Japanese Train Station Stamps

Written by Sophie, December 2020

I’ve always been something of a magpie. If I go for a walk on the beach I come away with my pockets full of oddly shaped stones and sea glass. I have a pile of perfectly round, bright white stones from a trip to Greece a few years ago, and a (rather impressive) spoon collection that I started when I was eight or nine. So, when I discovered the train stations stamps in Japan, I knew I was going to have to start collecting them.

Train station stamps, or Eki stamps, were first introduced at a station in Fukui Prefecture in 1931 as a means to increase tourism and use of the railways. They are now found at thousands of train stations all over the country. The rubber stamps are always beautifully illustrated, and the design incorporates places and sights unique to the area. For example, the stamp for the Nara station has deer, and the Asakusa stamp in Tokyo feature the Sensō-ji temple.

There are official notebooks sold to collect these stamps, however any small notebook is perfectly fine to use, in fact our Stalogy notebooks (in any size but particularly the A6) would be ideal.

It’s not just train stations that have their own stamps, museums, tourist attractions and even gardens have their own stamps!

Collecting Japanese stamps is not only fun, but a great way to remember your trip and all the places you visited – and best of all, it’s free!