What June Feels Like
Rainy season starts in June, and there's no getting around it. It sets in through the month and brings grey skies, humidity and regular rain to most of the country. It's the reason a lot of people skip June, and fair enough, but it's also why the famous spots are cheap and quiet, and the season has a quiet charm of its own once you get into it. The hydrangeas are out in full, and places like the temple gardens of Kyoto and Kamakura take on a whole different character once you see them through the mist and rain.
And there's one big exception to all of it. The rain never really reaches Hokkaido, so while the rest of the country deals with the rain, places up north are having some of the best weather of the year. It's mild and clear, with the Furano lavender fields just starting up toward the end of the month.
Why June Can Be a Great Time to Visit and How to Plan It
June is one of the cheapest months of the year to visit, and that's a big part of what makes it appealing. If you can handle some wet weather, you get the big name spots far quieter than the spring and autumn rush and some of the lowest room prices of the year. Wandering the big sights with the hydrangeas out, mist over the hills and hardly anyone around is a completely different experience to the spring and autumn crush.
The catch, of course, is the rain. It doesn't pour all day every day, you'll get dry breaks between the wet stretches, but you do have to plan around it. Leave a bit of room in your itinerary, keep an umbrella and a raincoat on you, and save the indoor stuff like museums and the shopping arcades for the wettest days.
Here's the move a lot of people miss. Because Hokkaido sits outside the rainy season, you can pair a week of rainy season down south with a week of clear weather up north and basically dodge the worst of it. A common way to do it is to start in Kyoto and Kansai for the hydrangea gardens, then fly up to Hokkaido for the clear skies and the start of the lavender season. Two weeks split like that gives you the best of both.
If you've only got a week, it's worth picking one side of that. Go all in on Hokkaido for the good weather and the lavender, or base yourself around the hydrangea spots and the rainy season temple atmosphere. If you go that route, it's worth timing it. Kamakura and Hakone usually peak around mid June, with the northern spots a bit later.
June Weather and What's in Bloom
June is warm and humid, and gets worse as the month goes on. Tokyo averages around 18 to 26 degrees, with Osaka and Kyoto much the same, though the humidity makes it feel warmer than the number suggests. Kyushu and the south are hotter and stickier, and that's where the rainy season hits hardest.
The rain reaches Tokyo and the Kanto area around mid June, then spreads further north into Tohoku over the second half of the month. It's not all rain, though. The days tend to alternate between grey drizzly stretches and clearer breaks, so you can still get plenty done, you just want to stay flexible and keep an umbrella handy.
On the flower front, June is all about the hydrangeas. They bloom right across the country through the month, and the wet, misty weather is exactly when they look their best. The temple gardens of Kamakura, Meigetsu-in and Hase-dera especially, along with the hydrangeas lining the Hakone mountain railway, are some of the best known spots, and the summer destination guides have plenty more.