Short Cuts

IZU'S WILD SIDE Had it with history? Go play outside. The Izu west coast offers a variety of outdoor fun. From Shimoda station, take the hour-long bus ride to Dogashima then wind your way down the peninsula toward Irozaki, Izu's southernmost point.

Once at Dogashima, hop on the $7 sightseeing boat for a 20-minute tour of the region's famed craggy, tree-topped rock islets that invoke Japanese classical landscape paintings. Before getting back on the bus, the musically inclined should check out the Kayama Yuzo museum, a shrine to a famous old-time crooner who does a not-half-bad rendition of...