After a year of traveling Japan, I realized this country can offer such a varied experience for a tourist. Of course most visitors' priority is the booming cities and amazing temples, but camping and hitchhiking is also world class. My girlfriend and I camped and hiked our way around these two remote and very different islands between Russia and Japan.

They are accessed by taking a 6-7 hour drive North from Sapporo, Hokkaido to the city of Wakkanai. From Wakkanai there is a passenger ferry that services both isolated islands. I've circled them on a map oh Japan below.

Rebun

Rebun Island is almost treeless island of rolling hills and rugged coastline known to tourists for its 'hachi jikan hikingu cousu', eight hour hiking trail that crosses the island from end to end. This island is cold and windswept enough to hardly have any trees, a stark difference from the lush forests of the major islands of Japan. After doing lots of camping and hiking around Japan, the windswept, northern landscape was really surprising to me, but then again this is pretty close to Japan's further point North.