Ferry to Hokkaido With a Campervan, What We Wish We Knew Before Booking

Travelling around Japan by campervan has easily been one of our favourite ways to see the country, but getting the van over to Hokkaido was the part that nearly didn’t happen.

We had been looking forward to Hokkaido for weeks. The idea of taking our home on wheels across to another island sounded like exactly the kind of adventure we wanted. Wake up somewhere new, cook breakfast wherever we parked, and have the freedom to explore without constantly checking train times or hotel check-ins.

The only problem was actually getting there.

The Ferry to Hokkaido sounded simple enough when we first planned it. Find the ferry, book tickets, turn up. Easy, right?

Not quite.

Booking the ferry was the hardest part of the whole process

We are normally pretty relaxed with plans. Sometimes maybe a little too relaxed.

We had left booking the ferry until later than we probably should have, but we also found the booking process much more complicated than expected. We spent a lot of time trying to work out exactly what we needed to book, where to do it, and whether we had actually secured a space for the campervan.

At one point, we genuinely thought Hokkaido might not happen.

The website was not the easiest to navigate, and because we needed to take a large vehicle, it was not as simple as booking a couple of passenger seats online. We weren’t sure if we were missing something obvious or if the process was just a little confusing.