Okayama with a baby (0–1) 3 spots
Okayama gets fewer rainy days than almost anywhere in Japan, which makes plans easier to keep. Kurashiki's canal runs between white-walled warehouses and you can take a flat-bottomed boat down it, and the Peach Boy story started here.
A zoo built into an Okayama hillside, with a steam locomotive parked among the animals.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Family restroom · checked Aug ’26
A zoo inside a national park, with four kilometers of dirt paths and no dangerous animals.
Stroller OK · checked Aug ’26
Kasaoka City Horseshoe Crab Museum
The world's only museum devoted to horseshoe crabs, with a full-size dinosaur park attached.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
The Nakayoshi Petting Plaza opens every day with small animals, chicks and guinea pigs among them, that a baby can take in up close from your arms. A steam locomotive from the Ikasa Railway, which once ran through the streets of Okayama, is on display, and you may climb into the driver's seat freely.Five strollers are lent at the entrance for 200 yen; you leave 1,000 yen and get 800 back on return. The facility page lists a Baby Room, though it does not say what is in it. The zoo uses the hill as it is, so there are many slopes, and there are three rest areas: the big tent, in front of the penguins, and in front of the red pandas. The restroom beside the penguin house and the accessible multipurpose restroom were renovated in July 2022.
No background music plays anywhere in the park. What you hear is the wind moving the trees, wild birds singing, and the animals' own voices. There are about 600 animals of some 80 kinds and no big predators, so you can walk the grounds inside Setonaikai National Park quietly with a baby in your arms.You can bring a stroller in, but every path is dirt and there are many places where it does not roll well. There is no restaurant or food stand and you may bring your own food; a packed lunch can be eaten inside the rest house, which has a pot-bellied stove in winter. Tickets are bought at the reception in cash, with no online or advance sale, and they are valid for the day, so you can go out for a meal and come back in. Parking is free, about 100 spaces.
A ramp takes you from the first floor to the second, so you can go round with the stroller as it is. In the exhibition room, a large tank 2.95 meters wide holds living adult horseshoe crabs to watch close up. Outside in the Dinosaur Park stand eight life-size dinosaurs of seven kinds, there to look up at from your arms.The nursing room and the diaper changing table are both on the first floor. The nursing space is one private room with one changing table, a simple corner curtained off from the passage that runs from reception to the restrooms. Inside there is a baby bed and a chair, but no hot water for formula and no microwave, so bring hot water with you. Two strollers are available to borrow. The building stays cool even in midsummer, and the observation room closes when a typhoon's strong wind or heavy rain makes it unsafe.