Sapporo Travel Guide

Sapporo is a young city by Japanese standards, laid out on an American-style grid in the 1870s when Hokkaido was still being settled. That makes it unusually easy to navigate and unusually short on old temples. What it has instead is space, food, beer, and the best access to snow anywhere in Japan.

The city works as a base rather than a destination in itself. Most visitors use it for a couple of nights either side of trips out to the ski fields, the lavender farms or the national parks. That is a reasonable way to treat it, provided you give the food a proper evening.

When to visit

Sapporo is the one Japanese city where winter is unambiguously the main season. The Snow Festival in early February fills Odori Park with enormous carved snow and ice sculptures and draws around two million people. Book accommodation months out for it.

Summer is the quiet secret. While the rest of Japan is humid and sweltering, Hokkaido stays around 25 degrees and dry, which makes June to August genuinely comfortable. The lavender fields around Furano peak in July.

Autumn brings colour earlier than the main islands, from late September. Spring is short, damp and late, with blossom arriving in early May rather than April.

What to see in the city

Odori Park runs twelve blocks through the centre and is the venue for the Snow Festival and the summer beer gardens. The Sapporo TV Tower at its eastern end gives the standard view along it.

The Clock Tower is the city’s emblem and, by common agreement including among locals, one of the more underwhelming sights in Japan. Worth two minutes on the way past.

The former Hokkaido Government Office, a red brick building in an American colonial style, tells you more about the city’s origins. Moerenuma Park, designed by Isamu Noguchi, is a large sculptural landscape on the outskirts and is much better than the guidebooks suggest.

The Sapporo Beer Museum occupies the original 1890 brewery. Entry is free, the tasting is not, and the attached beer hall serves Genghis Khan, the local grilled lamb dish, which you cook yourself at the table.

Eating in Sapporo

This is the real reason to stay a night. Hokkaido produces much of Japan’s dairy, seafood, lamb and potatoes, and Sapporo is where it all arrives.

Miso ramen was invented here and is the heavier, richer northern answer to the lighter styles further south, usually topped with sweetcorn and a knob of butter. Ramen Alley in Susukino is the tourist version and still decent.

Genghis Khan is grilled mutton and vegetables on a domed skillet, eaten with beer. Soup curry is a Sapporo invention and better than it sounds. Seafood at Nijo Market is the other draw, particularly crab, sea urchin and scallops.

Susukino is the entertainment district, one of the largest in Japan north of Tokyo, and where most of the eating happens.

Skiing and the snow

This is why a great many people come, and Hokkaido’s snow has a genuine reputation. The powder here is unusually dry because cold Siberian air picks up moisture crossing the Sea of Japan and dumps it on the island, which produces light snow that does not compact the way it does in the Alps.

Niseko is the best known resort, around two and a half hours from Sapporo, with four interconnected ski areas, extensive night skiing and a large Australian and international presence. It is the most developed and the most expensive.

Rusutsu, closer at around 90 minutes, has more tree runs and fewer crowds. Furano is drier still and more Japanese in feel. Kiroro and Teine are both within easy reach, and Teine, which hosted 1972 Olympic events, is close enough to ski as a half day trip from the city.

Season runs roughly December to early April, with January and February the most reliable. Equipment hire is straightforward at all the major resorts and most run English speaking ski schools.

Where to stay

The area around Sapporo Station and Odori covers most needs, and the two are one subway stop apart. Susukino is where the eating and drinking happens and suits anyone planning late nights, though it is noisier.

During the Snow Festival in early February the whole city books out months ahead and rates climb steeply. If you are visiting then and cannot find a room, Otaru is half an hour away and worth considering as a base.

The Snow Festival in detail

The Sapporo Snow Festival runs for about a week in early February across three sites. Odori Park holds the large sculptures, some of them several storeys high, carved by teams over weeks and lit at night. Susukino shows ice sculptures rather than snow, which are finer and more detailed. Tsudome is the family site, with slides and snow rafting.

It draws around two million people. Dress far more warmly than you think necessary, since you will be standing still outdoors in temperatures well below freezing, and the pavements are genuinely icy.

Getting around

The city grid makes navigation unusually easy once you understand the addressing. Blocks are numbered north, south, east and west from a central point, so an address like North 3 West 4 tells you exactly where you are relative to everything else.

Three subway lines cover the centre, along with a streetcar loop and buses. An IC card works across all of them. In winter, the extensive underground walkways between Sapporo Station, Odori and Susukino are worth knowing about, since they let you cross the centre without going outside at all.

Summer in Hokkaido

Worth stating plainly because it is so often overlooked. While Honshu sits under heavy humidity from June through August, Hokkaido stays around 25 degrees with dry air and cool evenings, and it has no real rainy season. For anyone who finds a Japanese summer unbearable, this is where to go.

The lavender fields around Furano peak in mid July, and the patchwork farmland at Biei nearby is the other draw. Both are reachable by train from Sapporo in about two hours, with seasonal services running closer to the fields during peak weeks.

The city itself moves outdoors. The Odori Beer Garden runs through late July and August, when the park fills with tables and the major breweries each take a section. It is one of the largest events of its kind in Japan and a good deal more relaxed than the winter festival.

Getting out of the city

Otaru is half an hour by train, a former herring port with a canal, glassworks and some of the best sushi in Hokkaido.

Niseko is around two and a half hours and is the reason a lot of Australians come to Japan at all, with some of the most reliable powder snow on earth. Furano and Biei are two hours by train for lavender in summer and skiing in winter.

Noboribetsu is the best known hot spring resort on the island, built around a steaming volcanic valley called Hell Valley.

Getting there and around

Most people fly. New Chitose Airport is around 40 minutes from the city by rapid train and is one of the busiest domestic routes in the world from Tokyo.

By rail, the Hokkaido Shinkansen currently terminates at Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto, not Sapporo. From there it is a further limited express of around three and a half hours. The extension to Sapporo has been delayed to around 2038, so anyone planning a through bullet train journey should adjust expectations.

In the city, the subway has three lines and covers most of what you need. The grid addressing system is genuinely logical once you understand it, with blocks numbered north, south, east and west from the centre.

How long do you need

Two nights covers the city comfortably. Most itineraries use it as a hub for five to seven days across Hokkaido, which is the better approach given how much the island has to offer beyond Sapporo itself.

Frequently asked questions

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