Steps, steps and more steps, up and down, all day. Bring your trekking poles and walk where former emperors, their consorts and tens of thousands of common people walked beginning over 1000 years ago. Maximum elevation 1000 meters.

Your escort, Jack Sanders, has been
bringing small groups to enjoy the
Japanese countryside since 1999.

April 4-16, 2012:  Hike Japan’s Ancient Pilgrimage Routes - Kumano Kodo, a World Heritage Site.
      Four days (option of six days) of hiking 8-10 miles per day from village to village on steep, remote, mountainous, thousand-year-old pilgrimage routes in the Kumano Kodo World Heritage Site in Wakayama Prefecture, on Japan’s
Kii Peninsula. Stay each night in small, family-run Japanese inns and dine on delicious home-cooked local cuisine, soak in outdoor natural hot springs and on April 15 participate in a colorful Shinto spring festival, Kumano Hongu Taisha Matsuri.

     Tour cost is $3200 for a group of 7 or 8, $3500 for a group of 4 to 6, plus RT airfare from PDX (around $1200), and includes double occupancy accommodations, land transportation, entrance and guide fees and breakfast and dinner while staying in Japanese inns - everything but lunch. A DVD of this hiking experience is available for the asking. We began offering this hiking adventure in April of 2004.

Tour cost is based on an exchange rate of 80 Yen=$1.00.

You will participate in the Kumano Hongu Taisha
Spring Festival in Hongu Town, population 5000.

The village of Watarase Onsen, near Hongu Town.

Boys' Day coy flying over the
Otogawa River in Kawayu
Onsen. Here you can enjoy hot
springs that bubble up through
the riverbed. Local population, 42.