Luggage, lockers, cash
and what actually needs yen.

The luggage question in Hiroshima is really a Miyajima question: you do not want a suitcase on a ferry, up a ropeway, or among deer that have learned to eat paper.

Do not build your day around finding a locker on Miyajima. Coin lockers exist at Hiroshima Station, at Miyajimaguchi and at the Miyajima terminal, and they fill early on peak days — and no official source publishes their sizes or prices. Not JR West, not either ferry operator, not the Miyajima Tourist Association, not the city. Any page that quotes you a figure has made it up. Leave the big bag at Hiroshima Station and cross with a day bag.

The reliable answer is one of the two staffed desks at Hiroshima Station, both listed with these prices by Visit Hiroshima, the prefecture's official tourism site — check before you go, and check the Google Maps listing for when each desk is staffed. Tours Hiroshima charges ¥500 per item, any size, takes cards, e-money and QR, and will deliver to city hotels for ¥1,000 a piece. Crosta Hiroshima charges ¥800 per item or ¥1,000 oversize, takes cash or an IC card, and delivers to 65 hotels for ¥1,500, same day if you drop the bag by 14:00. At ¥500 a bag with no size limit, Tours Hiroshima is the better deal; Crosta's hotel delivery is the convenience.

One more Miyajimaguchi warning: there is no Midori-no-Madoguchi ticket office there, only an assisted ticket machine. If you need a rail-pass exchange or a complicated reservation, do it at Hiroshima Station before you go.

There are also lockers inside the Peace Memorial Museum, on the first floor of the East Building, and you will need them — large bags are not allowed into the exhibition. That is a rule worth knowing before you arrive with a day pack and a camera bag.

Luggage forwarding — takkyubin — is the Japanese answer to all of this and it is the thing most visitors underuse. Hotels will normally send a bag on to your next hotel, typically arriving the following day, so you can do a Miyajima overnight with a small bag and let the suitcase go ahead. Ask at your hotel's front desk the day before; prices vary by size and route and we have not verified a current rate card.

One island-specific reason to travel light: Miyajima's deer have eaten paper since feeding was banned in 2008 — maps, tickets and guidebooks included. A loose ferry ticket in an outside pocket is a real loss, and the ¥100 visitor tax ticket is a separate slip of paper you have to keep hold of.

Buy an eSIM before you fly if your phone supports one. It is the least friction available: no pocket wifi to collect at an airport counter, no deposit, no device to return, and it works from the moment you land — which matters more here than in most Japanese cities because Hiroshima Airport is about 50km from town and you may want a map on the bus.

Free wifi exists at Hiroshima Station, in the covered Hondori arcades, in most hotels and at the tourist information desks, and it is adequate rather than good. Coverage inside the Peace Memorial Museum is not something to rely on when you want to look something up mid-exhibition.

One genuinely useful thing to have data for: the museum runs live congestion cameras on its own site. In FY2025 it recorded 2,580,926 admissions — a third consecutive record, of which 945,618, or 36.6%, were foreign visitors — and at peak the galleries are hard to move through. Checking the camera before you walk over is a better use of five seconds than anything else on your phone that day.

And a warning that is worth more than any of the above: JESTA is not live. Japan's planned electronic travel authorisation is expected in FY2028, which runs April 2028 to March 2029. Today there is nothing to apply for, no portal and no fee. Any website selling you a "JESTA" is a scam — close the tab. The same goes for anything charging you to "pre-register" for entry to Japan in 2026.