Getting from Naha Airport to the city

The only railway on the island

• Okinawa has one railway, the Okinawa Urban Monorail, known as the Yui Rail, and it begins at Naha Airport Station.
• The airport publishes the leg most visitors want: Naha Airport to Shuri, 12.9 km, about 27 minutes.
• The line goes further than that. The full run is Naha Airport, Akamine, Oroku, Onoyama Park, Tsubogawa, Asahibashi, Prefectural Office, Miebashi, Makishi, Asato, Omoromachi, Furujima, Naha City Hospital, Gibo, Shuri, Ishimine, Kyozuka, Urasoe-Maeda and Tedako-Uranishi.
• What you want is usually Makishi for Kokusai Street, Prefectural Office for central Naha, or Shuri for the castle.

And then the buses

• Everything on Okinawa outside Naha is a bus journey, and the airport organises them onto six numbered platforms by direction. Get the platform right and the rest is easy.
• Platforms 1 and 2 head for central and northern Okinawa: the Churaumi Aquarium, JUNGLIA, Chatan American Village, the Onna resort coast and Nago Bus Terminal. Platform 1 has the limousine and shuttle services (LIM-A through LIM-DE, the Resort Liner, the Airport Line 888), platform 2 the express buses 111 and 117.
• Platform 3 is Okinawa City and Uruma: AEON Mall Okinawa Rycom, the Okinawa Arena, Koza, Gushikawa Bus Terminal, on routes 113, 123, 152, 190 and 125.
• Platform 4 is the central west coast: Kokusai Street and Ginowan, on routes 26, 99 and 132.
• Platform 5 is Chatan and the north on routes 120 and 143 and the Chatan direct shuttles.
• Platform 6 is the south: Okinawa World, Senagajima Umikaji Terrace, iias Okinawa Toyosaki and Itoman, on routes 83, 189 and 95 and the Harley Express and Umikaji Liner.

Choosing between them

• Staying in Naha? The monorail. It is fast, frequent, and the stations are where the hotels are.
• Staying on the west coast at Onna or Chatan? The limousine bus, which drops at the resort hotels.
• Going to the Churaumi Aquarium as a day trip? The 117 express is the direct one.
• Renting a car is what most Japanese visitors do, because the island is 100 km long and the bus network thins out fast north of Nago.

Where you are

• Naha Airport sits on the south-west edge of Naha, which is why the monorail reaches the city in minutes rather than in an hour.
• Okinawa is subtropical and 1,500 km from Tokyo. It has its own climate, its own food and its own history as the Ryukyu Kingdom.
• The airport also handles the flights to the outer islands - Ishigaki, Miyako, Kume - and those depart from the same terminal complex.