Erimo Onsen Hokkaido

Erimo Onsen, at Cape Erimo on the storm-battered southeastern tip of the Hidaka mountains in Hokkaido, offers chloride thermal bathing at Japan's windiest cape — a rocky promontory where the wind blows at force-five or above for over 290 days per year, where a remarkable community reforestation project restored the coastal forest over several decades after it was stripped bare, one of Japan's great environmental rehabilitation stories. The saline chloride waters provide essential warmth for a remote fishing community where harbour seals haul out on the rocks below the lighthouse throughout the year, making Cape Erimo's Seal Watch one of Hokkaido's most accessible wildlife viewing experiences. The Erimo Misaki Wind Museum — uniquely dedicated to celebrating wind rather than sheltering from it — and the dramatic clifftop views of the Pacific horizon make Erimo Onsen one of Hokkaido's most memorably elemental destinations.