Chilling with the Snow Monkeys: A Winter Adventure in Nagano

Japan offers the opportunity to experience different things depending on the season, and winter is no exception. While Sapporo Snow Festival in Hokkaido may draw most of the tourists for its ice sculptures and ski resorts, there are many ways to enjoy winter closer to Tokyo. I already talked about my winter trip to Yamagata to see its Zao monsters. Well, I wouldn't call them monsters but what about seeing monkeys bathing in hot springs?

A day-trip or overnight trip to Nagano's Jigokudani Park gives you exactly that!

While I did say day-trip, this is most likely feasible only on an organised tour from Tokyo. Spending a night in Nagano city or close to the park to also have a bath in a hot spring yourself is better - unfortunately you cannot bath together with the monkeys.

For me, I visited the snow monkey park late February as part of my 3-week trip in Japan, just when I entered on my working holiday visa, and I moved to Nagano from Kanazawa, taking the Hokuriku shinkansen (1.5 hours) to Nagano station. We stayed 1 night in Nagano.

If you are visiting from Tokyo, you can also take the same Hokuriku shinkansen and arrive to Nagano in 1.5 hours.

It was snowing heavily when we arrived, it was the first time I was seeing snow in Japan as it was not the case in Kanazawa, and well I simply love snow.

We left our big suitcases at a locker of Nagano station so we only had to take a backpack for our overnight stay. We chose to spend the night closer to the monkey park, as we were not specifically interested in Nagano city itself - you may visit Zenkoji temple if you have time though. We took a train to Yudanaka station (45 minutes) and then a local bus to Minshuku Miyama. They also offer pick-up and drop-off services at Yudanaka station.

Jigokudani Park was about 40 minute walk from the minshuku, although the entrance was about 10 minutes away. The snow was getting as we delved inside the park so we took it slow. You can see my dad in the picture below at the entrance, we travelled together for this first 3 weeks before I settled down in Tokyo.

We also took a hot chocolate and apple crumble (apparently a specialty here) at Enzo cafe, at the entrance of the park.

The area where monkeys are is located in the riverside, with 2 hot spring areas. There are many many monkeys roaming around, of different ages including baby monkeys. They did not seem to be scared of humans at all, and were chilling in the onsen! You cannot feed them or attempt to touch them.

If you wish to get into an onsen yourself, Korakukan onsen is next to the monkey onsen - I think they also provide food but we did not check. In fact, the reason why the monkey onsen exists is because monkeys used to jump into human's onsen before, so they built two exclusively for the monkeys to use.

On the way back it started snowing quite more so we were just in time. Make sure to go properly dressed!

It was amazing to get into the minshuku, which are similar to ryokans but a bit more simple. We had futons in our room and a window overlooking the snowy scenery.

The outdoor onsen was great, and the freezing cold and snow was contrasting agains the hot water.

Both dinner and the breakfast next day were excellent too, although I have to say I am not a big fun of fish and rice for breakfast - but that is just the western sweet-loving me saying.

They took us to Yudanaka station the next morning after breakfast so we could take the train to Tokyo. I totally recommend this accomodation if you are visiting the monkey park!