Put Taketomi Island on the top of your list of things to do in Ishigaki. There’s a hotel here, but most rooms are up around the USD$1000 per night rate and for that, I’d much rather go to the Maldives. Unless you’re a money bags, you’re better of staying somewhere on the main island and doing a day trip. Get the ferry from Ishigaki port, they go frequently so no need to book. Taketomi Island is about a 10-15 minute boat ride over. You can choose to pay for a buffalo ride (getting towed behind a buffalo) and/or hire some bikes. Forget about the buffalo ride, but definitely hire the bikes. You can get to one of the nicest parts of Ishigaki and there’s bikes for kids or they can sit in the kids bike seats. Get an electric bike, which makes riding easier, and in 31 degree heat, it’s not easy riding.
From the ferry you get a shuttle bus (free) up to what is kind of a central meeting point and where you can rent the bikes and/or buffalo cart ride. I decided to walk and take photos of Grobbler on the buffalo cart, which wasn’t a bad idea because he doesn’t walk very fast. After that we got the bikes. There’s some confusion as to what you do and where you go for the buffalo and bikes, but just follow everyone else and you’ll get sorted. After the Buffalo we took the bikes and rode around a bit, before heading to the beach, which is probably the highlight of Taketomi Island. There’s basically a giant sand bar where you can wade across to and get some pretty good shots.
Swimming wasn’t great but again, I think the beachy side of things was affected by the weather, very windy before the Typhoon came in. Still, it was nice and it was a good day out. Oh, we drove to this car park to get to the Ishigaki to Taketomi Island ferry. Ferry ride isn’t long, but it’s most likely to be very full. We spent most of the day out here. Bit of a mission to find a decent place to eat but eventually we found something that was ok, and filled a gap.
Kabira Bay is the place seen in all the photos when you Google pretty much anything to do with Ishigaki. In the photos it looks very peaceful and swimmable but unfortunately, probably because of the wind, it wasn’t anywhere near as nice as the photos, although could see how it could be in the right conditions. it’s worth going to nevertheless and pretty sure you’ll find it much closer to what the photos show as the time we went was not normal with the typhoon approaching.
On the way back we stopped at Tamatorizaki Observation Platform, not something you would drive to JUST to see that, but most likely if you hire a car you’re probably going to be passing this at some stage. It’s nothing great but worth popping up and taking a look at for 10-15 minutes. We also stopped at an outside BBQ place on the way home, pissed down when we got there and there was some Japanese porn star there which probably explained the absolute complete tosser of a Japanese guy who went into freakout mode because we oh so lightly touched his beautiful Toyota. This was just yet another example of how the people in Ishigaki were the least friendly of all the places we’ve been to in Japan, and in fact in Asia. Horrible people they were in general and seemed to have a real issue with tourists.
For things to do in Ishigaki with kids, you can check Toucan’s Tips for Kids. For other questions about what to do and where to go in Ishigaki, contact us here or visit our Twitter page and send us a direct message.