Michelin Green Guide Mt. Fuji & Hakone — Three-Star Mt. Fuji and the Itchiku Kubota Art Museum, and All 28 Starred Sights

What the Michelin Green Guide is — 28 starred sights around Fuji and Hakone

This is the Michelin Green Guide (Le Guide Vert), which rates destinations rather than restaurants. The Japan edition is published in France: the 4th edition in 2015, the 6th in 2020, and the current one in 2025. Every star below is given with the edition that awarded it.

The stars fall into three areas: the Yamanashi side around Fujiyoshida and Lake Kawaguchi, Hakone with its hot springs and museums, and the Shizuoka side around Fujinomiya and Shizuoka city, which gained stars in the 2020 edition. No railway links the three directly — each is reached from Tokyo on a different line. For a single day, pick one area.

Three-star Mt. Fuji, and climbing it

Mt. Fuji is three-star in the 2015 edition, and still three-star in the 2025 edition. At 3,776 m it is Japan’s highest mountain, inscribed in 2013 as the World Heritage site “Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration”. The guide rates the mountain itself and the act of climbing it as two separate entries.

Climbing Mt. Fuji is two-star in the 2015 edition. General climbing is only possible in the summer season: in 2026 the Yoshida trail on the Yamanashi side ran 1 July to 10 September, and the Fujinomiya, Subashiri and Gotemba trails on the Shizuoka side from early July to 10 September.

The 2026 rules — ¥4,000 and time restrictions

In 2026 both sides charge ¥4,000 per person per climb (a toll on the Yamanashi side, an entry fee on the Shizuoka side). On the Yoshida trail the gate at the fifth station closes from 14:00 to 03:00, and access stops once 4,000 climbers have passed in a day. Anyone staying in a mountain hut is exempt from both limits, but everyone faces an equipment check at the fifth station — warm layers, separate rain jacket and trousers, proper boots — and you are turned back without them. Booking ahead is recommended rather than required. On the Shizuoka side you must complete a short safety and conservation briefing in the “Shizuoka Prefecture FUJI NAVI” app to receive an entry permit, and anyone entering between 14:00 and 03:00 needs a hut reservation. Check current conditions on the official Mt. Fuji climbing site and the Shizuoka Prefecture rules page.

Out of season, and paid rescue — responsibility on the mountain

Outside the climbing season the huts and first-aid stations are shut, and snow and wind make it a completely different mountain. Off-season accidents, including among foreign visitors, have risen in recent years, putting rescuers’ lives at risk too. In response, Yamanashi Prefecture has said that from the close of the 2027 season it will in principle bill off-season casualties for the cost of a prefectural helicopter rescue, with reductions for those who filed a climbing plan and took proper precautions; Shizuoka is considering penalties for those who call for rescue without filing one (Nikkei: charging for Mt. Fuji helicopter rescues).

In an emergency on the mountain, the number is 110. But calling does not guarantee help — depending on weather and time of day, neither a helicopter nor a ground team can necessarily reach you. Do not climb out of season, and turn back when the weather breaks even in season. That is the minimum for your own safety and for the people who would come for you.

Mountain manners matter too: carry out all your rubbish, stay on the trail, do not dislodge rocks, do not attempt a “bullet climb” straight through the night without rest, and use the paid toilets at the huts. Fuji is a World Heritage site and a sacred mountain. The freedom to climb it assumes you take responsibility for how you do it.

The Fuji Five Lakes and Fujiyoshida — three-star Itchiku Kubota

Itchiku Kubota Art Museum (★★★)

The second three-star entry in the 2015 edition is the Itchiku Kubota Art Museum on the north shore of Lake Kawaguchi. It shows the kimono of the dyer Itchiku Kubota, who revived in his own way the tsujigahana dyeing technique lost since the Muromachi period. Hung in series, his kimono form a single continuous landscape — and the rating takes in the Ryukyu limestone building and the garden as well. If your trip is about looking at Fuji, put this three-star stop in it.

Lake Kawaguchi and Fujiyoshida (★★☆ · ★☆☆)

In the same 2015 edition Lake Kawaguchi is one-star and the Kawaguchiko Muse Museum, devoted to the doll artist Yuki Atae, is two-star. In Fujiyoshida, Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine — where the Yoshida trail begins — is two-star, and the city’s history museum, now the Fujisan Museum, one-star. The Yukio Mishima Literary Museum on Lake Yamanaka is two-star as well.

Hakone — Owakudani, the Open-Air Museum and the old Tokaido

In the 2015 edition the Hakone region is one-star, and within it the two-star entries are Owakudani, the Hakone Open-Air Museum, the old Tokaido road and its cedar avenue, and the cedar avenue at Hakone Shrine.

Owakudani is a crater left by an eruption some 3,000 years ago; it still steams, and the local speciality is black eggs boiled in the hot spring water. Access is sometimes restricted according to volcanic activity, so check the Hakone town information before you go. The Hakone Open-Air Museum, opened in 1969, scatters sculpture across lawns and includes a Picasso pavilion.

The old Tokaido keeps its Edo-period stone paving and cedars, and links the reconstructed Hakone Checkpoint (one star) with Hakone Shrine (one star) on Lake Ashi. The day-use hot spring Tenzan Tojikyo is one-star too. Note that the Museum of the Little Prince, one-star in the same edition, closed in March 2023.

The Shizuoka side — Miho no Matsubara, Shiraito Falls, Kunozan Tosho-gu

The 2020 edition gives two stars to Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha, Shiraito Falls, Kunozan Tosho-gu and Miho no Matsubara, and one star to Fujinomiya, the Mount Fuji World Heritage Centre, Lake Tanuki and the view from Nihondaira.

Fujinomiya has the head shrine of all Sengen shrines and Shiraito Falls, where water spills from a rock face about 20 m high and 150 m wide. In Shizuoka city, two-star Kunozan Tosho-gu was the first shrine to enshrine Tokugawa Ieyasu, and two-star Miho no Matsubara, of the celestial robe legend, is one of the components of the Fuji World Heritage site. Take the ropeway from Nihondaira to Kunozan and you skip the long stone stairway.

Model routes by length, and access

Lake Kawaguchi is about two hours from Shinjuku by highway bus, or by rail changing to the Fujikyu line at Otsuki. Hakone is about 85 minutes from Shinjuku to Hakone-Yumoto on the Odakyu Romancecar. The Shizuoka side is entered at Mishima, Shin-Fuji or Shizuoka on the Tokaido Shinkansen, where the Japan Rail Pass is valid on Hikari and Kodama. The Odakyu and Fujikyu lines are not JR, so the pass does not cover them.

Michelin Green Guide Mt. Fuji & Hakone — FAQ

Star ratings: ★★★ worth a special journey / ★★☆ worth a detour / ★☆☆ interesting. Stars come from the 4th (2015) or 6th (2020) edition of the Michelin Green Guide Japan, as noted for each sight, and are reviewed with every edition. “Starred sights” counts every entry the guide awards stars to — including buildings inside a site, museum pieces, viewpoints and routes — so it is not a count of separate locations.