Hiroshima: Beyond the Peace Park
Most first-time visitors to Hiroshima see the A-Bomb Dome, Peace Memorial Park, and Miyajima’s torii gate, and then leave. That’s not wrong, those are the reasons to come, but a few other things are genuinely worth the extra time if you have it.
Ride one of the A-bombed streetcars
Two prewar Hiroden streetcars, cars 651 and 652, survived the 1945 bombing and were reportedly still in passenger service as recently as 2025. Riding one isn’t advertised as an attraction, there’s no separate ticket or plaque to look for, but it’s a genuinely quiet, living link to the city’s history that most visitors never think to look for.
Shukkeien Garden, without the castle crowds
Hiroshima Castle draws far more visitors than the Edo-period garden a short walk from it, even though Shukkeien is arguably the more atmospheric stop, ponds, bridges, and teahouses that took blast damage of their own in 1945 and were carefully rebuilt afterward. Go on a weekday morning and you may have long stretches of it close to yourself.
Fold a crane at the Orizuru Tower’s Crane Wall
The tower next to the A-Bomb Dome gets a fraction of the museum’s foot traffic, but its “Crane Wall,” where visitors fold and add their own paper cranes to an ongoing collective installation, is a genuinely participatory counterpoint to the more solemn sights around it.
Daishō-in, past the main shrine on Miyajima
Almost everyone on Miyajima heads straight for Itsukushima Shrine and the torii gate; Daishō-in, the island’s most important temple and the headquarters of a Shingon Buddhist sect, sits a little further along and gets noticeably fewer visitors, especially for its maple trees in autumn.
Saijō’s sake district
About 30 minutes east by train, Saijō’s cluster of roughly ten breweries along a street of traditional storehouse buildings barely registers on most Hiroshima itineraries, despite housing the national tax office’s own brewery research lab and drawing crowds reportedly in the six figures to its October sake festival.
Tomonoura, a genuinely slow afternoon
An old tidal port town further along the coast, Tomonoura keeps its circular harbor and Heian-era temples largely intact and moves at a pace that’s a real contrast to central Hiroshima, worth it if you want one day trip that isn’t built around a headline sight.
The backstreets off Hondori
Hondori itself is the main covered arcade and plenty of visitors stick to it; step one block off it and the crowds thin out fast, while the food and small shops don’t get noticeably worse for it.
None of this replaces the Peace Memorial sites or Miyajima, our full guide covers those properly, but if you’ve already done the core and have a spare afternoon, any one of these is a better use of it than doing the main sights twice. For getting to Saijō, Tomonoura, or Onomichi, see our day trips guide .