Shimanami day trips — reserve now, pay later and cancel free on most tours.