Ehime with preschoolers (4–6) 3 spots
Ehime is citrus country on the Inland Sea. A ropeway climbs the hill to Matsuyama Castle, the wooden bathhouse at Dogo Onsen is one of the oldest in the country, and the orange juice comes out of a tap.
A zoo home to Peace, the first polar bear successfully hand-reared in Japan.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
A wooden bathhouse under a drum tower, the first public bath named a national cultural property.
checked Aug ’26
A sea bream rice restaurant in the Dogo arcade, where you build the bowl yourself.
Stroller OK · checked Sep ’26
Peace the polar bear was born here on December 2, 1999. Japan had reported 122 polar bear births by then, but only 16 cubs had lived past six months and no hand-rearing had ever succeeded. Peace's parents were Pearl and Bariiba, and it was Bariiba's first birth; to keep mixed signals from stressing the cub, the zoo limited the hand-rearing to a single keeper. The zoo's website carries Peace's news, a daily update and the story of how Peace grew up, so a child can read the whole story first and then go and meet the bear.A lost-child center at the main gate makes announcements for missing children and looks after them; the first-aid post is at the main gate too, and the AED is inside the Children's Animal Center. To avoid the queue at the gate, advance tickets are sold at Lawson (L code 63354) and FamilyMart (JTB product number 0245823) and stay valid for a month. Admission is free under 6 and 100 yen for elementary and junior high school students. When the lower parking lot's 300 spaces are full, you park at the east lot, which holds 1,700 cars and runs a shuttle bus; parking is 300 yen a visit for an ordinary car.
Yushinden is not a bath but a room to view: the only bath in Japan built for the imperial family. The viewing is guided and takes 30 minutes, 500 yen for adults and 250 for children, and for Yushinden alone child means 6 to 11. A Tama no Yu second-floor ticket, 2,000 yen for adults and 1,000 for children, adds free viewing of Yushinden to a bath in Kami no Yu or Tama no Yu. The northwest corner room on the third floor is the Botchan Room, said to have been used by Natsume Soseki, posted to Matsuyama in 1895, together with Masaoka Shiki.Yushinden and the two private rooms, Shirasagi no Ma and Hisho no Ma, must be booked: online or by phone from 90 days ahead, with the website closing at 22:00 the previous day. Private rooms are limited to five groups a day, and the third-floor Tama no Yu private room has no bath of its own, so you bathe in Kami no Yu or Tama no Yu. Yushinden viewing runs 9:00-17:00 with last tickets at 16:30. The three-bath pass, 1,400 yen for adults and 640 for children, is 20 percent off the usual price and is valid the day it is sold and the day after. This is a public bathhouse, so there is no lodging. It is about a 3-minute walk from Dogo Onsen station.
By five, a child can do the whole bowl without help, from the first pour to the last stir. They can also pick their own dish, choosing the whitebait bowl or the jako katsu over the raw one.The sea bream tempura bowl is served only at the main shop, a different restaurant elsewhere in Matsuyama. If your child picks a dish from photos before you go, settle that difference first.