What are the best day trips from Yokohama?

Kamakura beats everything else for a first day out. The JR Yokosuka Line runs from Yokohama Station to Kamakura in about 25 minutes for roughly ¥360 each, with trains every 10 to 15 minutes. Skip Komachi-dori before noon on a weekend: by 11am the lane off the east exit is a slow shuffle through rice-cracker smoke and selfie sticks, so go the other way. Ride the Enoden tram three stops to Hase and see the bronze Great Buddha at Kotoku-in first (¥300, about $1.90), while the 8am air still smells of incense and wet cedar. Then take a 10-minute taxi east to Hokokuji, where entry plus a bowl of bitter, frothy matcha runs about ¥1,000 each and the wooden bench faces the bamboo grove. That bench gives you the quiet moment most couples' photos at Arashiyama in Kyoto merely pretend to. Tsurugaoka Hachimangu fills with tour groups after 10am, so the history buff should save it for around 4pm, when the coaches have left for Tokyo. Book dinner back in Yokohama, because many Kamakura restaurants tend to close by 8pm.

Yokosuka is the best split-interest day, 30 minutes south of Yokohama on the Keikyu Main Line limited express to Yokosuka-Chuo. The history buff gets the Mikasa, Admiral Togo's flagship at the 1905 Battle of Tsushima, built in 1900 and now set in concrete at Mikasa Park: admission is around ¥600, and the steel deck still feels warm underfoot in late September. The foodie gets Yokosuka navy curry, which restaurants here serve with a salad and a glass of milk, a rule carried over from the Imperial Navy mess. Split up at noon. One of you takes the 10-minute ferry from Mikasa pier to Sarushima, an uninhabited island with Meiji-era brick forts and mossy tunnels, while the other works Dobuita Street for burgers and embroidered sukajan jackets. Meet at 5pm on the Verny Park waterfront, where the harbour smells of diesel and grey US Navy ships sometimes sit across the water. Sarushima ferries stop in rough seas, so check the pier board before you part ways.

For a food-led day, Keikyu's Misaki Maguro Kippu covers the round trip to Misakiguchi, the local bus, a tuna lunch at a participating restaurant in Misaki port, and one leisure entry, for about ¥3,500 from Yokohama. The tuna is fatty and cold, served at counters that smell of soy and charred fish collars. Enoshima is the sunset call, though it sits 25 minutes past Kamakura on the Enoden, so fold it into the Kamakura day rather than giving it a day of its own. Order a bowl of raw shirasu whitebait near the causeway, then climb to the Sea Candle tower, where on a clear winter evening Mount Fuji shows black against orange over Sagami Bay. Tonight Yokohama sits at 22°C under overcast skies with 86% humidity, and on evenings like that you will see cloud and little else. Save the Enoshima sunset for October onwards.

Hakone deserves an overnight, and doing it as a day trip is how an itinerary ends in a day-of-trip crash: the Kodama shinkansen from Shin-Yokohama reaches Odawara in about 20 minutes, but after that the loop by Hakone Tozan train, cable car, ropeway and Lake Ashi pirate ship takes 5 to 6 hours of transfers before you even start back. Book a ryokan in Gora with a private rotenburo instead. The sulphur steam and cedar tub are the point, and the anniversary dinner comes to your room. For a half day that stays inside Yokohama, Kanazawa Bunko is about 20 minutes south on the Keikyu line to Kanazawa-bunko Station. The Hojo clan founded a library there in 1275, and the prefectural museum stands beside Shomyo-ji, whose red arched bridge over a carp pond is quiet on weekday mornings. If one of you wants no train at all, Sankei-en in Honmoku, opened in 1906, is the rest-day answer.