Kamakura: which temples fit in one day?

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Urashimataro, public domain

Kamakura’s temples come in clusters, and the walking between them is most of the day: the Zen road south of Kita-Kamakura station, the bamboo grove to the east, the hill trail to the money-washing shrine, and what the gates charge in 2026.

1Komachi-dori and the shrine at the top of it

Komachi-dori starts at Kamakura station’s east exit and runs north to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, and the shopping association counts more than 300 shops on it. On a Saturday afternoon the crowd sets your pace; on a Tuesday morning in October it's a street you walk in fifteen minutes.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Urashimataro, Public domain

Toshimaya, at the station end, is where the walk starts: the pigeon-shaped sablé it has sold since the Meiji years is what ends up in most bags, and the shop keeps the street’s hours. Further up, the pickle and soft-cream shops carry the queues.

The street is a no-smoking zone, enforced with signs rather than ashtrays. Coach parties arrive from about half past ten, and the shrine gate opens at 06:00 — the argument for doing this first and the temples afterwards.

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu is free and ten minutes from the station; its shop and its treasure hall keep separate hours from the grounds. The long approach from the sea, the 段葛, is the walk up. In winter the peony garden behind the main hall is why locals come.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Ocdp, CC0

2Kita-Kamakura: four Zen temples on one road

One stop north of Kamakura on the Yokosuka Line is Kita-Kamakura: a station with no town around it and four temples within a fifteen-minute walk. The road south is the old Kamakura highway, the gates come one after another, and the walk closes by half past four.

Engaku-ji is a minute from the platform and the largest of the group, its gate closing at 16:30 from March to November and 16:00 in winter. Jochi-ji, eight minutes further south, is the fourth of the five great Zen temples: ¥300 for adults and ¥100 for children, 09:00–16:30 with no closing days, and a multilingual audio guide for ¥500 more.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Tarourashima, Public domain

Tokei-ji, four minutes on, charges nothing at the gate and posts a notice saying so: no admission, an offering at the main image. It was the divorce temple, taking in women whose husbands wouldn't release them. The treasure hall and shop close on the first and third Tuesdays; the temple doesn't.

Kencho-ji is fifteen minutes further along the road, the first of the five great temples, ¥500 for adults and open 08:30–16:30. Behind it the path climbs to the Hansobo shrine, the one place on this walk with the whole bay in view. The road between the gates is narrow and the cars use it: walk on the left.

Meigetsu-in is the exception to the road: ten minutes the other way from the station, on 09:00–16:00 for most of the year. Adults pay ¥500 and children ¥300; the round window in the main hall frames the garden behind it. In June the hours stretch to 08:30–17:00 with the last entry at 16:30, the queue forms before the gate opens, and the hillside above the path carries about 2,500 hydrangeas. The rabbits are here too; the back garden opens for the iris in June and the maples in December at another ¥500.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · おにく, CC0

A workable order: Meigetsu-in first in June, otherwise Engaku-ji, then Jochi-ji, Tokei-ji and Kencho-ji south. The three paying gates take about ¥1,300 between them (Tokei-ji charges nothing), and none of them takes a card.

3East Kamakura: the bamboo grove at Hokoku-ji

Hokoku-ji is the bamboo temple: about 2,000 stems of moso bamboo on a hillside behind the main hall, with a tea seat among them. The gate is ¥400 for adults and ¥200 for children, open 09:00–16:00, and closed from 29 December to 3 January. The matcha in the grove, with a dry sweet, is ¥600 on top of the admission, and reception stops at 15:30.

It's 2.2 kilometres east of Kamakura station and the road climbs, so take the bus: the Keikyu bus from stand 4 at the station’s east exit, 10 minutes to the 浄明寺 stop, then two minutes on foot across the bridge. Buses run every ten minutes or so; on foot it's about thirty-five minutes, all of it uphill at the end.

There's also a Sunday morning sitting at 07:30, reception from 07:00, with no booking and no charge beyond the admission; it's conducted in Japanese. The tea seat is the point, and the grove is at its best in the first hour and the last, when the light comes in sideways.

Directly across the road is Jomyo-ji, the fifth of the five great Zen temples. The gate is ¥200 for adults and ¥100 for children since March 2026, up from ¥100 and ¥50 before that, so an earlier guide will quote the old price. It opens 09:00 and closes 16:30, and the tea room serves matcha with a dry sweet for ¥660 or a fresh one for ¥1,100, looking out at a raked-sand garden. The old villa on the same hillside is now a cafe with a stone oven and a garden.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Tarourashima, Public domain

Both temples are cash at the gate. An hour and a half covers the pair, including the tea.

4The hill trail: the Great Buddha to the money-washing shrine

The ridge behind the city carries the Kuzuharaoka and Daibutsu courses, which join into one walk: up from Jochi-ji’s side gate in Kita-Kamakura, along the top past Kuzuharaoka Shrine to Genjiyama Park, then down the Daibutsu pass to Kotoku-in. The tourist association times the run at about ninety minutes; the steps take trainers.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Quercus acuta, CC0

The top is trees, a shrine, a statue of Yoritomo in the park, and the view of Sagami Bay that opens on the way down. The pass itself, the 大仏切通, is a rock cutting that was the road into Kamakura before the railway. Around the middle of the walk the trail splits: one arm drops to the Great Buddha, the other comes out above Zeniarai Benzaiten — the better end to a morning, leaving you on the west side of the city with the walk down to the station ahead.

The shrine sits in a hollow ringed by ridges, reached through a tunnel cut in the rock, and the queue at the spring is the visit: you borrow a basket from the office, wash coins and paper money, and put them back in your wallet. The spring is one of the five famous waters of Kamakura, there's no admission charge, and the hours are 08:00 to 16:30 with a request to arrive by 16:00. Candles and incense are sold for the cave shrine behind, and the walk up from the station’s west exit takes about twenty-five minutes.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Tarourashima, Public domain

Five minutes below it's Sasuke Inari, the shrine the trail passes on its way down: a tunnel of red torii on a wooded slope, hundreds of white fox statues, and a reputation as the shrine for advancement, from a dream Yoritomo had before he raised his army. There's no gate fee and no set closing time, and it's one of the few shrines in Japan with visiting rules for dogs.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Ocdp, CC0

5The coast: what the Enoden stops are worth

The Enoden runs this coast, and its day pass, single fares and direction to ride are on the fares guide, the other half of this day trip. The line is worth riding for the three kilometres between the road and the sea, from Inamuragasaki through Shichirigahama to Kamakurakokomae.

The stop with the most behind it's Yuigahama, ten minutes’ walk from Komyo-ji. It's the largest wooden hall left in Kamakura, built in 1698, entered through the biggest gate in the city, and free; the hours run 06:00–17:00 from 1 April to 14 October and 07:00–16:00 for the rest of the year. Behind the hall a path climbs to a viewpoint over Zaimokuza and the bay that the prefecture lists among its fifty best views, and the lotus pond in front is behind the temple’s festival in late July. In October the ten-night service fills the grounds in the evening.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · 高田ライン, CC0

The bus beats the walk: from stand 7 at Kamakura station’s east exit, the Zushi-bound bus by way of Kotsubo takes ten minutes to the Komyoji-mae stop, one minute from the gate. On foot it's half an hour along the beach road.

Koshigoe and Shichirigahama are the two villages where the whitebait boats land, and the bowls of shirasu there are the local dish; Inamuragasaki is the cape with the view west to Enoshima; and Kamakurakokomae has the level crossing half the train’s passengers get off to photograph, ten minutes, before mid-afternoon.

Across the whole coast: the Enoden runs every ten to twelve minutes and takes no reservations, and on a June or November weekend the platform at Kamakura station is the most crowded transport in the city. Ride from the Fujisawa end in the morning for a seat.

Keep reading Tokyo to Kamakura and Enoshima in 2026: three railways, one ticket

6The hanging monorail from Ofuna

Ofuna is where the Shonan Monorail starts, and the cars hang from the guideway rather than sit on it — the Safege system, one of the few still running. The line is 6.6 kilometres and eight stations to Shonan-Enoshima, crossing the hills the road has to go around: from the JR platforms at Ofuna it's the fastest way to the island.

The fare from Ofuna to Shonan-Enoshima is ¥340 for adults and ¥170 for children, revised on 14 March 2026 and the same whether you pay cash or tap a card. The one-day free ticket, ¥610 and ¥310, covers the whole line and comes with discounts at about eighty shops and restaurants. If the aquarium is on the plan, the railway sells a combined ticket.

From Tokyo, a train to Ofuna and then the monorail is quicker to the island than riding into Kamakura and taking the Enoden west, and it puts you at the bridge rather than the far end of it. The ride is a sight in itself: seven trains in seven colours, a bank of windows the full width of the car, and a curve at Shonan-Fukasawa where the track drops away.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · MaedaAkihiko, CC0

Keep reading Suica, ICOCA or PASMO: which IC card should you buy?

7June, November, and the season that decides the walk

Mid-June is the one fortnight of the year that changes the plan. Meigetsu-in opens at 08:30 and stays open until 17:00 for the hydrangeas, Hase-dera extends its hours and runs its hillside path one way, and both build a queue before opening. The flowers are the reason, the crowds the price: be at the gate at 08:30.

Late November is the second peak, for the maples, and it arrives later here than in Kyoto. Kita-Kamakura’s road and the hillside behind Hokoku-ji are the two best of it. Between the seasons the city is quiet. An October weekday gives you all three with room on them.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Urashimataro, Public domain

Winter: Hachimangu opens a peony garden behind the main hall for the coldest part of the year, and the plum comes out along the shrine’s approach in February while the coast is at its clearest for the view of Fuji from the Enoden.

And rain doesn't close any of this. The temples stay open and the bamboo is at its greenest wet; what shuts is the hill trail, which turns into mud, and the coast, which stops being a place to sit. On a wet day take the old town, the grove and the tea seats, and leave the ridge for tomorrow.

8What the temples charge in 2026

The gates take cash, and a few thousand yen covers a whole day. Everything named above, in one place.

The Zen road with Meigetsu-in at the end is about ¥1,800 for an adult at the paying gates, the bamboo and Jomyo-ji with a tea in the grove is ¥1,200, and the shrine end of the city costs nothing. A day that takes in both, with one tea seat in it, comes to ¥3,000; add the tea room at Jomyo-ji, ¥660 or ¥1,100, and it passes ¥3,600. The money-washing shrine asks for whatever you brought.

Start early. The Zen temples close at 16:30, most of the shrines at 16:00 or 16:30, and Kotoku-in shuts its gate half an hour before the sun is low enough to be worth photographing. Kamakura is a morning city with a beach for the afternoon.

9Questions and answers

The questions this walk turns on: the cash, the closing times, the June queue and how far a child can go on the ridge.

Keep reading

Tokyo in five days: which tickets must you book early? Japan autumn leaves 2026: when do they peak?

← Back to Japan Trip Zero