The Best Parking Lot for Visiting Tomioka Silk Mill

Today I’ll introduce the best parking option for visiting Tomioka Silk Mill, the UNESCO World Heritage site in Tomioka City, Gunma Prefecture.

How I Know This

• Actually visited Tomioka Silk Mill in person
• Tried out several parking lots in 2022 to find the best option among them all

To cut straight to the conclusion: the best parking for accessing Tomioka Silk Mill is Inari Park, at ¥100 per 20 minutes.

Let me walk through the reasoning and details below.

There Are Plenty of Parking Lots Around Tomioka Silk Mill

Tomioka Silk Mill, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of Gunma Prefecture’s leading tourist attractions, and there are plenty of parking lots in the surrounding area.

Tomioka Silk Mill doesn’t have its own dedicated parking lot, so if you’re arriving by car, you’ll need to park at one of the nearby lots.

Knowing the parking locations and the walking route to the mill ahead of time makes for a much smoother visit, so I did the research myself.

Parking Options Near Tomioka Silk Mill

Listed from farthest to closest to Tomioka Silk Mill:

Parking Lot	Price	Distance to Tomioka Silk Mill
Tomioka Station East Parking Lot	Free	About 1km, ~20 min walk
Miyamoto-cho Municipal Parking Lot	First 30 min free, then ¥100/30 min	About 500m, ~10 min walk
Kamicho Parking Lot	First 30 min free, then ¥100/30 min	About 500m, ~10 min walk
Park 30	¥500 for 2 hours, then ¥100/30 min	~3 min walk
Inari Park	¥100/20 min	~3 min walk
Parking lot right in front of Tomioka Silk Mill (unnamed)	First hour ¥500, then ¥100/20 min	~1 min walk

Which of these should you choose?

There are a few factors in deciding which parking lot to use, but it mainly comes down to how long you plan to spend sightseeing at Tomioka Silk Mill and your budget. Makes sense, right?

The Best Choice: Inari Park (¥100 per 20 minutes)

Inari Park is a paid lot at ¥100 per 20 minutes, but it’s just a 3-minute walk to Tomioka Silk Mill along a straight road, making it very easy to access.

This lot is a good fit for people who:

• Are visiting Tomioka Silk Mill for the first time and want to take their time sightseeing (roughly 1.5–2 hours)
• Want to minimize the walk to Tomioka Silk Mill
• Want to keep parking costs as low as possible while taking the above into account

Inari Park checks all three of these boxes.

Since Tomioka Silk Mill is basically a walk-around sightseeing spot, a parking lot that’s more than a 10-minute walk away means 20 minutes round trip.

Add a 10-minute walk to the lot on top of a 2-hour visit, and that’s fairly taxing — kids will likely complain, and it’ll take a toll on older visitors too.

The farther lots charge ¥100 per 30 minutes, while Inari Park charges ¥100 per 20 minutes — so Inari Park is technically pricier per minute, but once you factor in the round-trip walking time, the difference becomes pretty minor. This is the key point.

The lot that’s just a 1-minute walk away charges ¥500 for the first hour, so parking for 2 hours comes to ¥800. Inari Park comes to ¥600.

That ¥200 difference is the cost of a 1-minute walk versus a 3-minute walk — and if it’s within a 2-minute walk, walking really shouldn’t feel like a burden.

You also won’t get lost — just walk straight down Shiromachi-dori street. You’ll spot the brick buildings, so there’s no chance of missing it.

Name	Inari Park
Address	1025 Tomioka, Tomioka City, Gunma 370-2316
Price	¥100 / 20 min
Hours	Open 24 hours

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About the author

Joe

I love hotels, hot springs, and saunas across the whole country!!
I’ve made it to 40 prefectures so far.
Around 100 hotel stays and 50+ saunas visited, and the count keeps climbing.
My hobbies are travel, golf, snowboarding, saunas, and the gym.

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