Family-Friendly Hotels on Okinawa's Main Island: Tropical Resorts by Beautiful Seas

Okinawa is one of Japan's best resort destinations for families, blessed with a warm climate and beautiful seas. The west coast of the main island, especially the stretch from Onna Village to Yomitan, is lined with large resort hotels, and many of them offer excellent services for kids.

Beyond playing at the beach, sights like the Churaumi Aquarium and Neo Park Okinawa (a nature zoo where you can get close to animals) are big hits with families. Many resort hotels have a kids' pool or a water slide, so even little ones who are too young for the ocean can still splash around.

Okinawa's resort hotels stand out from other regions for their baby-food-friendly restaurants, baby cribs available to borrow, and generous kids' amenities. With so many activities on site that you can spend a whole day at the hotel, there is little travel between stops, which makes it easy to relax even with small children.

Another plus is that the swimming season runs from late March to around October, longer than the beach season on mainland Japan. The best time to go is July to September, after the rainy season ends, but April, May, and October are also good choices because they are relatively less crowded. During typhoon season (August to September), plans are easily affected by the weather, so choosing a hotel with plenty of indoor activities gives you peace of mind.

Over the New Year holidays, Okinawa often sees daytime highs around 20°C, so there is plenty of time to play outdoors. That makes it a good escape for families whose kids tend to get sick in cold weather. Flights and large resorts fill up in the fall, so you will want to book by October or November. The jump in New Year prices tends to be smaller at the city hotels in the south, including Naha, than in the northern part of the main island, where Onna Village and Nago are located. Our feature on Okinawa trips with a baby under one and our feature on New Year hotels are also worth a look.

If you want a building to yourselves, like a villa near the beach, 58 places in Okinawa offer detached annexes, cottages, or private rental houses. A whole house to yourselves means you can stop worrying about nighttime crying and bedtime routines, but it is smart to check the number of bedding sets and whether there is a kitchen before you book.

If you want to save money with free co-sleeping (little ones sharing your bed at no charge), 60 hotels qualify. If your family would like to stay in a tatami room, 45 hotels offer Japanese-style or Japanese-Western rooms. The age limit and number of children who can co-sleep for free, and whether the rules change with the number of futons in a Japanese-style room, vary by hotel, so compare each hotel's co-sleeping terms when you choose.