Oita with a baby (0–1) 3 spots
Oita is a hot-spring prefecture where the ground itself steams. In Beppu whole streets give off vapor, the boiling colored ponds are for looking at rather than bathing, and you can steam your own lunch in the ground beside them.
African Safari (Kyushu Natural Zoological Park)
A safari park you drive through in your own car, past lions and elephants.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · checked Aug ’26
Beppu Jigoku Meguri (Hells of Beppu)
Seven pools of boiling spring water, from cobalt blue at 98C to a 105C geyser.
Nursing room · Changing table · Family restroom · checked Aug ’26
Tori-ten, Oita's fried chicken tempura, was born in this Chinese restaurant, open since 1926.
checked Aug ’26
The Jungle Bus has no age limit: from a baby's first year a child rides on a parent's lap, and under-fours ride free. The bus's sides are wire mesh, so the lions, elephants and camels that come for the food arrive right in front of you. Admission is free for under-fours as well.One adult may hold one child on their lap. Strollers and wheelchairs cannot go on the Jungle Bus, so leave them at the general information center, which is also where strollers are lent (300 yen; wheelchairs are free). Nursing rooms are at the general information center and inside the Arosa shop. The ride is about 50 minutes with no getting off partway, and no eating or drinking on board. The mesh sides let the cold and the heat in, and the park recommends gloves and a thick coat in winter.
Shiraike Jigoku uses the spring heat to keep large tropical fish, so amid pools too hot to touch there is one place where a baby in your arms simply watches fish. The combined ticket is valid the day you buy it and the next, so you need not do all seven in one day - split them around a nap.Only two of the seven have a nursing room: Umi Jigoku and Kamado Jigoku. The diaper-changing sheet is inside the wheelchair-accessible toilet at Tatsumaki Jigoku (all seven hells do have a wheelchair-accessible toilet). Chinoike and Tatsumaki sit about 3 km from the other five, so move between them by car or bus.
The 1995 rebuild added rooms of various sizes that families can use, so you sit apart from the main hall and can take your time over a meal with a baby along. The car park holds 60 cars, so you pull in and walk straight in.Reservations cover only the evening courses (start 17:00-20:00) and need four adults or more; junior-high age and over count as adults, so two adults with small children cannot book. For lunch you queue at the reception desk - on busy days the wait is 30 minutes and the desk stops taking names at 14:30. If queuing is too much that day, order takeout in person at the desk (they do not take it by phone). The main shop runs two sittings, 11:00-15:30 and 17:00-22:00, and is closed in between; it also closes on the second Tuesday of each month.