It Comes Down to Your Starting Point and How You Will Get Around
There are three ways to get to Toyama: the Hokuriku Shinkansen, a flight, or a car. Asked which is the right answer, the reply is that it is decided by two things — where you are starting from, and how you plan to travel around the prefecture once you arrive. Before any list of routes, take this way of deciding home with you.
- From the Tokyo direction, basing yourself at the station and exploring towns on foot: the Hokuriku Shinkansen
- From farther away, keeping travel time short: a flight to Toyama Airport
- Visiting mountain hamlets, the scattered villages and other places far from stations: a car
Three Gateways, Each with Its Own Strengths
From the Tokyo direction, take the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Toyama Station. Local rail lines, trams and buses reach out from the station in every direction, and a trip can be built on rail alone. Toyama Station is laid out so that trams run in beneath the elevated local-rail platforms — a station where little time passes between stepping off a train and moving out into the city. The scenery outside the window changing to that of the Sea of Japan coast is part of the journey, too.
The gateway by air is Toyama Airport. Its strength is a location relatively close to the city, which keeps the journey after landing short. Flight schedules change, so check official information for the latest service.
The strength of a car is freedom. The scattered villages of the Tonami plain, gassho-style farmhouse hamlets deep in the mountains, Yatsuo on its hillside — many of Toyama's best scenes lie away from railway stations, and many kominka (traditional Japanese house) inns also stand outside the town centers. If you drive in winter, plan on snow equipment and on checking road conditions first.
Nor do you have to settle on just one of the three. Taking the Shinkansen there and renting a car at the station is, in practice, the easiest combination to use. You can also make the days you want a rest from driving into days of trains and town walks.
And whichever gateway you enter by, the ending is the same. Stone-paved slopes and streets lined with lattices slip past unseen from a vehicle window. Any entrance will do; once you arrive, make it a journey on foot — choosing how to get to Toyama is a three-way choice that leads to that single point.