Taketomi is a tiny coral island in the Yaeyama group, ten minutes by ferry from Ishigaki. It covers barely five square kilometres, and the single village at its centre has been preserved almost unchanged for generations: low coral-stone walls line unpaved sandy lanes, red-tiled roofs are guarded by shisa lion statues, and bougainvillea spills over every gate. The island is small enough to cycle around in an hour and pleasant enough that many visitors wish they had stayed longer.
Taketomi is famous for its star sand — tiny star-shaped grains found on Kaiji Beach, which are actually the empty shells of a single-celled organism called a foraminifera. You can hold them up and see the individual star points with your naked eye. Kondoi Beach, on the western shore, has calmer water and is the place to swim. Water buffalo carts carry visitors through the village streets to the sound of a sanshin player singing Yaeyama folk songs — one of the more genuinely charming tourist experiences in Okinawa.
The island's religious dimension is less visited but equally distinctive. Around thirty utaki — traditional Ryukyuan sacred groves — are scattered across the island. The most significant is the Nishito Utaki, a forested sacred site in the village centre dedicated to a 16th-century administrator who is revered as a guardian deity of the island. The island is best visited as an overnight stop rather than a day trip from Ishigaki; the afternoon crowds thin to almost nothing after the last ferry.