Full-day tour from Sendai: Ginzan Onsen & Zao Fox Village
Last updated: August 26, 2026
Tohoku's two most photographed winter scenes in one sweep from Sendai: at Zao Fox Village, more than a hundred foxes pad freely through a snowy hillside enclosure, curling into copper commas against the white — and at Ginzan Onsen, gas lamps warm a canyon of Taisho-era wooden ryokan that looks lifted from a film frame, never lovelier than under falling snow. Soba lunches, footbaths and the little waterfall at the head of the street fill the Ginzan hours; in deep winter the Zao Ropeway's frost-covered snow monsters can join the itinerary. It is the definitive Tohoku winter day out.
Itinerary
Departure
- Start point: Sendai Station East Exit Sightseeing Bus Stop
- Stop at: Zao Fox Village
- Stop at: Ginzan Onsen
- End point: Sendai Station East Exit Sightseeing Bus Stop
Frequently Asked Questions
A hillside sanctuary in the Zao foothills where over a hundred foxes — red, silver, platinum — roam free while visitors walk marked paths through their territory. Winter is the season the photographs come from: thick coats, snow, and foxes curled nose-to-tail like embers in the white. Keep hands to yourself and follow the feeding rules; they are wild animals living well.
Its single canyon street of tall wooden ryokan, built in the Taisho era along a rushing river and lit by gas lamps at dusk, is routinely called Japan's most beautiful onsen townscape — a scene often linked to Spirited Away's bathhouse. Footbaths, soba lunches and a waterfall at the head of the street fill the stay between photographs.
Deep winter is the postcard: snow on the ryokan roofs, foxes in full coat, and — in January and February — the option of Zao's famous snow monsters, the frost-armoured trees on the ropeway's upper slopes. The route runs in other seasons too, trading snow for fresh green or autumn colour at a gentler pace.
From the sightseeing bus stop at Sendai Station's east exit — a couple of minutes from the Shinkansen gates — and the coach returns you to the station at day's end, in time for an evening train onward.