Hakone is Japan's most celebrated hot spring resort and, on a clear day, one of the finest places in the country to view Mount Fuji. Nestled inside a collapsed volcanic caldera in the mountains west of Tokyo, the town is essentially a giant natural spa: geothermal steam rises from hillside vents, the lake at the caldera's centre reflects the sky, and every ryokan (traditional inn) seems to have hot spring water piped directly into the bath.
The landscape is volcanic and dramatic. Lake Ashi sits in the crater bowl, its shores lined with pines and the occasional torii gate rising from the water. Above it, the volcano's complex geology is most visible at Owakudani, a raw gash in the hillside still fuming with sulphurous gas, where vendors sell kuro tamago — hard-boiled eggs blackened by the mineral-rich hot spring water and said to extend your life by seven years per egg. The caldera walls form the mountain ring of Mount Hakone around the lake.
Getting around Hakone is half the pleasure. The Hakone Free Pass, sold from Odawara or Shinjuku, covers unlimited use of every transport in the area: the cog railway up to Gora, the cable car over the volcanic peaks to the lake, the scenic ropeway over Owakudani, and the replica pirate galleons that cross Lake Ashi. Using all of them in sequence is one of the more enjoyable half-days of transport in Japan.
Hakone sits at the base of the original Tokaido highway between Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto, and the Hakone Barrier that controlled traffic on that road in the Edo period is partly reconstructed on the lakeshore. Writers, artists, and weary urbanites have been coming here to recover since the 19th century. The Fujiya Hotel in Miyanoshita, opened in 1878 as Japan's first Western-style resort hotel, still receives guests.
Most visitors come from Tokyo on day trips or overnight stays. An overnight in a good ryokan — with kaiseki dinner, hot spring bathing before bed, and the possibility of a Fuji view in the early morning light — is one of Japan's signature travel experiences. Book well ahead for weekends and national holidays.