Japan's Best Beaches not in Okinawa

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Chances are if you are looking for information on Japan's best beaches you will be presented with a list of tropical Okinawan beauties. And this is fair enough, with their often pristine white sand and clear turquoise waters you'd be hard pressed to find better beaches anywhere in the world. But this is not to say there aren't great beaches elsewhere in Japan.

With thousands of miles of coastline there are a myriad of beaches to choose from in Japan and many of these will surprise you with how beautiful they are. Golden sand, mountain views, great surf and even the odd coral reef give the main Japanese islands plenty of great summer travel options.

I was initially going to call this article the "Best beaches in mainland Japan", but realised this was going to cause confusion as Japan is a nation of Islands. If there is such thing as a Japanese mainland then it would refer to the biggest island, Honshu. However, this article will include beaches from Kyushu, Shikoku and maybe even Hokkaido.