This is worth saying early because it changes the whole plan: anyone arriving in Hokkaido with the reflex of a national rail pass finds it good for three or four inter-city legs and very little else.
01 The distances are not Japanese
The figure that explains it is the density: 59.76 people per square kilometre against a national average above three hundred. That means towns set far apart, services spaced out, and journeys that would be unthinkable on Honshu.
In practice, moving between the island's main areas — greater Sapporo, the Furano and Biei centre, the Okhotsk coast, the Shiretoko peninsula, the Hakodate south — means legs of three to four hours' driving. There are no shortcuts and no fast alternatives, which is why a short trip to Hokkaido goes wrong: it turns into a road trip with no time to stop.
The compensation is that driving here is nothing like driving in the rest of the country. The alignment is straight, the surface is good and outside the metropolitan area the traffic is thin. The long legs pass without wearing you down.
02 What has happened to the train
On 19 November 2016, Hokkaido's railway company announced that it intended to rationalise up to 1,237 kilometres of its network, roughly half, being unable to maintain it alone. It was not a rhetorical threat: sections have been closing in stages ever since.
The clearest case is the Rumoi line, which disappeared piece by piece — the stretch to Mashike in December 2016, another in April 2023 — until the last of it closed on 1 April 2026. An itinerary that twenty years ago could be done by train now exists only by road.
This does not mean the train is useless on the island. Between Sapporo, Asahikawa, Hakodate and some regional centres it still works well and is comfortable. It means that the Hokkaido worth coming for — coast, parks, small towns — falls mostly outside that network.
03 What you have to arrange before leaving home
The requirement that ruins the most trips is administrative. To drive in Japan you need an international driving permit issued in your own country, or, depending on nationality, an official Japanese translation of your licence. It cannot be arranged once you are there. Without that paper the rental company will not hand over the car, and there is no negotiating.
The rest is easier. You drive on the left. Parking is plentiful and cheap outside Sapporo. And there is a network of public roadside stations, the michi-no-eki, with toilets, information, local produce and often hot food, which on an island with towns this far apart become the natural markers of the day.
04 Winter is a different trip
From December to March the plan changes in kind. Sapporo receives 479 centimetres of snow a year, and snow does not leave the secondary roads at motorway speed. Hire cars come with winter tyres as standard, but that solves grip, not visibility: plains blizzards can make the road disappear in seconds.
Add short days and the possibility of temporary closures on passes and coastal stretches. Driving Hokkaido in winter is entirely possible and for many is the best time of year, but it asks for previous experience on snow, shorter legs and enough slack not to arrive.
05 The warning nobody gives
There is a risk specific to this island and it deserves to be taken seriously. In fiscal 2024, 5,460 collisions between vehicles and deer were recorded in Hokkaido, against 1,940 ten years earlier. The Ezo deer, found only here, reaches 150 kilos and nearly two metres in length: not an animal a small car absorbs without consequences.
The practical rule is simple and every sign on the island repeats it: dawn and dusk are the critical hours, deer cross in groups — if one goes, more are coming — and on secondary roads you should slow down as soon as the sign with the animal's silhouette appears. This is not local folklore; it is why many drivers on the island avoid the back roads after dark.
06 Who it does not work for
Anyone who cannot or will not drive, and anyone with less than a week. On four or five days Hokkaido becomes a transfer trip: the sensible alternative is to stay in the Sapporo and Otaru area, which does work by train, and leave the rest of the island for another time.
Nor does it work for anyone after the Japan of the photographs: temples, narrow alleys, dense cities. That is in the south, and it is very well covered. Hokkaido offers the opposite, and only makes sense if the opposite is exactly what you are looking for.
Sybz Yucatán, for the traveller who swaps Chichén Itzá for the Puuc route.
Misa.stefanovic.07 Marrakesh-Safi, for the traveller who cannot take the heat and goes to the coast.
Jason Parrish