Author: Clive Witham

1 MILLION VISITORS! Welcome to yakumonkey.com – the home of Yakushima: A Yakumonkey Guide. Most tourists come to Yakushima island for a sense of adventure and in these pages and the Yakushima guide you’ll find lots of tourist information to help you create that special magical Yakushima adventure. In fact

These short videos show you a little of the magic of Yakushima For more more detailed information about Yakushima – check out the one and only Yakumonkey Guide to Yakushima

The seas around Yakushima benefit from the warm Kuroshiro current which brings a great variety of fish and sea creatures. I know this first hand as I was a fisherman on a flying fish boat on Yakushima. The ‘Shige-maru’ was captained by one of the oldest and most experienced crew

Here are some of the spectacular Sugi trees that have made Yakushima famous: JOMON SUGI Height: 25.3 metres Diameter: 5.22 metres Trunk circumference: 16.4 metres Age: 2600-7200 years old Access: Okabu trail KIGEN SUGI Height: 19.5 metres Trunk circumference: 8.1 metres Age: 3000 years old Access: Road to Yodogawa Entrance

You need to be cautious when swimming in the sea around the island as the current runs very near to the shore and would sweep you away in a second. I was a flying fish fisherman on Yakushima and the strength of the tides on the fishing boat never ceased

There are many great places to snorkel in Yakushima. Here are a few of the best:  ISSO BEACH Isso beach The best place for snorkeling is actually on the other side of the car park to where the beach is. Cross the small road that runs by the side of

Yakushima has crystal clear waters cascading down the mountain sides. Here are a few of the best: MIYANOURA RIVER Best access: Yakushima Comprehensive Nature park Looking inland at Miyanoura river ANBO RIVER Best access: From the center of Anbo Anbo river mouth OKO RIVER Best access: Okonotaki and Sagoshi-no-hama Looking

Here are English maps of the main villages on Yakushima: NAGATA and ISSO Map of Nagata MIYANOURA Map of Miyanoura (English) ANBO Anbo Map (English) ONOAIDA Map of Onoaida (English) KOSEDA Map of Koseda (English) HIRAUCHI and YUDOMARI Map of Hirauchi (English) KURIO and NAKAMA Map of Kurio (English)

Although shops on Yakushima are rather basic, all the necessities can be found in one of the stores. Here’s the shopping delights. MIYANOURA Large supermarkets LIFE CENTER YAKUDEN  ライフセンターヤクデン Close to the port, across the road from the Yakushima Environmental and Cultural Center. It has a little bit of everything

Yakushima is famous for its wooden Yakusugi crafts. These are made from Yakusugi tree trunks, often 1000s of years old, which were lying on the forest floor. They are brought down the mountain, sliced into manageable pieces and distributed to craftsmen around the coast. It is an incredibly difficult task to change these chunks

‘Princess Mononoke’, the Studio Ghibli animation, was inspired by the thick forests of Yakushima.  Hayao Miyazaki stayed in Anbo and roamed the forests with his crew before drawing the storyboard. There are many parts in the film that match Yakushima’s distinct scenery exactly. Just as art imitates life, so life imitates art

The North East of Yakushima covers the area from Isso around to Anbo and includes the airport area and Miyanoura. There are lots of things to do and here is a selection. SHITOKO GAJUMARU BANYAN PARK Location: Shitoko (See Google maps) A small park full of banyan trees which have distinctive

If it is raining up in the mountains and you have little time to wait a day or two for the weather to clear, this trail is the closest thing there is to the big mountain trails. It begins at Onoaida onsen and gently meanders through the forest for an

The most frequented place for sea turtles to lay their eggs in Japan is at Inakahama beach in Yakushima. It is a stretch of sandy beach which runs only 800 meters along the north-west coast of the island. Egg laying season is from May to August and in that time

Firstly – here’s the weather forecast for Yakushima this week: Despite what you may have read or heard – No, it doesn’t rain all the time on Yakushima. The 35 days of rain a month quote that people like to use doesn’t represent reality. Around the coast there is as

There are 2 main bus companies on Yakushima – Yakushima Kotsu and Matsubanda Kotsu. Both have different timetables and routes. Here are the details in English for 2016: Yakushima Kotsu Bus Timetable 2016 Matsubanda bus timetables 2016 Also here is a map and details of the FREE PASS.  The Free

The following documentaries are available to watch here on Yakushima: * Part of a BBC series called Secret Wilderness which comes to Yakushima * ‘Yakushima no Yamashi mori ni ikiru’: an NHK documentary called which follows Takada Hisao, a local man from Anbo, and his work in the forest collecting

One of the most pressing environmental problems on Yakushima is the human waste that is produced by thousands of tourists who walk the trails every year. The tanks of waste that accumulate at each of the huts have to be quite literally carried down the mountain on the backs of