Without traveling to the outermost Okinawan islands or the extremities of Hokkaido, it's hard to get further away from it all in Japan than the Shimokita peninsula. It's a beautiful place to spend a leisurely day or three exploring but, with it being so remote, places to stay are few and far between. When I was there I stayed at the hostel in Wakinosawa, which is comfortable and convenient for transport, and provides good meals into the bargain.
It's a sturdy-looking rustic-style building with a small garden at the front, which will be a pleasant place to hang out in better weather than I had. The dorms look cosy, with wooden bunks arranged around a raised tatami platform, but I was given one of the eight-tatami rooms to myself: this felt more like a guesthouse room, with its low table and floor chairs, and I had my own little TV on the cabinet in the corner. There's a kind of Scandinavian feel throughout the building, with lots of wood flooring, paneling and furnishings, and pictures of the local flora and fauna on every wall.
It's close to the town, just five or ten minutes' walk to the bus stop for the bus across to Mutsu and Osore-zan, and to the port for ferries to Aomori city, across to the Tsugaru coast, or north up the rugged coast to the dramatic scenery of the Hotokegaura cliffs. Walking away from town, I went past some striking offshore rocks to come to some trails through the forested hills along the coast, allegedly inhabited by local monkeys and serow, a local deer-like animal; I was lucky enough to see a few of the serow happily grazing in the woods.
I didn't manage to find any eating options in the town other than a couple of small grocery stores, so I decided to have my dinner at the hostel, and for just ¥1000 enjoyed one of the best meals of my trip, a hearty trayload of fresh salad, seafood, omelette, rice, soup and pickles. You need to tell the staff in advance that you want to eat there, which I highly recommend!
The only drawback is that booking is a little awkward: it's not possible to make a reservation online, I had no response to a couple of emails, and the staff speak only Japanese, so if you don't speak the language you'll need to ask someone to telephone for you. However, it definitely rewards the effort, as it's a good base from which to see the coastline, scenery and wildlife that the area has to offer.
