Sapporo — Cool summers with no rainy season, a grid-plan city of ramen and beer, and more than twenty golf courses within half an hour of the airport.

Photo: ノボホショコロトソ · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Hokkaido

Sapporo

Cool summers with no rainy season, a grid-plan city of ramen and beer, and more than twenty golf courses within half an hour of the airport.

Summer golfKitahiroshima coursesMiso ramen & jingisukanOdori ParkOtaru CanalJozankei OnsenSnow Festival

Plan a trip to Sapporo

Why Sapporo

Sapporo is Hokkaido's capital and Japan's fifth-largest city. It was laid out on a grid from 1869, when the government set out to settle the north, and today nearly two million people live around a 1.5 km park that divides the city into north and south. The 1972 Winter Olympics and the Snow Festival made its name. Miso ramen, grilled lamb and a brewery founded in 1876 are why people come back.

Golfers come in summer. While Tokyo is at its hottest, Sapporo's August averages a high of 26°C against Tokyo's 31°C, and the city has no real rainy season. The courses are close. Kitahiroshima, the 'Golf Ginza' next door, has eight of them about 45 minutes from downtown, halfway to New Chitose Airport, and more than twenty courses lie within a 30-minute drive of the airport itself. Tee off in the morning and eat ramen in Susukino at night.

Good for

Summer golf trips away from the heat of Honshu
Golfers who want a real city after the round: ramen, beer, Susukino
Free days of onsen, a canal town and a mountain night view
A winter return trip for the Snow Festival

The map

Where you'll be in Sapporo

The city's wards, the towns around them and every hotel and golf course our trips use. Tap a ward or a pin.

HotelGolf courseStationAirportSapporo's 10 wards

Boundaries: MLIT National Land Numerical Information (administrative areas), simplified by Dokumo.

6 places

What to see in Sapporo

The handful that shape a first visit — each with the tip we give every traveler.

Photo: redlegsfan21 · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Town

Odori Park 大通公園

Laid out in 1871 as a firebreak, this 1.5 km strip of lawns, fountains and flowerbeds now divides the city's grid into north and south, with the 1957 TV Tower at its east end. From late May it is where the city spends its evenings: lilacs first, then a beer garden that fills six blocks for about four weeks from late July, then the Autumn Fest food stalls from mid-September into early October.

Our tip — You can walk it end to end in about 20 minutes, and the TV Tower's 90 m deck shows the whole grid at once.

Photo: 663highland · CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons

Food

Susukino & the Sapporo table すすきの・札幌の味

Miso ramen was created in Sapporo in the mid-1950s, and Susukino, the city's entertainment district, is where to eat it. The Ganso Ramen Yokocho, a 42-metre alley of seventeen counters, has stood in its current form since 1971. Around it you'll find jingisukan (lamb and vegetables grilled on a domed iron pan), soup curry (its roots go back to a Sapporo café in the 1970s) and Hokkaido crab, scallops and sea urchin.

Our tip — Locals eat ramen at the end of the night, not the start, so have jingisukan for dinner and stop at the yokocho on the way back to the hotel.

Photo: Route275 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nature

Mt. Moiwa 藻岩山

A 531 m forested mountain on the southwest edge of downtown. You go up by a five-minute ropeway, then a small cable car through the trees. From the summit deck the lit grid runs out to Ishikari Bay, a view counted among Japan's 'new three great night views'.

Our tip — Take the streetcar to Ropeway-iriguchi, then the free shuttle bus; the last ascent is at 21:30, so go up at dusk and stay until dark.

Photo: t-konno · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Onsen

Jozankei Onsen 定山渓温泉

A hot-spring town in the Toyohira River gorge, still inside Sapporo's city limits. It dates from 1866, when the monk Miizumi Jozan opened a healing bath here. Fifty-six sources at 60–80°C feed the ryokan and footbaths, and from late September the gorge starts to change colour, peaking in early to mid-October.

Our tip — It's about an hour from Sapporo Station on the Kappa Liner bus (book ahead; walk-ons only if seats are free) or 50 minutes by car, so it makes an easy soak on a rest day.

Photo: Komatta · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Town

Otaru Canal 小樽運河

Otaru grew rich as a port, and its 1,140 m canal, completed in 1923, is still lined with stone warehouses from those years. Since 1986 a walkway and 63 gas lamps have run beside the water. Nearby are glass studios, a music-box museum and sushi counters.

Our tip — The JR rapid takes 30 minutes from Sapporo along Ishikari Bay (sit on the right going out), and the canal is a 10-minute walk from the station.

Photo: 国土地理院 · Attribution · Wikimedia Commons

Golf

Kitahiroshima & Chitose golf 北広島・千歳のゴルフ場

Kitahiroshima, just southeast of Sapporo, calls itself the 'Golf Ginza': eight courses in one small city, among them Gold Sapporo CC (1973), the 54-hole Sapporo Regent GC and the flat, pond-lined Sun Park Sapporo. Shin-Chitose CC's 36 holes run through birch and larch 30 minutes from the airport. Kitahiroshima is also home to ES CON FIELD, the Fighters' ballpark, which opened in 2023.

Our tip — The Kitahiroshima courses sit halfway between the city and New Chitose Airport, so a round fits easily on the day you arrive or leave.

Trips

Trips based in Sapporo

All Trips

Sapporo

Sapporo City Golf, 3 Nights + 36 Holes

Three nights in lively Susukino paired with two rounds of self-play golf across Sapporo's favorite courses.

4 Days / 3 Nights

From$469 / person

Getting there

Tokyo HanedaAbout 1 h 30 by air to New Chitose Airport (ANA, JAL, Skymark, AIRDO). It is the world's second-busiest air route, with flights all day.
Seoul Incheon2 h 30 to 2 h 55 nonstop to New Chitose on Korean Air and low-cost carriers such as Jeju Air, Jin Air, T'way Air and Eastar Jet, with several flights a day.
United StatesThere is no nonstop flight from the US to Sapporo in the golf season. Most travelers fly into Tokyo Haneda or Narita and connect on a domestic flight, or connect through Seoul Incheon.
New Chitose Airport to the cityJR's Airport trains reach Sapporo Station in as little as 33 minutes (37 on the regular rapid), with six trains an hour in the daytime (¥1,230). By car, the Kitahiroshima courses are on the way.

When to go

May – JuneThe courses have been open since April. Lilacs bloom in Odori Park in late May, and there is no real rainy season.
July – AugustPeak golf season: August averages a high of 26°C against Tokyo's 31°C. The Odori Park beer garden runs from late July to mid-August.
September – OctoberThe Autumn Fest food stalls fill Odori Park from mid-September into early October, Jozankei's gorge is at its most colourful in early to mid-October, and the courses stay open until late November.
FebruaryThe Snow Festival fills Odori Park, Susukino and Tsudome for a week in early February. The courses are under snow, so this is a trip for the city and the onsen, not for golf.

Beyond Tokyo

Add Sapporo to your Japan

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