I want to start this guide with a bit of a spoiler alert, we're going to share some photos of the grounds from Snow Peak's Miyakonojo Campfield on Kyushu - but you may not want to see them. It's truly an experience that we feel is best discovered for yourself as a surprise, and like the other Campfield locations on Japan's southernmost main island, is a completely unique experience. 

Opened recently, in April of 2024, Snow Peak's Miyakonoho was part of our recent tour of the Southern regions of Japan, visiting campgrounds along the way and seeing areas that are further away from the main tourist hubs of Tokyo, Kotoy, and Osaka, we wanted to reach Miyakonojo the most. It is the furthest south from Tokyo, and if we were to rank its difficulty to get to, it would nearly top the list. But the payoff is worth it.

How to Get To Snow Peak's Miyakonojo Campfield

Located on the island of Kyushu, the southernmost primary island of Japan, Snow Peak's Miyakonojo has no direct route. It's admittedly a hiccup in most Campfield locations, in that they all require some level of transport using 4-wheels. Weather a taxi, bus, or rental car, there's no Campfield that can be fully accessed by trains. While this isn't the end of the world for residents of Japan, for those international tourists who prefer to travel by rail, you will have a harder time.

From Tokyo, we flew in to Fukuoka. It was a short flight, right around two hours, and like all domestic air travel in Japan - easy, comfortable, and fast. We arrived at the airport about 40 minutes before boarding started and it was too early. If you're heading out for just a day or two, it may make sense to leave your larger luggage in a bigger city so you don't need to lug it around. But if you do need to bring it, you'll be happy to learn that most domestic travel in Japan allows you to check luggage for free. This means if you pick up a used tent (like we described here), you don't need to worry about astronomical luggage costs like in America.

While Fukuoka Airport is the largest, there are lots of other options for Kyushu, including Kagoshima (KOJ), which is only a 45 minute drive away. We found flights from Tokyo to Kagoshima Airport for $130 round trip, and a Taxi is expected to be around $50 each way. However, you can rent a car for around $40 per 24-hour period if you'd prefer. 

The Rule of Thirds

There's two different ways that Snow Peak has decided to lay out a Campfield location. There's an all-inclusive option, like Campfield Long Beach in America, or Headquarters in Niigata, where to reach the primary amenities you never really need to leave the grounds. This is the more common style, with a varying size based on what is offered on-site. The other style is dispersed, offering the same amenities but intermixed with public and private lands. Miyakonojo is the latter, and is better for it. 

There are three main areas that make up the larger Miyakonojo Campfield, and weather you're visiting for an afternoon, a day, or overnight, we really recommend taking time to walk between the sites - and we'll explain why.

The Main Stop: Camp Store, Jyubakos, Cabins, and Food

Arriving at the entrance, you're greeted with the primary building and storefront. It's a new building, designed to blend in with its location offering ample parking and a small field to the right allowing for tents and tarps to be set up either for display or event space. Walking inside the store, you're greeted with an expansive view in a large and open design. Unlike some locations, Miyakonojo offers a fairly robust food and drink selection for campers who didn't stock up on provisions beforehand. This includes both items from the Snow Peak Eat line, as well as other Japanese staples. 

The store itself offers a wide array of products for sale from both the apparel and gear lines. During our visit, they had a large clearance section as well, but that was likely due to it being the end of the year and Snow Peak clearing out their discontinued items for the year.

Behind the store, and connected to the building is an enclosed space with comfortable seating allowing anyone to sit and enjoy a break from their road trip, or to simply watch the river flow by, with an outdoor patio area as well for dining and more seating in nicer weather moths. It's a wonderful space, and is one of the few we've found in Japan that is a third space, an area anyone is welcome to sit and spend time at without an obligation or requirement to make a purchase. They're more than happy to accommodate you even if you simply have your own water bottle.

The Jyubako tiny homes are also located here, as well as a series of more modern cabins for larger groups. The cabins, like Rikuzentakata, aren't designed by Snow Peak - but do offer a very modern view of Japanese rural life with locally sourced materials for their construction. While the interior is more traditional, the patios can offer Snow Peak staples like the Takibi Fire Pit, Jikaro Fire Ring Table, Low Beach Chairs, and the Takibi Hexa Tarp.

Cabin photograph courtesy of Snow Peak Japan

The Jyubako offered is a Japanese second generation model, meaning it is much smaller in size compared to the American models, but does offer a sink as well as mini-split HVAC system for heating and cooling.

Lastly, you'll find one of two on-site restaurants in this area. Connected to the retail store, Blue Bird Dining is not a Snow Peak restaurant like Takibi or Seppou. But it does offer many locally made or produced items from sake to baked goods and much more. While we didn't get a chance to partake, it certainly looked worth the visit and is something we'll return to.

Cafe With A View

The second area is the Snow Peak Cafe. Located about a 10 minute walk from the store, or a 5 minute drive, it overlooks the valley below and offers Cafe staples including drinks and lighter food options. But the claim to fame are the Miyakonojo Tea and their fluffy donuts made in-house each morning.

Donut photograph courtesy of Snow Peak Japan

As the area is nested amongst a park area, there's ample parking in multiple spaces to allow for both visitors to the Cafe and day-use visitors. It's a fun place to stop at, and being centrally located amongst the site allows for it to be a good launching pad for anyone just coming through the area for the day.

For those Wanting to Camp

The final space is the Campfield itself. Tucked in to the valley at the opposite end of the area, it's about a 5 minute walk downhill from the cafe, or another few minute drive. Of all the Campfield locations in Japan, it's without a doubt the most level, creating an incredibly smooth and supple ground to pitch your tent as you listen to the river that surrounds half of the grounds and separates the camping area from the small farms on the other side of the valley.

Like Campfield Long Beach in Washington, it uses gear carts to move your tent and goods to/from your camp site, with cars not being allows to park in most areas of the field. The trade off is that it leaves the Campfield unobstructed from large, loud, hunks of metal that tend to tear up the ground.

While the Campfield has the Snow Peak standard items, a small store, bathrooms, showers, and vending machines, it also has something I hadn't seen which is a wonderful little bridge-crossed stream cutting through the grounds. Also like all Snow Peak Campfield locations in Japan, Takibi Fire Pits are available to rent - and there's ample firewood available in both soft and hard varieties.

The Walk Itself

As we spent time at this location, we opted to walk the grounds to each of the main areas. Walking is always nice, and allows us to slow down on visits to the country that almost always feel incredibly fast. 

Leaving the main store the trail walks alongside the river for a hundred yards before cutting in to the forest. This area itself offers wonderful views, and had me wishing for the ability to throw a fly in the water. As you enter the woods, you're quickly surrounded and plunged into darkness from the thick canopy, and while climbing a short series of steps you're met with the increasing volume of the water moving more quickly. 

Coming down the other side of the small hill, you'll be greeted suddenly with a suspension bridge butting up to the trees as if the towers were made from the forest. It's here where the beauty of this location shines. To your left are Sekinoo Falls, the largest waterfall in the region that drops 60' and is nearly three times as wide. It's a wonderful sight that can be viewed from the brdige, or you can take a quick, albeit slipper, walk down towards the base if you're ok with getting sprayed.

From the base of the falls, it's a somewhat steep walk up to the Cafe 5 minutes away. As we've mentioned, the view from here overlooks the Campfield and valley that it sits in. Backtracking downhill quickly, you'll come to a fork where you can continue on to the Campfield area, as well as a rocky beach along the riverside where you can sit if you don't have Campfield access.

All in all, it will take 30-45 minutes round trip if you stop to grab a donut at the Cafe. Making it an easy way to get a nice mixture of Snow Peak and natural space experience without needing to camp.

Is Snow Peak Miyakonojo Worth A Visit?

This is one of the hardest questions like this we've found ourselves grappling with. While it's undeniably one of the prettiest locations, it's also quite a chore to get to. You'll almost certainly need to rent a car, and if not expect to shell out a decent amount of money to get out there, which makes the aforementioned day trip hard to justify. 

But if you make it, you'll be treated to just about everything a Campfield should offer. Dining options, camping, cabins, Jyubakos, retail, relaxation. Our only wish is there was an on-site Onsen/Spa to take advantage of.

Exclusive Products

Like all Snow Peak Locations, you can find the standard line of exclusive products here. Including he Eco Cup, Stickers, and Anodized Campfield Sierra Cups.

However, you can also find an exclusive Miyakonojo Liqueur at this location. Released in October, 2024, the Liqueur collection featured four varieties. While 3 are available at most directly managed Snow Peak locations and Campfields, Kuro Kirishima Setsuho, the fourth variety, can only be purchased at the Miyakonojo location.  

Final Thoughts

There's an undeniable pleasure that we find in road tripping around Japan. And we're not alone. A 2025 report from Japan's ministry of travel shows that nearly 97% of people who experience regional tourism in the country come away satisfied. Unfortunately, while almost 100% of international tourists want to partake in regional tourism, only 10% actually do. 

Miyakonojo exemplifies the best of why people are so overjoyed with those moments. Nature, retail that connects to the country, local quisine, and a real feeling that you are off the beaten path. And because of that, we feel it's a highly recommended place to visit.