Aichi with a baby (0–1) 3 spots
Aichi is Japan's factory heartland, flat and quick to cross. Ghibli Park is here, Totoro's world built at full size, and the companies that make Japan's cars and bullet trains keep museums where you climb into the real thing.
Little World Open-Air Ethnographic Museum
Houses from around the world, rebuilt full-size along a 2.5 km loop.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
Nagoya Castle, built by Tokugawa Ieyasu, wears golden shachihoko, mythical fish, on its roof.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Oct ’26
Inuyama Castle, above the Kiso River, has Japan's oldest surviving keep (main tower), a national treasure.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Oct ’26
The smallest costume fits a child about 31 inches tall (80 cm), so the baby gets dressed up alongside an older sibling. The rest of the day is being carried in and out of the houses, which at this age is most of it.The nursing room is one room with two seats and a curtain only at the door, so bring a cover. It has three changing tables and a sink, but no hot water, so carry your own for formula. Some doorways are too narrow for a stroller, so a carrier gets you into those houses too.
The grounds have ramps and paved paths, so a stroller gets around most of them easily (the thick gravel of the Ninomaru Garden is the exception), but inside the palace you carry your baby. It can turn into a day of a lot of carrying. One family with a baby and a preschooler, visiting in autumn 2019, took 18,000 steps that day, most of them with the baby in a carrier.
With a baby, families either climb with a carrier or enjoy the town instead. One father who carried his 1-year-old up on his front felt a back carry would be safer, since it is hard to see your feet, while two mothers with babies under 1 skipped the keep and happily spent their time in the castle town and at its shrines.