Rainy day things to do in Hokkaido with kids 6 spots
Hokkaido is Japan's northernmost island, cool even in summer and deep in snow in winter. Cities and open country sit close together, so snow play or wide parks are a short trip out of town. It suits families escaping the summer heat, and families who want to show their children snow.
Hokkaido's gateway, about 37 minutes by rapid train to Sapporo Station.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · checked Aug ’26
A chocolate theme park run by ISHIYA, where you watch Shiroi Koibito cookies being made.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
Genghis Khan lamb and beer in five restaurants around a red-brick Hokkaido Heritage hall.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
A conveyor-belt sushi chain serving Nemuro-caught fish, with seven branches in Sapporo.
Stroller OK · Family restroom · checked Aug ’26
A long-established crab kaiseki restaurant by Sapporo Station, the only branch left in Hokkaido.
Elevator · checked Aug ’26
New Chitose Airport SIM & Wi-Fi Rental Counters
Seven rental counters for SIM cards and Wi-Fi routers, spread over two terminals.
checked Aug ’26
The DORAEMON WAKU WAKU SKY PARK play zone, its shop and cafe, and the cinema are all inside the semicircular domestic terminal. The international terminal is joined to it on foot by the third-floor connector nicknamed Smile Road, and that passage has nursing rooms of its own on floors 1 to 3.
The factory tour and Gulliver Town Pokke are both inside the buildings, so rain does not change what the children do. The only thing the rain takes from you is the clock tower parade, which can be called off in bad weather.
Meals are inside the buildings on the grounds — Kaitakushikan, Poplar Kan, Lilac, the Garden Grill. The outdoor beer garden has a large tent over it, so it stays open in the rain too.
You eat inside the shop on the 6th floor of JR Tower Stellar Place. Seats can't be reserved, but scanning the QR code on the ticket machine lets you watch the number of groups waiting from elsewhere, with the call coming by LINE or email.
Inside a seven-story building with 460 seats, most of the rooms are private sunken-kotatsu rooms for 2 to 16 people. You may be asked to check your shoes at the entrance, handing the numbered tag back to the shoe desk on the way out.
Every counter is inside a terminal building, split between the first floor of the domestic terminal and the second and third floors of the international terminal.