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Whether you’re enchanted by Japan’s natural marvels or curious about its culture and cuisine, whether you want to sail in extreme luxury or with a locally owned boutique ship, there’s a perfect Japan cruise for you.

These 11 destinations might not be on your radar.

Hakodate Beer is the town’s microbrewery of choice. Asahi and Sapporo are about the only brews to get famous outside Japan, but most locales have their own breweries. Sample a few beers while chowing down on grilled squid (much better than octopus—and Hakodate isn’t known as Squid City by chance).

Sporting a European-style citadel instead of a more traditional Japanese design, Goryōkaku Fort was built 150 years ago in the shape of a five-pointed star. And the new design worked—the fort was one of the last refuges of shogunate holdouts who resisted the Meiji Restoration. Every spring, the 1,600 cherry trees around the fort bloom.

Mount Hakodate—locally, “Hakodate-san"—feels like the center of the world. The Japanese understand the power of mountains, maybe because so many of their mountains have the bad habit of blowing up. (That’s happened here at Mount Hakodate, too.) Take the cable car up the big volcanic hill for a breathtaking view of the town and ocean.

Onuma Quasi-National Park, about 20 minutes by train from Hakodate, serves as the region’s natural escape valve, with long views (a rarity in Japan) of forest and lakes. The park is so wild that there may still be serow—a kind of goat-antelope that could have been designed by Walt Disney—out there.