Of these ten journeys, this is the only one in which walking plays the lead. Arranged properly, walking is more luxurious than any vehicle.

The skeleton

  • Day 1 — Arrive in Kii-Tanabe; a short warm-up stretch; a hot-spring guesthouse
  • Days 2–4 — Three curated hours of trail per day (the steepest sections avoided), luggage driven ahead, lunch from a mountain teahouse
  • Day 5 — Walk into Kumano Hongu Taisha — an ending with the weight of a ceremony — then the river onsen

House rules of this journey

No hurrying; a car comes whenever the walking stops being pleasant. Rain has its B-side (onsen and the pilgrimage museum). Phones, ideally, evenings only.

This is the skeleton of a journey that happened exactly once. Yours will begin from a blank page.

← Back to journeys

Shall we draw yours?

Tell us roughly where you want to go, and what you would rather avoid. That is where the line begins.

Begin my journey