The Southern Islands & the Silk Road to Hong Kong, 17 September 2029

Cruise overview

The journey begins the moment you embark in Tokyo, its restless energy still with you as the yacht eases out toward open water. Shimizu offers an early view of Fuji-san rising above the bay before an overnight stay in Osaka, time enough for Dotonbori’s neon food stalls, the golden turrets of Osaka Castle, and a private day reaching Kyoto’s temples and Nara’s bowing deer. Takamatsu’s Ritsurin Garden, three centuries in the shaping, gives way to a ferry crossing for Naoshima’s buried art galleries, while Shimonoseki sits on the hard-running Kanmon Strait, known for its Karato market fugu and the Meiji cannon batteries still facing the water. Jeju, a volcanic island unlike the Korean mainland, holds Hallasan’s cloud-wrapped slopes and the haenyeo, free-diving grandmothers who still work these waters. Nagasaki opens two centuries of sealed history through Dejima and Glover Garden, with the ghost city of Gunkanjima reachable offshore, and Fukue’s Goto Islands hide UNESCO-listed churches built in secret above turquoise bays. The final stretch threads Yakushima’s ancient cedar forest, Amami Oshima’s mangrove wilderness, the Ryukyu Kingdom’s Shuri Castle in Naha, and Ishigaki’s coral shallows, before a day at sea brings the voyage to a close in Hong Kong, its skyline rising to greet you.”