Nagano with preschoolers (4–6) 3 spots
Nagano is Japan's high mountain interior. Wild monkeys sit in the hot spring at Jigokudani all winter with no glass in between, and Matsumoto's black castle keep is one of the original ones. Summers stay cool up at Kamikochi.
A zoo laid out across a hillside, with a monorail running to its north gate.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
A 71.1-hectare hilltop park northwest of Matsumoto that holds a zoo and a nature museum.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
Naganobi! Nagano Children's Museum
An indoor playground of five themed areas, built around nature, animals and science.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
From late April to November, Sundays bring the guinea pig contact session at the children's zoo (200 yen a turn, five groups per round), with numbered tickets handed out from 9:30. From June to October, Saturdays and holidays 14:00-14:30, they can feed the tortoises at the tortoise house (100 yen a turn, 30 people). Saturdays at 13:30 the lions get their scratching time at Lion Hill, Sundays and holidays at 14:30 the spider monkeys are fed, and from November to April, Sundays at 13:30, the orangutans have their munching time. On the second and fourth Saturday from April to October, 13:30-14:00, you can have a photo taken with a snake near the ptarmigan house.The guinea pig session hands out numbered tickets from 9:30 for five groups per round, and tortoise feeding takes 30 people, so the time you arrive decides it. Bring your own camera for the snake photo; it is cancelled in rain. Lion scratching time is called off while a female is in heat. Admission is 600 yen for adults and 100 yen for elementary and junior high school students. The zoo lies on a hillside, and it has no restaurant, so bring lunch with you.
The Children's Adventure Ground has a roller slide that runs down through the forest to the Forest Entrance Plaza, along with field athletics, a Tarzan rope and many other pieces; the rocky-hill slide and the wooden play structure are favorites. On the Alps Dream Coaster they ride a roller sled down the 630-meter course (200 yen for a child). At the free Mountain and Nature Museum, the 1st floor has the Deerabocchi legend character and a Matsumoto yearly-events sugoroku board, plus a large display of mountaineering gear from the Meiji through Showa eras and insect specimens.The Mountain and Nature Museum closes on Tuesdays (open if that is a public holiday, closed the next weekday instead) and from December 29 to January 3, and no eating or drinking is allowed inside. The Dream Coaster also sells a six-ride book (2,050 yen for adults, 1,000 yen for children), valid one year from the date of issue. The park's own family model course starts and ends at the south entrance car park: the Dream Coaster and the Forest of Birds and Small Animals in the morning, lunch in the shady Sakura no Mori, then the Children's Adventure Ground and Waterside Plaza, the Mountain and Nature Museum and the Observation Plaza in the afternoon. The whole park is non-smoking, and you take your rubbish home. The Alps Park bus from Matsumoto Bus Terminal runs twice a day (10:00 and 14:00, 350 yen for an adult).
Space Athletics in the basement is a shoes-off area for moving your whole body. With the Science and Creation Plaza, the Chacha wooden toy room, the Book & Art area and the Forest Adventure Plaza, there are five areas in all, so a child can pick where to go next by how they feel that day. Children below school age get in free.Some equipment has an age range set within 0 to 12, and the range is written at the entrance to each area. Indoor shoes are not needed, but the 1st-floor Forest Adventure Plaza and the basement Space Athletics are shoes-off areas. A child of elementary school age or younger cannot enter without a guardian, and the accompanying adult cannot be swapped for another partway through. On a session day you may re-enter within your time, but you may not step out leaving the child inside. Lockers are at three places: the entrance to the 1st-floor Forest Adventure Plaza, in front of the 1st-floor event space, and the entrance to Space Athletics in the basement.