🧭 Pilgrimage · 86 destinations · 281 activities
Japanese pilgrimages can be walked whole or in sections, and almost nobody walks them whole: the Shikoku circuit is twelve hundred kilometres. What makes them worthwhile is that single sections work as two or three day walks with traditional lodging along the way. Book the stage lodgings well ahead, because there are very few beds.
A thousand-year-old pilgrimage route through mountain forests, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
One of Japan's oldest hot springs, a traditional stop for pilgrims.
Temple number one of the Saigoku pilgrimage, whose red pagoda against the waterfall is the iconic image of Kumano; you reach it up the 600 cobbled metres of Daimonzaka between eight-hundred-year-old cedars, and Heian-period costumes can be hired.
A two-person wooden hut in the Yunomine stream: the only bath in the world inside a World Heritage property, with half-hour slots and water that changes colour several times a day.
The Kumano Kodo and the Camino de Santiago have been sister routes since 2015: anyone who has walked sections of both can register as a 'Dual Pilgrim' in Tanabe or Hongu and receives a pin, a certificate on washi paper and a drum ceremony.
One of the three grand shrines of Kumano, the main destination of the pilgrimage.
One of Japan's oldest Shinto shrines, dedicated to Okuninushi, home to the country's largest sacred rope (shimenawa) at the Kagura-den hall.
On 18 November 2026 at seven in the evening the priests receive the gods on the sand at Inasa with torches and escort them in procession to Izumo Taisha. It is a religious rite, not a show: no flash, lights off when asked, and silence. Dress warmly.
A mountain temple linked to Benkei, hidden in a valley north of Izumo and known for its maples in mid-November. A trail runs to Furo waterfall, very slippery in the rain.
An Edo-period complex lacquered in red, dedicated to Amaterasu and Susanoo, on a cape battered by the sea about 20 minutes by bus from Izumo Taisha. Opposite lies Fumishima, a protected gull colony and sacred island closed to entry: it can only be watched from land.
Mythical setting of the ceding of the land and the arrival point of the gods, with a rock crowned by a small shrine. Custom is to collect sand here and exchange it at the Soga no Yashiro of Izumo Taisha.
During Kamiari-zuki the gods deliberate over human matches, and rites are held at the Jukusha, the rows of huts where they lodge. The Enmusubi Taisai on 23 and 25 November 2026 requires an application in advance.
Stay at one of more than 50 temples offering lodging: vegetarian Buddhist food (shojin ryori), a possible fire ritual (goma), and morning prayers before breakfast.
Japan's largest cemetery, with more than 200,000 tombs and monuments among centuries-old cedars, leading to founder Kobo Daishi's mausoleum.
After the seven o'clock service the monks burn wooden tablets amid mantras before Fudo Myo-o; anyone staying in a shukubo can attend without booking.
A lantern walk among two hundred thousand graves and centuries-old cedars, narrated by a monk; the cemetery never closes and after dark it is another place entirely.
Twenty-three kilometres on foot from the valley to the Daimon gate, marked by 180 stone waymarks from the 13th century; it is a World Heritage site and it is how people came up before the funicular.
The only survivor of the seven halls where women prayed, excluded from the sacred precinct until 1872; from it starts the ridge trail that circles the whole mountain.
The most remote of Togakushi's five shrines, reached via a final avenue of 400-year-old cedars; can be combined with the full trail linking all five shrines (about 6-7 hours).
One of Japan's most venerated Buddhist temples, over 1,400 years old, with a pitch-dark passage beneath the main altar in search of the 'key to paradise'.
Beneath the main altar runs a corridor in total darkness that you feel your way along until you find the key to paradise, directly below the hidden Buddha. It is the temple's central rite, not an add-on.
As the sun rises the abbot walks down the temple avenue and touches with his rosary the head of those who kneel as he passes; it is free and starts earlier in summer than in winter.
Every six or seven years the replica of the hidden Buddha is put on display and you can touch a pillar joined to the image by a cord. The next time is from 4 April to 19 June 2027, with enormous crowds: book accommodation far in advance.
The approach avenue to Zenko-ji is lined with temple lodgings that have housed pilgrims for centuries, with a vegetarian dinner and access to the dawn service.
A 785-step staircase up to the main shrine of Kotohira-gu, one of Japan's great pilgrimage destinations.
The 785 steps to the main shrine and the 1,368 to the Okusha are crowded almost all day; first thing in the morning they are empty. Warning: the palanquin service was discontinued at the end of January 2020 because the bearers had grown too old, so it no longer exists.
The shrine's great festival, 9 to 11 October. On the night of the 10th, at nine, a procession of some five hundred people leaves the main shrine with the golden mikoshi, led by yakko carrying feathered spears; it takes three hours to descend the two kilometres.
In the neighbouring municipality of Zentsuji, nine kilometres away and two train stops. It is the birthplace of Kukai and one of Japan's three great daishi sites, with a five-storey pagoda and a pitch-dark underground passage beneath the main hall.
An additional stretch of steps completing the full 1,368 up to the inner Okusha shrine, with views over the Sanuki plain.
At the foot of the stairway, it covers the human relationship with the sea, the deep ocean and naval engineering: the secular counterpart to the sailors' shrine. It has a radio-controlled boat area and a panoramic bridge.
Just 460 metres from the hypocentre: a hundred and sixty pupils and sixteen teachers died. The messages survivors chalked on the stairwell walls looking for their families are preserved, found under layers of paint in 1999. It is free, shattering, and almost always empty.
Around a hundred and seventy trees survived the bombing and are marked with plaques, twelve of them within a thousand metres of the hypocentre. The closest is a weeping willow at 370 metres that fell and regrew from the root, and the second a holly at 410 that burned and resprouted in 1949. The oleander is the city's official flower precisely because it flowered again in 1946. It lets you read the city through what stayed alive, not only through what was destroyed.
The museum arranges talks by hibakusha and, increasingly, by denshosha, people trained to pass on the testimony of a specific survivor. The average survivor is now over 86 and direct talks are scarce: request weeks or months ahead.
Since 1947, at dusk on 6 August paper lanterns are released on the Motoyasu river in front of the Dome. A lantern costs 1,000 yen in cash, you write a message and release it yourself between six and nine in the evening. It follows the official morning ceremony at 8:15.
The school closest to the hypocentre, across the river from the Dome. The basement of the 1928 concrete building is preserved, with its blackened walls. It is free and is done on the same morning as Fukuromachi.
A half-buried Tange building inside the park, separate from the museum and free: it holds the database of victims' names and photographs and the written and video testimonies of survivors. You can search by name and listen to readings of memoirs.
Japan's most sacred Shinto shrine, rebuilt every 20 years.
Since the year 690, Ise has been built again in full on the adjoining plot every twenty years, with all its treasures remade by hand; the next will be in 2033, and the preparatory rites, such as the hauling of the logs, are already taking place and can be watched.
A small ama shrine in Osatsu that, by tradition, grants one single wish to each woman; this is the home of the star-and-grid amulet the divers wear sewn onto their suits.
The route that linked Ise with Kumano; the Magose pass preserves the best-kept cobbled stretch through cedars on the entire Kodo.
In the Edo period, waves of millions of peasants made the pilgrimage to Ise without permission, living on alms along the road. The ritual order still holds today: the outer shrine first and the inner shrine afterwards, purifying yourself in the Isuzu river.
Dedicated to the goddess of agriculture, traditionally visited before the Inner Shrine.
From 31 July to 4 August the Futarasan Chugushi shrine holds the Tohai Taisai, with more than twelve hundred years of history. These are the only nights of the year when the night ascent is allowed, registering at eleven at night, to see sunrise from 2,486 metres. It is an act of worship, not an excursion.
An eighth-century shrine hidden in the forest, thirty minutes on foot uphill behind the Toshogu, almost empty even in high season. The Undameshi no Torii has a hole in its lintel through which you must throw three stones for a wish to be granted, and the Shiraito waterfall is beside it.
A signposted route of about four kilometres through the cedar forest linking Shinkyo bridge, Kanmangafuchi, the Takinoo and the tomb of the monk Shodo. This is how Nikko was travelled before the buses, and it removes ninety percent of the crowd.
A Buddhist temple founded in the 8th century, part of Nikko's UNESCO World Heritage complex, home to the great Sanbutsudo hall and its three gilded Buddha statues.
A branch temple of Rinnoji, one of the very few in Japan where bathing in sulphurous water is part of temple practice. Open seasonally, 500 yen. This is not a spa: onsen rules apply, and so do the rules of a sacred precinct.
Temple founded by the monk Shodo in 784 with a thousand-armed Kannon carved from a living tree still rooted in the ground. It is the religious origin of Lake Chuzenji, long predating its fame as scenery.
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