Oita with a toddler (2–3) 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
Deai-no-Mura has the Kangaroo Forest, part of a petting area you walk around. The wait for the Jungle Bus is meant to be spent here, or driving the animal zone in your own car. Up to age three a child rides the bus free on a lap.A loop of the drive-through safari takes 30 to 40 minutes, and you may do it as many times as you like while you are inside. In the safari zone you must never leave the car: close every window, lock the doors, and use the child locks when children are aboard. Jungle Bus tickets are sold first-come first-served on the day until they run out — in August and September every service is sold that way — and they go in the order cars arrive, at the entrance gate and the general information center. Children of elementary-school age and under must be accompanied by a guardian.
The pools are too hot to touch, but four of the seven - Umi, Chinoike, Oniishibozu and Kamado - have a footbath where feet can go in. All the footbaths are free. Kamado Jigoku has three of them, including a sand-steam footbath and one filled with pebbles, each a different thing to stand on.All seven take about two to three hours (a family with a four-year-old, by car). Five of them, in the Kannawa area, are within walking distance of each other; Chinoike and Tatsumaki are about 3 km away. The combined ticket is good for the purchase day and the next, one entry per hell, so cutting the day short leaves the rest for tomorrow. The pools run 78 to 105 degrees Celsius.
The tori-ten is chicken thigh seasoned before it is fried, so it can be eaten plain with no sauce. The meat is cut in thin slices, so a piece off the adult plate needs nothing added. Squeezing kabosu over it, or dipping it in vinegar-soy with mustard, is what the adults add afterwards to taste.From 15:00 to 17:00 on weekends and holidays only the original tori-ten and the yuzu tori-ten are served, à la carte or as a set. Avoid that window on a day you want other dishes too. Lunch cannot be booked, so you queue at the desk - 30-minute waits on busy days, and the desk closes at 14:30. If waiting hungry is hard that day, order takeout in person at the desk. The mustard is hot, so set the child's portion aside before it goes on.