Tsushima Island

Tsushima had been sitting on our someday list for a while, mostly because of a single fact that refused to leave my head: this Japanese island sits closer to South Korea than it does to the rest of Kyushu. We flew out from Fukuoka expecting something like a border curiosity and found instead a heavily forested, sparsely populated place that felt genuinely apart from the rest of the country, its narrow inlets and steep hills more reminiscent of a fjord coastline than anything we’d seen elsewhere in Japan. Lia, who reads up obsessively before any trip involving wildlife, had one specific goal in mind that shaped most of our days there.

Looking for the Leopard Cat

The Tsushima leopard cat is a small, secretive subspecies isolated on the island since the land bridge to the Asian continent submerged tens of thousands of years ago, and with only around a hundred left in the wild, actually seeing one is closer to luck than itinerary. We spent an evening at a small conservation and research center that explained the threats the cats face, mostly from roads and habitat loss, and where a few individuals live in careful, monitored enclosures for breeding and study. We didn’t spot one in the wild, despite a slow, headlamp-lit drive along a quiet forest road that Lia insisted on, but the center alone left us with a real sense of how fragile this island’s ecology is.

The Coastline Facing Korea

On a clear afternoon we drove up to a lookout point near the island’s northern tip, where on the best days you can supposedly make out the coastline of South Korea across the strait. We didn’t get quite that clear a day, just a hazy line where sea met sky, but standing there, aware of how much closer we were to another country than to our own starting point in Kyushu, gave the whole island a different kind of gravity. Ferries run between Tsushima and Busan, and the island’s history is layered with centuries of trade, diplomacy, and occasional conflict sitting right at that maritime border.

Inlets, Shrines, and Empty Roads

Most of our time on Tsushima was simply spent driving its narrow coast roads, which twist around inlet after inlet of startlingly still water hemmed in by dense forest. We stopped at small shrines tucked into the trees, at fishing harbors with more boats than houses, and once at a roadside stall selling nothing but dried squid and instructions, in halting English, on how to grill it properly over a portable burner. Lia kept saying the island felt like nowhere else in Japan we’d been, and by the end of our stay I’d stopped disagreeing and just accepted that Tsushima runs on its own quiet, isolated logic.

Getting There

Tsushima is reached from Fukuoka by ferry, a multi-hour crossing, or by a short domestic flight, which is the faster option if time is tight. Ferries also run seasonally from Busan in South Korea, underlining just how close the island sits to the Korean peninsula. A rental car is essential once you arrive, since the island is large, hilly, and thinly served by public transport, with its best coastal viewpoints and forest roads well off any bus route.