The Kumano Kodo pilgrimage network of trails in Japan traces its roots back 1000 years to when emperors and samurai would trek these forested rural paths to Japan’s most important sacred shrines and temples. This beautiful trek is a UNESCO World Heritage trail, the only such trail besides its sister trail, the El Camino del Santiago in Spain. It is a challenging hike with significant ascents and descents. Each evening, you stay in a local traditional Japanese inn, partake in the ritual evening bath, and enjoy the outstanding local cuisine. In today’s show, we interview world nomad and fellow travel blogger Sherry Ott of Ottsworld.com about her five-day trek of the Nakahechi trail. An avid worldwide hiker, Sherry puts the Kumano Kodo trail in her top 5 trails!

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Listen to the podcast here:

What is the Kumano Kodo Trail?

The Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Trail is a network of  paths in Japan traditionally trekked by emporers and samarai to visit sacred shrines and temples. While many people continue to walk these paths as a pilgrimage, many now also trek the Kumano Kodo for the challenge, tranquility and beauty through gorgeous forests in the remote countryside.  

Our guest today is my friend, fellow travel blogger and world nomad, Sherry Ott of Ottsworld.com. 

Sherry trekked the most popular Kumano Kodo route, the Nakahechi trail, which takes about five days to do the approximately 40km/25 miles.

Sherry Ott from Otts World

On Sherry’s wonderful travel blog, Otts World, you’ll learn about her many adventures, get destination information and advice, see some incredible photography (like the ones showcased here) and more.  It’s a site to bookmark!  Sherry was also our guest on our St. Olav Ways long distance hike in Norway, which you can see here.

Reach out to Sherry on:

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Kumano Kodo as Pilgrimage or Trek 

Other Long Distance Trails you might enjoy:

El Camino in Spain

Cotswold Way in England

West Highland Way in Scotland

Machu Picchu in Peru

Mont Blanc in Italy, France and Switzerland

Kungsleden Trail in Sweden

Rota Vincentina in Portugal

Cycling Trails you might enjoy:

Along Danube river Passau to Vienna

Italy’s Puglia – the Stilleto Heel

El Camino in Spain

Where is the Kumao Kodo Trail

There are seven paths that make up the Kumano Kodo trail.  These trails are located in the Kii mountain range in the Wakayama prefecture in Japan.  The most popular one is the Nakahechi route taken by our guest today, Sherry Ott of Otts World.  Most people get to Osaka and then take the 40 minute bus ride (about 100 km) or an express train to the start at the Shinto shrine Takijirisoji, the Takijiri trailhead being about 15 km west of Tanabe.  Many partake of ablutions in the healing waters.

How Difficult is hiking the Kumano Kodo Trail?

How to Hike the Kumano Kodo Trail

Japan Transportation : Japan Rail Pass

The best way to get from place to place in Japan is via train.    You can buy a Japan Rail Pass to save money and get where you want to go efficiently.

What Will I See hiking the Kumano Kodo Trail?

• Seeing and exploring small rural villages each night
• Trekking through gorgeous cedar forests and stunning valleys
• Visit and bathe in the thermal waters at a hot spring Ryokan
• See the Nachi-taki waterfall
• See the Grand Shrines at Hongu and Nachi
• Explore the enchanting fishing village Kii-Katsuura
• Perform the daily ritual bathing in an onsen
• Delight in a variety of traditional Japanese dishes prepared just for you!
• Try to take a ‘rest’ day in the charming hot-spring village of Yunomine Onsen.  You can rest or take some side hikes.  Sherry hiked with a monk, which Oku Japan can arrange for you!  You can also learn how to make traditional Japanese paper or meditate.  An optional side trip to the last of grand shrines, Hayatama, can also be arranged.

When to Hike the Kumano Kodo Trail

Is the Kumano Kodo Trail Crowded?

Is Elevation an issue on the Kumano Kodo trail?

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Kumano Kodo Lodging

Lodging is pretty tight along the trails.  Be sure that you have booked your accommodations for your Kumano Kodo hike in advance as this is not like the El Camino, where you can wing it. Sherry used Oku Japan, who is the only tour company with an office on the trail (see pic).

What are the Accommodations like?

How to Use an Onsen

What To Eat While on the Kumano Kodo Trail

Sherry’s self-guided tour arranged by Oku Japan included breakfast and lunch.  She was often given delightful lunches like the one shown here.  Sherry said the food was amazing even though sometimes she had no idea what she was eating.  In the case of one dinner that came with a little grill, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, which called for some fun pantomime with the locals.  As Sherry said, the adventure REALLY began AFTER the day’s hike!

Sherry’s 18 course meal one evening!

Kumano Kodo Trail In Japan

A Cultural Pilgrimage Through Rural Japan

The Kumano Kodo pilgrimage network of trails in Japan traces its roots back 1000 years to when emperors and samurai would trek these forested rural paths to Japan’s most important sacred shrines and temples. This beautiful trek is a UNESCO World Heritage trail, the only such trail besides its sister trail, the El Camino del Santiago in Spain. It is a challenging hike with significant ascents and descents. Each evening, you stay in a local traditional Japanese inn, partake in the ritual evening bath, and enjoy the outstanding local cuisine. In today’s show, we interview world nomad and fellow travel blogger Sherry Ott of Ottsworld.com about her five-day trek of the Nakahechi trail. An avid worldwide hiker, Sherry puts the Kumano Kodo trail in her top 5 trails!

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We’re lucky enough to have Sherry Ott with Ottsworld back with us. We first met Sherry in episode number 40 when she talked to us about her trek on St. Olav Ways in Norway, which I got a lot of great feedback on. Welcome back to the program, Sherry.

Thank you so much. I’m happy to be back.

Sherry, you’re taking us on the other side of the world. How about giving us a brief overview and tell us what we’re going to be talking about?

We’re talking about another famous thru-hike called the Kumano Kodo. It’s set in the Kii Peninsula, which is directly south of Osaka. It’s an ancient pilgrimage and the idea is to go to these three holy shrines. It’s in the same vein as the Camino de Santiago. We’ll talk about that as far as how it’s different. It is a pilgrimage like the Camino de Santiago.

Is this a trek that people walk exclusively for pilgrimage reasons or do they also walk just to walk it?

This is my opinion. The majority of people walk it for pilgrimage reasons and when I say that pilgrimage reasons, it’s because they’ve either done the Camino de Santiago or they’re planning to do it. There’s something called dual pilgrimage status that you can get it from both of these trails. That is a big draw. However, at the same time I did see a fair share of Japanese people who were out hiking it. It’s more of a hike than a walk. It’s mixed, but that would be my opinion that a lot of them are there for pilgrim reasons.

When I was doing my research, I found it a little bit confusing because unlike the Camino, which has certain routes that you go and you have a final end point, this looked to me more like a network of paths that you’re doing different things and it’s not necessarily one route that people can do. Can you talk about that a little bit and explain that for us?

It is confusing. Even having done it, I still find it quite confusing. There are seven routes on what they call the seven Kumano Kodo routes. You’re right, it’s not necessarily all to one particular place. You have to remember there are three shrines and the idea is to get to at least one of them. Some of the routes will take you to all three of them. Some of them will take you to one, some will take you to two. It is a weird path of trails. The one that’s the most traveled is called that Nakahechi route. It’s the main route and out of all the seven, it’s probably the most accessible, I would say. We’re also not talking about long distances. We’re talking about hard hiking, so you can’t do a lot in a day, but still not long distances like the Camino de Santiago. I did this in five days and I went about 33.6 miles or so. It’s very different than say you have to take out five weeks to do the Camino de Santiago and here you can go to Japan and do this in a week if you want. That’s what I did. I did a week on the trail and then I did two extra weeks traveling around rural Japan.

Is this something that you’re hiking or are you backpacking?

You’re hiking. There is luggage movement. You can transport the luggage if you’d like. However, the one thing to note is that the luggage transportation, first of all, it’s available all over the country. It’s not just associated with this trail necessarily. It’s available all over the country and it’s great. It’s awesome. There are a couple of companies do this, but they normally say that it’s 48 hours to get your bag. That’s the standard they offer. You do have to be prepared that you might not have your bag at night. I started and I sent it ahead to my ending point in those five days. Maybe I sent it to a middle point and then the ending point so I didn’t send it every day. However, one of the very unique things about this trail is that you can very easily walk this with a day pack.

The reason why is all your food is provided. All you need is rain gear, first aid and room for food and that’s about it in that day pack. Once you get to your hotel or your lodging for the night, all Japanese inns offer you and you are pretty much required to wear slippers. You’ve got slippers that you can wear inside. You don’t even need another pair of shoes quite frankly. They also offer a yukata, which is a Japanese robe that you’re also supposed to wear inside as well as outside. You can wear this stuff outside too, but it’s like the clothes of the Japanese. Quite frankly you might need a pair of pajamas, but that’s about it.

Tell us about the landscape. You said it was difficult.

It’s a mountainous forest. As I said, it’s in the Kii Peninsula. I was told at least that Kii means tree in Japanese. This is a heavily forested area, mainly Japanese Cedar. Most of the time and my favorite days were the days where you were enclosed by the forest and there’s no way to take a wrong turn on the trail because there’s only one way through the forest. It’s very easy to see. However, it is a lot of up and down. I want to say the elevation is somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 feet. It wasn’t anything big. The Nakahechi route goes through the middle, but it’s not that far from the sea. It was a lot of up and down through mountains a lot because you’re in a forest. There are a lot of roots, a lot of like boulders and stairs. When I say stairs, it’s like little logs and stuff and boulders set up like stairs. It was proper hiking path and I think the most I did in a day was around nine miles and I was spent because it’s so much up and down

Is it a crowded trail?

No, not at all. One of the cool things here is the size or I should say the number of people is regulated by the fact that there are a limited number of places to stay. It’s not going to be like the Camino in that sense. In fact, I walked it solo. I did a self-guided trip with a company called Oku Japan. They set up all my lodging and so on and any luggage movement if I needed it, but I walked alone. Most days, I maybe saw eight to twelve other people. Most of the time I was alone. In fact, the last day, which was a hard day, I saw three people the whole day. That was a big long nine-mile day trek. That part’s nice.

A lot of people might feel intimidated because of all the characters in the Japanese language. I assume you don’t speak Japanese.

No.

Can you talk to us about the language barrier, any problems that you might have with that?

First of all to soothe any concerns, I had a translator device along with me because I worried about it too. Throughout my three weeks in Japan, I will tell you I did not get out the translator device once. I never had to use it. First of all, it’s more English accessible than you would ever imagine. Japan as a country is getting ready for the Olympics next summer and they have changed immensely. I was there thirteen years ago. It is a breeze now to get around. That’s one thing to know in general about Japan. Regarding this trail because this isn’t a much more rural area, I did not have any big issues speaking English with people. Most of the people you know who are running the inns and so on, they can speak English. Your lunches were packed, you ate packed lunch on the trail. You did not eat lunch in a random restaurant along the trail. There were none.

The trail was easy to find. There were signs in Japanese. They had Japanese characters. You don’t really need the signs as far as telling you which way to go, but you do learn the symbols for Kumano Kodo too. Everything was also written in English. Where they did have like informative signs say at along the trail there are all these little shrines called Oji’s, little temples, little tiny ones. That’s where you get your passport stamps. Those were also written in English, so everything was pretty easy. I would say the one thing I would recommend to ease any of your concerns on the route and finding your way is at the beginning of the Nakahechi route, there’s a visitor center specifically for the Kumano Kodo and stop in there before you go.

One of the very unique things about the Nakahechi trail is that you can very easily just walk this with a day pack. Click To Tweet

You can speak to someone there. That’s where you pick up your passport to be filled out if you want. You also can get this great foldable pamphlet of this whole Nakahechi route. One of the things that they have on there is this whole list. You see the whole route and then there are all these numbers and they correspond to little posts on the trail that are numbered every kilometer so you can see where you’re at. On that pamphlet it has symbols for where you’re going to find a bathroom potentially along the way where the different Oji’s are so you can figure out where you’re at and how far it is to the next one and so on. It’s pretty easy. I had no issues with speaking and understanding people.

While we’re on the subject of passports, how about explain that in case some people are thinking about the thing that you showed the officials at the airport?

This is like a pilgrim passport, much like the Camino de Santiago. It’s a little paper trifled or whatever document about the size of a passport I suppose. This is where you get stamps and it’s your way to in a sense prove that you completed the hike. The idea is that there are little ink bladder and stamp at each of these Oji’s along the way and there are lots of them. You stop and you stamp yourself. You can do that and collect all of them and get the stamps at the temples and then at the end you can get a certificate saying that you finished it much like the Camino de Santiago. It’s the same idea, but there at Camino de Santiago, you mainly got the stamps at the hotels. You don’t have hotel stamps. It’s these little Oji’s.

I want to loop back to something you said. You said that this was a self-guided tour that you did through Oku Japan. What I want to know is when you got to a town, how did you know where to go or what to do? How did all that work?

Oku sent me information prior via email, but then they also sent on all of the maps in a very detailed day-to-day itinerary of what I was doing and where I was going and what trains and what buses I had to take to my arrival hotel in Osaka. I picked that all up in Osaka and went through that. I had printed copies as well as a digital copy. That’s how in that day-to-day itinerary, it very clearly listed where I was staying that night and how to get there. The other thing to know is, like I said, there’s not a lot of lodging in these feudal towns along the way. There were a few times where I got to the town where I was finishing that day, but there was no lodging there. They had arranged a guest house in the village nearest and I had instructions on using the pay phone and calling the host and she would come to pick me up and took me back down to the guest house and then she dropped me off the next day right where she picked me up. There is some stuff like that. That happens too. That’s all in the little booklet that they provide.

Did you feel very comfortable?

Yeah, I never had a problem finding the place, but out of all these nights, only once did I stay in the same exact town that I finished in. If so, that tells you a little bit about the lodging restrictions, but they had it all organized and that’s one of the benefits. You could do this yourself. It’s going to be a lot of research and the hard part that you’re going to run into is for the lodging. It’s to figure out what’s available. I don’t know how you find out if there’s stuff in towns nearby and how to get back and forth and so on, but also most of the lodging sites are all in Japanese. That was one of the reasons why I went with Oku because like I said, it was self-guided. All they did was they provided me my route and my information. They got my lodging and they helped me with all the logistics. That was it.

That’s similar to the West Highland Way episode number three, where I would stay in these little villages that there may only be one option and sometimes no options. To figure out the logistics would be a nightmare. I like using self-guided tour companies. They can save you so much time and they know where to go. They know the good places to go to.

I could have figured it out on my own, but it would have taken forever.

I just want to get there and go do the hike.

I know, I want to get there and do it. It’s reasonable and you have a lifeline to call. One of the cool things about Oku is they’re one of the bigger operators for self-guided on the Kumano Kodo and they’re the only operator that has an actual office on the route. I stayed at the office one night. That was my lodging for one night because once again, they were filled up and they put me in there. It was cute. It was like a little ryokan. I had the regular mats. I slept on the floor. They set it up beautifully. It was so great.

While we’re talking about lodging, how about telling us about the kind of places that you stayed in?

I had a variety and I liked that about this. The first night I stayed at a guest house, which was just a person’s house. It was a retired couple. They were very well-traveled. She spoke English quite well and I stayed upstairs in one of their spare bedrooms. She had the bath all drawn up. She had this hot bath all drawn for me, which is very much a ritual in Japan to do a bath in the evening. She cooked for me. She made my packed lunch. She was great. That was a cool experience because you were in someone’s house. I ate in their dining room. That was the first day. I stayed in the office one night, which was way more of like a traditional ryokan, which was made with tatami mats, the traditional Japanese mats that you sleep on. There’s no actual furniture. You’re sitting upon it.

Is that almost like a futon mattress on the ground?

Yeah, the tatami mat is the first mat and then they put the futon on top of it. It’s all very much no furniture, a low little table and a little sliding chair. That was great. I did have one night in a much more high-end ryokan that was also an onsen. An onsen is a hot spring, typically hot spring water, which you’ll find all over Japan because it’s volcano landscape. Many hotels will have these onsens, which they pipe in hot spring water into a men’s and a women’s onsen, which is a public bath. They certainly did this at that higher end hotel, but also right outside was the river. You look at this river and the river was a hot spring, so it was a warm river.

You would also see people sitting in the river getting the same benefits. That hotel, it was a ryokan. You had the mats. It was so fun. I ate at that hotel too. It was amazing. At one point I counted eighteen little dishes in front of me and it was just sitting at my own little table on the floor in my yukata robe because that’s how you’re supposed to do it. I had no idea what I was eating, but I had so much fun. It was such a neat cultural experience. I was happy to do that. I had this there a couple of nights and the other times too, I stayed at some other mid-level ryokans with onsens. It was a lovely mix of lodging.

That sounds like so much fun. Let’s talk about onsens. I know that there are certain procedures you have to do. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Some of them have very detailed instructions for the tourists.

I’ve heard that they don’t think we wash good enough.

As I said, it’s a ritual and I was talking to a local there and they do this every night in their home too, the family. That’s a bath. Anyway, with the onsens, the ritual is that it’s a public bath. It’s split between men and women, but the first thing to know and there’s no exception to this rule is you’re going to go in naked. You go into the little women’s onsen in your yukata, you take off of your yukata and you go into the shower and the onsen area or the bathing area. There’s a row of shower heads and mirrors and little stools, little plastic stools. You sit on the stool and you take your shower, you have to rinse off before and wash your hair, everything.

There's no way to take a wrong turn on the Nakahechi trail because there's only one way through the forest. Click To Tweet

Then you get into the onsen water, which is really hot. You stay in there as long as you want and then you get out and you shower again and go get dressed. As I said, this is public, so this is a big area. You’re showering in front of people and so on. I embraced it. I loved it and you should be able to appreciate this. At first I’m like, “I’m supposed to sit on this little chair to shower?” It took one time to do that and I’m like, “I love the sitting shower,” because after hiking all day, it was nice.

I bet that did feel great after a day of hard hiking.

In fact, there were a few days I did the onsen and I was so relaxed but yet also exhausted still. I went back to my little ryokan room with no furniture and I laid on the mat and then I found it hard to get up. That’s the only bad part about that. There were times where I’m like, “I wish I had a chair,” so it was easier to get up off the floor, but it was super. It made it all the better.

You mentioned the eighteen little dishes. How about talking about food for us?

The food was so good, from home cooked stuff that I did in the guest house to the ryokan food. It was all delicious. You need to go in with an adventurous food attitude though. I will tell you that. I’ll eat anything. The other pieces, I didn’t know what I was eating probably more than 50% of the time. I didn’t know if it’s this fish. I have no idea what I was supposed to do with the stuff and all the procedures around it. Lots of times when you have dinner at the ryokan, there’s a lot of process around that too, which I had no idea what I was doing. Lots of times they’ll settle these dishes on front of you.

We think of sushi. There is some sushi, but most of it’s all this other stuff that we’ve never seen before because they don’t have it at our Japanese restaurants. Lots of times they’ll have a hot plate and they’d light the little burner. I’d sit there like, “What am I supposed to do with that?” I don’t know what I’m supposed to put on this hot plate. They’d have a hot pot or whatever and you try to ask. That was probably my hardest conversations with the women trying to serve me these big dinners. Their English was a little bit more limited, but you could normally charade your way through it. One time in particular, I remember I had this hot plate. I had a plate of what looked like raw beef. I had a whole egg in a little saucer.

She starts at the hot plate and I’m like, “What am I supposed to do?” I tried to motion, “What do I do?” She motioned to this all out to me. I’m supposed to take the beef, put it on the hot plate and cook it. I was supposed to take the egg, crack it into the saucer, take my chopsticks and stir it up so it’s mixed. Then I thought she was going to tell me I was going to put the egg on the hot plate, but no. Then she says I’m supposed to take the beef off the hot plate once it’s cooked, dip it in the raw egg and eat it. I’m like, “Really?” I must have asked her probably three more times because I had to make sure I was doing it right. It’s fun and if you can embrace it and embrace the unknown, it’s wonderful. I would say 95% of the stuff I loved. There were a few things that due to texture, I was like, “That’s not my thing,” but it was great to try everything.

Were they welcoming and helpful in your clumsiness?

Yes, I think they loved it. They would always giggle. They were funny but totally. I noticed they definitely tried their best and when they knew there was clearly an English speaker, they would put the best English speaker they had with you. It was cute.

Outside of the people that you met in the inns and in the restaurants, did you have much local interaction?

A little bit, but maybe not as much as what you would on the Camino de Santiago only because there weren’t like towns in between. You hiked all day from one town to get to the next town. It’s not like you had interaction in between. However, you did in some ways. I remember specifically meeting a hiking group of about maybe ten to twelve people once in front of me as we are going up this pass. It was going to be switchbacks. We haven’t got to it yet and I didn’t know where they were from, but I come to learn that they were Japanese. These two older ladies were in the back. Before we started up the switchbacks, I caught up with them and they were standing there with their guide, getting something out of their backs and their guide spoke English.

He translated for us and they were getting out chocolate and they offered me chocolate. We stood there with the guide and fumbled through a little conversation. I learned their ages and they said that they were in their 70s. They were so cute. They were walking this and this fall they were going to be doing the Camino de Santiago. We talked a little bit about that. They were really cute. I had my picture taken with them at the top of the pass once they got up there. That was fun. Some of the rest, if I went to restaurants or something like that, but I didn’t do a lot of that. There are coffee shops where you stopped and you met some locals, but you didn’t get into big long conversations unless it might have been at the hotel or the onsen or something like that.

You’re talking about walking through the forest. Was it the Japanese that came up with the concept of forest bathing?

Yes, you’re absolutely right. I feel bad because I have always made fun of forest bathing because they have a lot of rituals around it.

For those not familiar with the term, what exactly is forest bathing?

I don’t know if I can fully define it, but the idea is that nature and the forest bring you peace and meditation. It’s the idea of going into the forest and embracing nature and the meditative part of it, which now after spending three weeks in Japan, it makes a lot more sense to me. If you see forest bathing it, you’ll see it in many places now. Spain, the United States or whatever like tours. It gets a little bit more woo-woo. They hug trees, they listen to the leaves breathe and all this stuff. That part I have a little bit of trouble with because of who I am. I have a hard time embracing it, but the idea is that the forests are where spirituality is.

There’s something to it. I know when I’m in the woods, that’s where I feel whole.

This hike in particular did that for me because it was so forested. I would stop many times and listen to the leaves blow in the wind or the locusts. It was meditative. I loved it. I thought it was great. At the same time, that’s the history of this route. The history of this route is that this is where the emperors and their whole court would make a 30 to 40-day journey from the old capital of Kyoto to this remote area of the Kii Peninsula in search of heaven on earth. They’d stop at these three temples, the main three temples to purify themselves. They would stop at all the Oji’s to purify themselves. This really was the spiritual center. It is still of Japan, the Kii Peninsula. It makes sense.

When did regular people start doing this? Do you have any idea?

That’s a good question. I don’t know.

After hiking all day, you will appreciate the sitting showers. Click To Tweet

I did some research on it.

I tried to research how many people a year do it and I talked to Oku to try to get these numbers and no one has it. There’s not any real definite number. They do know that their bookings are going up every year. It is becoming more popular.

According to my notes, the emperors and the Samurai started doing this around 1062. In 2004, it became a World Heritage Site, the route itself along with the El Camino.

They’re the only two pilgrimage UNESCO sites. That’s really what kicked it into gear, that UNESCO status. At the same time, I don’t know if it was 2004 or a little bit later, then the Kumano Kodo and the Way of St. James or the Camino de Santiago decided to partner and offer this idea of a dual pilgrim status. If you finished both of them, it’s not like you get any big prize or anything. You could just say that you’re a dual pilgrim and you do get a certificate and you get noted on a website. There are rules to having to complete so much of each before you can get that status.

That explains why so many people are doing both.

Even the passport, it’s a dual pilgrim passport. On one side it’s all Kumano Kodo. On the other side, it’s The Way of St. James.

How interesting, I didn’t know that.

They’ve partnered pretty closely. I love the idea of doing both, but the potential issue is people who do the Camino, they’re then like, “I want to do the next one.” They hear that this is like a sister pilgrimage to that. The problem is that it is nothing like the Camino de Santiago except for the fact that it’s a pilgrimage in a UNESCO site. I’ve done both now and there’s nothing like it. It’s much harder. You can’t just walk it alone. You have to plan ahead. You can’t just show up in town and go, “Where am I going to stay tonight?” It’s different. The logistics are different. It’s much shorter. It’s a good thing to know if you’re going to try to do both, but it’s totally worth it.

Since lodging is limited, do you know if actual backpacking is permitted in the camp?

Someone asked me that. I don’t know. I’m going to guess the answer is no and I am guessing that though. I have to look it up only because Japan is very rule-based and I can’t imagine they would let people sleep anywhere as they do say on St. Olav’s Way in Norway. That’s free camping anywhere, but they’re very rule-based. I would be surprised and I never saw anyone camping. I believe there are some camp grounds in some of these towns, but even that needs to be reserved.

Let’s get back to the forest itself. I imagine there are lots of birds. Did you see much other wildlife?

There are a lot of birds. You hear a lot of birds. I saw birds. I don’t recall seeing any other wild life, now that you say that. Nothing sticks out to me.

Sadly, that’s an answer I hear more and more from my guests, but I also think the wildlife avoids where the people are if they’ve got other options.

They know. That area is so forested. Trust me, there’s wildlife in there.

When did you go? Would that be a time that you would recommend people to go?

First of all, you can walk it all year, at least the Nakahechi route. I went at the end of May and it was warmer than I would have liked, but that’s just me. I run hot. The thing though to know is that there are some times you want to avoid. On the cherry blossom season, it will be crowded as well as they have something called Golden Week, which is a national holiday in Japan. It’s normally the first week or first half of May. Originally, I was going to go in the first half of May and when I talked to Oku, they’re like, “We don’t recommend that you go during that time.” I pushed it back too after Golden Week and then it was fine. Starting sometime in mid-June, right about the time when I ended, they start to get their rainy season in that area. You can walk, but it’s going to be a little bit more unpleasant and it will be slick with all those roots. I personally think this April, May, maybe even March, would be good and also, those fall months.

These are Japanese cedars, so that’s great. They have leaves, they will change some color but don’t expect for that to be in October during our fall. I ask everyone there, “When is your fall?” I asked if they had fall and they said, “Yes we do.” I said, “When is it?” They said, “At the end of November, December.” I’m like, “Okay.” You could see some leave change there at that time, but I also think September is a good time to go, anytime once you get past that rainy stuff in June, July, August. Don’t go there and expect the main color or anything like that, but there is some change of leaves, it might not be the cedars though. I have seen pictures of some of the areas that it can be quite beautiful if you catch it at that right time.

Sherry, you’ve hiked all over the world. This is a two-part question. Number one, how does this particular trek compare to some of the other hikes that you’ve done? Number two, who do you think this trek is for?

This is probably definitely in my top three or four, probably my top five. The Camino is in there because it’s so unique and the St. Olav Ways, I love. The Annapurna Circuit, it’s probably in there and then the Cami de Ronda and this. The reason why is the Japanese culture is so different than our own in America. It felt out of all of these, the most cultural by far. The hiking was great, beautiful, but at the same time, once you get done with the hike for the day, the real adventure began because then you were sleeping in something so very different, eating all these different foods and you even wore different things. The way that they did their everyday stuff was so different that I found that a fun addition to an already beautiful hike.

As far as who is this for, I would say anyone who likes to do some thru-hiking and that is looking for that. They like to hike hard all day and then have a nice bed to come to and food. I did it completely solo, not a single worry in my mind about doing it solo. In fact, Japan in general is one of the safest countries I’ve ever been to. It is ridiculously safe, even in the big cities and it’s because everyone follows the rules for the most part. In that sense, it could be for anyone. I don’t know that I would take small kids on this. It’s hard hiking. Granted I’m not in the best shape, but I’m average and I was beat.

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On a scale of one to five, with five being the most difficult, where would you put this?

3.5.

It’s challenging but doable and you should probably train.

I just showed up, so I was probably in more pain than I should have been, but yes. What happened is there were some big up sections. The last day was really the hardest day. It’s called the Kogumatori pass and it’s about 2,600 feet and 2.5 miles. It is hours of going up. I was so happy once I got up to the top and I’m like, “The rest of the day is going to be a breeze.” It was pretty nice for a while, but then you came down and honestly the down for my knees was just as hard. It was tough. You definitely should train. It will make your life easier. The other thing at any thru-hike is you can do it the first day and power through and maybe even the second day and power through, but by the third day your whole body is sore. If you can train and do multiple days of ten-mile days or at least a five-mile hike multiple days in a row, that’s a good way to train for this too because it’s every day getting up and going that’s always hard.

I bet those hot tubs felt good at the end of the day.

It was so nice. The whole thing, the slippers and the robe which is nice.

Is there anything we should know that I forgot to ask you about?

We didn’t talk a lot about the religious aspect of this. Obviously, I didn’t go for the religion, but the whole idea is Kumano is this combination of the two main religions in Japan, which is Shintoism and Buddhism. This is good information for anyone in going to Japan. Shinto normally has shrines and they worship nature like mountains, animals, water and this stuff. It’s very natural. It comes back to that forest bathing in a way. It’s very much for the current life. What you’ll see is that the Shinto shrines, they have weddings there. Corporations go and have ceremonies there for good luck and profitable in the next year.

Whereas then the Buddhist temples, they are all about the afterlife. What this Kumano religion is it’s the combination of Shinto and Buddhism. That’s what this trail is about. It has a little bit of both. As you go, you learn a lot about the worship there and how that works. It’s very non-intrusive too. You can get into it or you don’t have to, but it’s neat when you go visit, when you make it to these three temples, the main temples, you’ll see a bunch of locals there that have driven there and not necessarily hiked there going through all their rituals and you’ll learn all about that. I thought that aspect was also very cultural and very interesting. One other thing that I would say that I thought was cool that I did one day, it was supposed to be my rest day, but I ended up doing this special side hike through Oku Japan. They’re the only ones that offer this that I went hiking with a monk that day.

What a cool treat.

The monk is called a Yamabushi monk and it was fun. The cool thing about these monks for this combo religion is they’re regular people. They live in their homes and they have regular jobs. One that we went walking with, I went with another person, his name was Katsumi and he owned a cafe there in one of the towns by the temple. They follow Shinto and Buddhism but to become a Yamabushi monk, they have to train and worship in the mountains for years. He was an adventure travel guide, a certified guide and adventure kayaker and all this stuff. Then he became a monk. He studied for six years. I went on a six-mile hike with him and he wore his traditional dress, which was interesting. It was a fun way to learn more about the spirituality of the trail and this idea to me of nature as your religion in a way, which I can get behind. I love that. At every Oji we’d come to, he would chant. He had a conch shell that he showed us that he blew and that’s how they communicate in the mountains. It was beautiful to be able to ask him all kinds of questions. Not only about this spiritual stuff, but about Japan in general.

What surprised you about this trip?

Probably one of the most surprising things was how few people I saw on the trail. I too went in with the idea that’s like, “This is like the Camino de Santiago.” Quickly, I started realizing that it’s nothing like it. The fact that I was so alone most days, I’d stop and eat my little packed lunch of sushi and rice at a waterfall, take off my boots and put my feet in the waterfall, cool down and I wouldn’t see another person.

Is there anything that you wish you had known before you’d gotten there?

Not really, no. I wish I had trained better. I always wish that though.

This isn’t about the trail that we’re talking about now, but it’s a general travel question. You have been pretty much nomadic for over ten years. What is it about travel that propels you or makes you tick?

There are lots of things about it. For me, it’s a very personal thing. When I’m at my happiest is when I’m on the road without a doubt. I don’t know if that’s because you leave all the other stuff behind for a while and you can forget about it. I’m sure that has an aspect. In general for me, travel is about understanding. It for me satiates my curiosity. I’m a very curious person and I want to understand how other people live and get around and worship and all of that stuff. I’m fascinated by that, but overall it provides you with an understanding and empathy for the world that you don’t get otherwise. It’s very important for us all to get out and see things for ourselves and form our own opinions as opposed to what we see on television or movies and all that about a particular place or culture in general.

You and I were talking about the Middle East. The Middle East is a great example of this. I’ve been to the Middle East a number of times and by far if anyone asks me who are the nicest people in the world, I’m going to tell you the Jordanians and generally the people of the Middle East. I’ve never been so welcomed and so safe. That surprises people. I say go out there and experience it for yourself and see what you think. It gives you an incredible understanding of the world.

Does travel change you in some way at all?

Yeah, of course. When you get more educated about other cultures, it changes you. It gets easy to sit back and watch TV and news and form an opinion based on that. Going there and seeing it for yourself and seeing, “We all want the same thing. We all have the same struggles.” It makes you feel more connected to this world.

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Now, you’re an adventure traveler. What is it about adventure travel that rocks your boat? What’s the appeal?

I love the challenge by far. I love the feeling of being on that edge of something that scares me, intimidates me and something that excites me at the same time. When you can finish something like that, whether it’s a hike or a bungee jump or a road rally race, it is the best, most empowering feeling in the world.

That’s exactly what I tried to tell people on this show. My mission and the whole reason I do this show is so that people will feel that feeling.

It’s a beautiful feeling. It’s like an adrenaline rush when you run a marathon or something. It’s incredible.

Sherry, if people want to follow you on Instagram or check out your blog, what’s the best way for them to reach you? Tell us a little bit about Ottsworld.

It’s Ottsworld.com. I am coming up in September on my thirteenth anniversary of the blog and me quitting my job to travel, which is crazy to me because I was in my corporate career for fourteen years and now I’m thirteen years doing this. I’m like, “I never would’ve guessed.” With that, I am going to have a big giveaway for my thirteenth blog-versary, I’m calling it. You should check it out. Go to my website. What I’m going to be doing, I have to still work out a few of the details, but I’m going to be giving away thirteen days of prizes. Someone told me it was like Oprah and the prizes are awesome.

I’ve got some great brands. What I’ve done is I took a look at the thirteen years of travel and really thought about what are the brands that I’ve used from that day one, what are the things that I’ve loved that I take with me all the time and talk about it. I approached those brands and they’re working with me and so I’m going to be giving away things as big as an Eagle Creek suitcase. I’ve used Eagle Creek my whole thirteen years as well as things for hiking, hopefully some hiking boots. I’m working on hiking poles. I’ve got some great photography stuff. All of this is going to be given away in the month of September. Check that out if that works out. Other than that, I’ve started running my own tours occasionally and testing it out.

I want to go on your Ireland trip.

I’m going back to Ireland in October 2019. There are still a couple of spaces left on that.

That’s when I’ll be in the Middle East, so I can’t go on that one.

I don’t know if I’ll do Ireland again or some other place, like maybe Cami de Ronda in Spain or even the Kumano Kodo or there are some great head-to-head hiking in Maine that I’d love to get people on. We’ll see. I’ve been thinking about what’s next for that. Stay tuned on that. Go to the website. If you sign up for the newsletter, you will be informed.

Go to our website at ActiveTravelAdventures.com/japan so you can check it out there.

That would be great and for the hikers, it will be great. That would be wonderful.

Any final thoughts that you’d like to share with us, Sherry?

If you do go and do the Kumano Kodo, it is such a marvelous country. Do think about staying an extra week and traveling around. The Kumano Kodo is great, but I also had as much fun taking an extra couple of weeks and traveling around to rural areas. It’s lovely. Take advantage of it if you’re going to get over there.

Can you recommend any of those rural areas that they should try to catch?

I went back up to Kyoto and then did a bunch of small little towns between Kyoto and Tokyo because I wanted to experience some of that. They call that the Japanese Alps. The mountains are spectacular and there are some amazing hikes up there too around Matsumoto, Takayama.

Is this something that you can wing it once you’re there or is this something that you should plan ahead of time?

You might be able to wing it when you’re there. I planned it but depends. If you go this fall 2019, they have the rugby tournament, so that’s going to be crazy. Be aware of next summer is the Olympics. Anytime around that, the whole country is going to be a little busy. Other than that, it’s so easy to get around between buses, trains and fast trains. It is a breeze. It’s worth it.

Should you be reading this prior to the summer 2020 Olympics in Japan, going to a destination prior to their Olympics is a great time to score some good deals because they have built all these hotels and they’re trying to train the staff. I went to China round trip ten days, including airfare, all-inclusive for about $1,300 before the Chinese Olympics. It was amazing. I’m talking about five-star hotels, English-speaking Chinese guide and a tour company guide. All entrance fees, good food, not five-star food necessarily, but good food. It was an incredible deal and an amazing experience. If you haven’t planned in the spring trips, take advantage of the overcapacity before the Olympics and score a sweet deal. That would be great.

That’s a good point. I should also say when I did plan all that smaller town travel, I utilized a company called Experience Japan and they were amazing. Once again, they organized all my transportation and the hotels and then they gave me ideas of what to do in the places. It was a lot of freedom. I once again went by myself and I loved it. They were experts, they had a lot of great suggestions and I did a lot of cool stuff.

Sherry, I appreciate you coming on the show. One last question, what exciting things do you have planned in the future that hopefully I can get you back on the show to tell us about?

I just finished a portion of the East Coast Trail, which is in Newfoundland, Canada. It was amazing. Other things where I’m going is I’m heading to Sweden. I’m going to do some hiking in Sweden, but in the middle of the country and then I’m going to the Arctic next week up to Baffin Island in very northern Greenland up to the ice sheet. Those are some of the main adventure areas.

Don’t we all want Sherry’s life?

I constantly have a suitcase packed.

We’d love to have you back on to talk about your other adventures.

Thanks so much for having me. I love being on this

Many thanks again to Sherry at Ottsworld for joining us on the program. I want you to think about something for a minute. How much had a podcast changed your life? I know they have totally revolutionized my life. They’ve revolutionized how I learn things and how they motivate me. It’s been a tremendous asset to my life in the last four years since I discovered them. I already know you know how to do podcasts because you’re reading this, but you probably have a friend or two that are clueless and they don’t know what they’re missing. How about next time you see them, particularly if they’re adventuresome, grab their phone, show them the podcast app. If not, download it for them. That doesn’t cost anything.

Subscribe them to the Active Travel Adventures podcast and hopefully to the Adventure Travel Show podcast. Show them how to listen to it. This may not be their podcast, but you could be opening up the whole world to them. I’d like to ask you a favor, please do it and let me know how that works out. Next episode, I have an interesting episode on travel insurance. It’s like, “That sounds boring.” It’s not. I was shocked at how ignorant I was until I did the interview with Phil at World Nomads because I was much more clueless than I thought. That’s worth a read when that comes out. After that, we’re going to go explore the Wind River Range in Wyoming, a super exciting episode. I can’t wait to share all that with you and I appreciate you reading. Until next time, adventure on.

Important Links:

• Ottsworld
• Episode Number 40 – St. Olav Ways in Norway previous episode
• Oku Japan
• Episode number three – Hiking Scotland’s Popular West Highland Way Trail previous episode
• Ottsworld.com
• ActiveTravelAdventures.com/japan
• @OttsworldTravel – Facebook
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• @Ottsworld – Instagram
• @Ottsworld – Twitter
• https://ActiveTravelAdventures.com/ottkumano
• http://ActiveTravelAdventures.com/St-Olav-Ways-In-Norway/

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