This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). In the hazy mid-morning sun, dappled light dances across the dank woodland soil as the tips of gangly black pines sway gently in the ...

My concentration is completely focused on footfalls, specifically where my feet are landing among the cedar roots that form a natural staircase. I’m ascending Mount Tsurugi, on the Kii Peninsula, from ...

Tucking into our tofu hotpot at the end of our first day’s hike, our host started to play music. His three-stringed instrument, the sanshin, resembles a banjo, except that its body is covered in ...

The woman aged in her 60s died on Friday while walking the Kumano Kodo in the Wakayama Prefecture, according to the country’s NHK news outlet. A stone trail along the Nakahechi route of the Kumano ...

My hiking journey along the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trail in Japan started by passing through a torii gate, a Shinto symbol marking the transition into sacredness. This, I thought, is how you make an ...

In southern Japan there exists a 1,000-year-old trail that is stop-in-your-tracks stunning but almost completely devoid of crowds. It stars towering trees, fragrant forests, ancient stepping stones, ...

Taking in a whiff of fresh cedar and sweet-smelling earth, hearing absolutely nothing but the sing-song of birds, I can hardly recall my day-to-day life. Job? What job? I imagine this must have been ...