8 Best Things to Do in Hiroshima
Hiroshima packs a remarkable range into a compact city: a morning that asks for quiet reflection, an afternoon that asks for nothing but good food and a tram ride, and an island day trip most visitors end up calling the highlight of their whole Japan itinerary. Here are the 8 things worth building a trip around.
1. Give the Peace Memorial Park and Museum a full, unhurried morning
This is the one non-negotiable stop, and it deserves a solemn register rather than a checklist one. The park sits on the delta directly beneath where the atomic bomb detonated at 8:15am on 6 August 1945; the preserved A-Bomb Dome, the Cenotaph and Flame of Peace, and the Children’s Peace Monument (remembering Sadako Sasaki and the origin of Hiroshima’s paper-crane tradition) all sit within it. The Peace Memorial Museum, whose Main Building reopened in 2019, is the harder, essential part; book its first or last entry slot online in advance if you can. Allow at least two hours, and don’t schedule anything demanding right after. Full visitor detail lives in the A-Bomb Dome guide .
2. Take the ferry to Miyajima
A tram or train to Miyajimaguchi, then a roughly 10-minute ferry crossing, gets you to the “floating” vermilion torii of Itsukushima Shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. At high tide the gate appears to float on the sea; at low tide you can walk right out to it. Add the Mount Misen ropeway and a 30-minute summit hike, the island’s sacred deer, and a stop for momiji manju and grilled anago, and you’ve got a full day easily. A ¥100 visitor tax is collected on arrival.
3. Walk the grounds of Hiroshima Castle
Nicknamed the “Carp Castle,” the current keep is an honest 1958 reinforced-concrete reconstruction, since the 16th-century original was destroyed in the bombing. A small museum inside covers pre-war Hiroshima and the castle’s own history; check current opening status before you go, since parts have flagged possible closures for structural repair.
4. Slow down at Shukkeien Garden
This Edo-period landscape garden, laid out in 1620, survived close to the hypocenter and sheltered blast survivors in 1945 before reopening to the public in 1951. Ponds, bridges and a teahouse make it a genuinely calming stop after the Peace Park, and it pairs naturally with the adjacent Hiroshima Museum of Art.
5. Ride up the Orizuru Tower
Right beside the A-Bomb Dome, this observation tower is built around the same themes of reflection and hope: a rooftop open-air deck with city views, and “Orizuru Square,” where visitors fold and add their own paper cranes to an ongoing collective art installation on the tower’s Crane Wall.
6. Ride the Hiroden streetcars
Japan’s largest surviving tram network connects the station, the Peace Park, downtown and beyond for a flat per-ride fare, tappable with an IC card. Two prewar cars, 651 and 652, survived the atomic bombing outright and were reportedly still in passenger service as of 2025, a genuinely rare, direct link to 1945 still running its old route today.
7. Eat Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki at Okonomimura
Hiroshima’s version of okonomiyaki is layered, not mixed: batter, a big pile of cabbage, pork, yakisoba or udon noodles, a fried egg, then sauce, a full meal cooked in front of you on a hot griddle. Okonomimura, a multi-floor building packed with individual okonomiyaki stalls, is the best place to watch it happen and compare a few versions in one visit. See the full Hiroshima eating guide for more of the city’s food.
8. Catch a Hiroshima Toyo Carp game or tour the Mazda Museum
The Carp, founded in 1949 as a symbol of the city’s postwar recovery, play at Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium; a game night is a genuinely fun, unfiltered look at local life. Mazda itself, headquartered in Hiroshima since 1920, runs a factory museum tour that’s popular enough to need booking ahead.
Plan the rest of your visit with the main Hiroshima travel guide or the 2-day itinerary . One concrete tip: do the Peace Park first thing, while the morning is quiet and you’re least likely to be rushed, and save the livelier stops for the afternoon.