Shaped like the Mark of Zorro, a rugged "Z" slashed across the Sea of Japan, Sado Island lies in the inhospitable Sea of Japan off the coast of Niigata Prefecture. Strangely, it warrants surprisingly little space in most guidebooks — which to my mind makes it an alluring place to visit.
Though it's famed for its gold and taiko (traditional Japanese drumming), the island is actually so culturally rich — whether in terms of its history, folk events, nature, mountains, performing arts or crafts — that here on just one speck of land in the ocean a visitor can experience much of the very best that Japan has to offer.
Approaching by ferry from the east, the island rises rugged and forest-clad from the sea, at first seeming remote, even forbidding. Sado is Japan's fifth-largest island (after Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku). It is mountainous in the north and the south, with a broad open plain in between those ranges.