Odawara isn’t a must visit on a short holiday to Japan but, if driving, you can stop here if you’d like to.
It’s not too far from Hakone.
Additional note: if you go to Odawara Castle – there is an obstacle course/ ninja experience for small children on the Odawara Castle grounds.
There is a little playground with these ride on cars next to the castle too.
If you are driving…
As another little side outing .. (there is no reason why you couldn’t do this on the WAY to Hakone if you wanted to take your time, you were staying overnight in Hakone anyway or if you have particularly wriggly children and need to promise a big park run on the way there) .. a trip to Odawara Wanpaku Land. This is a large public park and take a little over an hour from Tokyo, 30 minutes from the port at Lake Ashi and 30 minutes from the Hakone Open-Air Museum.
Entrance is free (although parking is 510 yen) and we were so pleasantly surprised by the range of food trucks on site on the weekends! There was a Cocoichi Curry Truck, a Sri-Lankan Food Truck, a Pizza Truck (pizzas were cooked on site.).
There are 3 large playgrounds, a petting zoo and a splash zone for Summer.
There is a small train that you can ride for a small fee around the park but we had our stroller and the park isn’t as vast as it appears to be on the map and we got around just fine.
It was so lovely for the kids to get out and have a big stretch in the fresh air.
There are some truly epic roller slides and my daughter liked pretending that she was doing ninja training on all of the climbing frames.
神奈川県小田原市久野4377-1 (If travelling by car, it’s better to search by place name or enter ‘ikoinomori’ for a more exact location
4377-1 KUNO, ODAWARA, KANAGAWA
OPEN 9AM-4:30PM
CLOSED MONDAYS & THE DAY AFTER NATIONAL HOLIDAYS (SEE WEBSITE BEFORE YOU GO FOR DAILY OPERATION TIMES)
WEBSITE
