4K Walking Tour in Japan : Sagamihara

This time, I walked through Sagamihara—a city in Kanagawa Prefecture about an hour southwest of Tokyo. It's one of those places most tourists never visit, but it shows you what Japanese suburban cities actually look like when they're designed with space. WHAT MAKES SAGAMIHARA DIFFERENT Sagamihara isn't like central Tokyo. The streets are wider. There's more green space. Buildings are lower and more spread out. This happened because Sagamihara developed later than Tokyo's older districts, so planners had room to create wider boulevards and larger parks. It's one of Japan's "garden city" examples—residential areas with deliberate green infrastructure. The city also hosts Sagami General Depot, a U.S. military base that's been here since the post-war occupation. The base occupies significant land area and creates a particular urban layout—the city had to develop around it, resulting in those wide streets like Liberty Boulevard that you don't see in older Japanese cities. THE WALK This 3.5-hour walk covers three station areas: Sagamihara, Yabe, and Fuchinobe. All three sit on the same train line that connects to Tokyo, making Sagamihara a commuter city—people live here and work in Tokyo. Starting at Sagamihara Station, you'll see the standard station-area development: shops, restaurants, small office buildings. Hikawa Shrine and Muratomi Shrine are neighborhood shrines serving local communities—nothing touristy, just regular shrines that have been here longer than the modern city around them. The walk includes Liberty Boulevard and City Hall Sakura Street—these are the wide, tree-lined streets Sagamihara is known for. They're unusually spacious for Japan. Cherry trees line both sides (spectacular during sakura season in early April). The width creates a different feeling from Tokyo's narrow streets—more light, more sky, less enclosed. You'll pass along the edge of Sagami General Depot. You can't go inside (it's a military base), but walking the perimeter shows you the scale. The base's presence has shaped how Sagamihara developed—the wide streets partly exist because urban planning had to work around this large restricted zone. Kanuma Park appears mid-walk—a neighborhood park with play equipment, walking paths, the kind of green space that suburban Japanese cities provide. It's not a destination park, just a functional green area for residents. The residential sections show typical suburban Japanese housing: mix of single-family homes and low-rise apartments, narrow residential streets branching off the main boulevards, vending machines at corners, small shops serving locals. WHY WALK SAGAMIHARA If you're only visiting Tokyo for a week, Sagamihara probably isn't on your list. But if you're interested in how Japanese suburban cities function, or you want to see what "spacious Japanese urbanism" looks like, it's worth exploring. The walk shows you: how Japanese cities develop when they have room to spread out, what a commuter city looks like, how U.S. military bases have shaped Japanese urban geography, and what daily life looks like in a residential city of 700,000+ people that most foreigners have never heard of. Sagamihara isn't exciting in the way Shibuya or Kyoto are exciting. But it's real—this is where hundreds of thousands of people actually live, commute from, raise families. The wide boulevards are pleasant. The parks are well-maintained. The shrines still function. It's just a city doing city things, at a scale that feels more comfortable than Tokyo's density. The walk is long (3.5 hours), covers a lot of ground, and passes through areas where nothing dramatic happens. That's the point. This is regular Japanese suburban life, documented honestly. 🕒 TIMESTAMPS 00:00:00 — Highlights 00:00:58 — Sagamihara Station 00:18:30 — Hikawa Shrine 00:47:01 — Liberty Boulevard 01:11:49 — City Hall Sakura Street 01:28:00 — Ximon shopping street 01:37:26 — Sagami General Depot perimeter 01:44:57 — Muratomi Shrine 02:11:31 — Yabe Station 02:34:17 — Kanuma Park 02:53:36 — Approaching Fuchinobe 03:00:11 — Fuchinobe Station 03:34:26 — Sanbase Street 🔔 Subscribe for more walks across Japanese cities 👍 Like if Sagamihara's wide boulevards and spaciousness showed you a different side of Japanese urbanism #japan #walkingtour #sagamihara #citywalk #japantravel #kanagawa