Summer fun with kids in Japan: ① outdoor pools

In Japan, most (if not all) of the prefectures have seasonal outdoor pools and / or aqua parks. They only open a few weeks of the year, in the height of summer. They are much needed in the Japanese summer when temperatures often exceed 35 degrees Celsius and humidity is often more than 70%. For me personally, who is not very good with the level of heat  in Japan, the summer pools is one of the few outdoor places I go with kids. 

As I wrote earlier today, some of the outdoor pools / aqua parks are already open for the 2025 season. Even more will open this weekend. But they will not be open daily until the kids get their summer holidays. The school summer holidays in Japan can differ by region, but by and large the last day of the first term of school and kindergarten this year is Friday July 18th. Therefore, from July 19th hundreds of outdoor pools will open daily around Japan! Most will finish on August 31st, but you can find some that are open the first two weekends of September too.

Kids love going to the pool. It is such a fun way to spend a day or half day in Japan in summer. We aren't often in Japan in the summer, but we were during the pandemic and we visited an outdoor pool often the summers of 2020, 2021 and 2022. Most pools were actually closed those years. We were just really lucky that one of our local hotels opened theirs while everywhere else was closed. 

Have you been to an outdoor pool with kids in Japan?