Hiroshima: What to Actually Do
Hiroshima rewards a slower pace than most day-trippers give it. Here’s what’s actually worth building a visit around, split between the memorial sites that need quiet and time, and the living city that doesn’t.
Spend a full morning at Peace Memorial Park
Start at the A-Bomb Dome, the preserved ruin near the hypocenter, then walk into the park itself for the Cenotaph, the Flame of Peace, and the Children’s Peace Monument to Sadako Sasaki. Give the Peace Memorial Museum real time, its main building reopened in 2019, and the exhibits move from historical context through survivors’ own belongings and testimony in a sequence that’s genuinely hard to rush. This isn’t a stop to fit between other sights; treat it as its own morning. Our dedicated piece on the A-Bomb Dome covers the memorial in full.
Ride the Hiroden, don’t just look at it
Hiroshima’s streetcars are Japan’s largest surviving tram network, and two prewar cars, 651 and 652, survived the atomic bombing and were reportedly still in passenger service as recently as 2025. Buying an IC card and actually riding one between sights, rather than taking a taxi, is part of seeing the city rather than just its landmarks.
Walk Hiroshima Castle and Shukkeien Garden as a pair
The castle, nicknamed “Carp Castle,” is an honest 1958 concrete reconstruction, the original didn’t survive the bombing, and it’s worth an hour for the samurai-history exhibits and moat views; check ahead, as the keep has faced closures for structural work in recent years. Shukkeien, an Edo-period garden a short walk away, took blast damage of its own and was rebuilt; it’s a calmer, greener half-hour than the castle grounds.
Fold a crane at the Orizuru Tower
Right beside the A-Bomb Dome, the tower’s rooftop deck gives a city overview, and its “Crane Wall” lets visitors fold and add their own paper crane to an ongoing collective installation, a hopeful, participatory counterpoint rather than a competing attraction to the memorials next door.
Catch a Carp game if the schedule lines up
The Hiroshima Toyo Carp, founded in 1949 just four years after the bombing, are widely seen as a symbol of the city’s postwar recovery. A night game at Mazda Stadium is an easy, unpretentious evening, and you don’t need to follow Japanese baseball closely to enjoy the atmosphere.
Eat okonomiyaki the Hiroshima way
Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is layered, not mixed like Osaka’s: batter, a large pile of cabbage, pork, then noodles, egg, and sauce, built up on the griddle rather than stirred together. Okonomimura, a multi-floor building of individual stalls, is the easiest place to compare versions, though the city has more than 2,000 okonomiyaki spots beyond it. Our full eating guide has more on what else to order.
Give Miyajima its own day
Don’t try to fold Miyajima into a half-day alongside the city. The floating torii gate, Itsukushima Shrine, and Mount Misen deserve an unhurried day of their own, reached by tram or train to Miyajimaguchi and a roughly 10-minute ferry. Our day trips guide covers Miyajima alongside Onomichi, Iwakuni, and other options further out.
If you only do two things here, make them the Peace Memorial Museum and Miyajima, in that order, and give each one its own day rather than squeezing both into one.