Ride the Retro Bus to Eight Sacred Ponds
The best bus ride in Fujiyoshida isn’t the one that gets you up the mountain, it’s the retro-styled loop that ambles out to eight spring-fed ponds most visitors only see in someone else’s photos.
The Fujikko loop is the fun one
The Fujikko bus is a heritage-look tourist shuttle circulating between Fujisan Station, Oshino Hakkai, and Lake Yamanakako. It’s not fast, and that’s the point: it’s built for stopping at viewpoints, not skipping past them. Oshino Hakkai’s eight ponds, fed by Mount Fuji snowmelt filtered through roughly 80 years of volcanic rock, are the highlight of the loop, and the public ponds cost nothing to enter.
The shuttle that actually gets you up the mountain
For the climb itself, the Subaru Line 5th Station shuttle runs from Fujisan Station and Kawaguchiko Station up the toll road to the 2,305-meter trailhead, about 50 minutes each way for roughly ¥2,500 return. During the official climbing season, July 1 through September 10, private cars are banned from that road entirely under the “My Car Regulation,” so this shuttle isn’t a convenience, it’s the only route up unless you’re walking the whole toll road too.
Getting to Fujiyoshida in the first place
Highway coaches run direct from Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal, Tokyo Station’s Yaesu exit, and Shibuya Mark City to Fujisan Station and Fuji-Q Highland, roughly 100 to 120 minutes for about ¥2,000 to ¥2,500. That beats the train on price most days, though Chuo Expressway weekend traffic can eat the time advantage. Fujisan Station itself is worth a slow arrival: it has a 6th-floor rooftop deck that frames Mount Fuji, a tourist information counter, and luggage storage if you’re doing a day trip without a hotel base.
Payment reality
Local buses here run on cash or IC cards, Suica, Pasmo, or ICOCA all work, and while card-tap payment is spreading on some train lines, it isn’t reliable yet on the local bus network. Carry cash as a backup even if your IC card usually covers you elsewhere in Japan.
Verdict: the Fujikko loop is the ride worth taking slowly, while the Subaru Line shuttle is the ride you take because you have no other legal option during climbing season. Load your IC card before you leave Fujisan Station, not after you’re already at the bus door. For what’s waiting at the ponds and the shrine grounds nearby, see attraction tours in Fujiyoshida .