When I looked into which Japanese islands to visit next to the main island, Okinawa always stood out to me. I mean, how could it not? Google it. White beaches and turquoise water, far from the Japan that people are used to seeing. It felt like the perfect place to visit at the end of my time in Japan, to relax a bit after all the sightseeing. Figuring out a budget-way to visit Okinawa that allowed me to see some different places while not having to rent a car, was rather complicated. Many hours of research later, I came across a budget hotel on the main island of Okinawa, in a settlement called Onna, next to Nabee Beach. While Nabee beach was already quite pretty, the hotel was also located next to a bus stop with busses passing regularly in both directions along the coast.

I figured out that, by staying here, I would be able to see a lot of different beaches and places along the coast. And it worked out so well! Over the next 10 days I beach-hopped my way along the coast and spent a lot of time relaxing. I also hiked along Cape Manzamo to see some of the cool rocky coastline.

My favourite beach was Emerald Beach. It has its own shuttle bus that you can use and a stunning beach with some of the most turquoise water I have ever seen.

Another unexpected highlight of my time in Okinawa was going scuba diving. Again, it took me some time to find a dive shop that 1) spoke English, 2) didn’t require you having a car to go to the dive spot and 3) was reasonably priced (diving in Okinawa is not cheap). In the end, I went with Flare Dive, a dive shop located close to my hotel that also offered pick-up. The main dive site I wanted to visit was the wreck of the USS Emmons that lays at 36-45m depth. Because it is such a deep dive, the dive shop required me to do a check dive with them first on a reef near Manzamo. I was a bit annoyed about that (although I understand the reasons), but in the end, I’m happy they forced me to do a reef dive as the reef was beautiful with healthy corals and some interesting topography with swim-throughs and a little cave that we went into. Really cool! In fact, I liked that one dive so much that I decided to join them for the second dive of the day as well. USS Emmons next day was the clear highlight though – definitely worth the day trip to get there!

From Okinawa, I flew back to Tokyo for two days, and then back to Europe. Because this is my last post for Japan, here you can also find my album with all photos of my time in Japan: Japan album.