The 23 Best Things to Do in Japan

Mount Fuji fills the window while you work through pours of koshu and muscat bailey A at this small Yamanashi winery. The chef, who spent years making wine in Burgundy before coming home at 60 to start over, farms native grapes and keeps the tasting room intimate enough that you'll want to book ahead. Ranked 20th on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list. Hiking trails and a craft brewery next door handle the rest of the afternoon.

The granite boulders here are the size of small houses, smoothed by millennia into shapes that look almost placed by hand. Anse Source d'Argent on La Digue is one of the Seychelles' most photographed stretches of coast, and the shallow, clear water between those formations draws as many cameras as swimmers. A small entry fee through L'Union Estate keeps the crowds manageable enough that you can still find a quiet pocket of sand to call your own.

The gravity-flow system moves juice through overhead rails while a window below frames the fermentation tanks, which tells you something about how seriously this winery takes its process. Set on the Jinba plateau with 360-degree views of mountains and vineyards, Mariko is a winery visit and tasting experience, landing at number 46 on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list. Tours end at a counter pouring native Japanese varieties alongside local food.

The spa at this remote Aman property in Ise-Shima National Park is fed by actual onsen water, which puts it in a different category from the average hotel wellness floor. Both outdoor pools draw from the same mineral-rich hot springs that the guest rooms do, so the line between spa treatment and just existing here gets pleasantly blurry. Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world, and the volcanic seclusion does most of the arguing.

The wellness center at Janu Tokyo is one of the largest in the city, which in Tokyo is saying something. Pools, treatment rooms, and movement studios fill the space with the kind of calm that feels engineered at a molecular level. As a sibling brand to Aman, Janu arrives with expectations baked in, and the spa leans into that weight comfortably. Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world.

A subterranean spa spread across two floors beneath a Four Seasons, with an 800-year-old pond garden sitting quietly overhead. The space is massive by any measure, one of the larger full-service spa and fitness operations in Kyoto, and the Higashiyama address means you're already somewhere that moves slower than the rest of the city. Vogue named it among its 100 Best Spas in the World, which tracks.