Newsletter: Spring 2025
03rd Apr 2025
New Tour: East Hokkaido Walk
We are delighted to introduce the East Hokkaido Walk, a fully guided gently-paced tour through Japan’s northern island that takes us from the North Pacific Ocean through a dramatic landscape of wetlands, volcanoes and crystal clear lakes to the Sea of Okhotsk. Here in this little-visited beautifully lush region the bustling Tokyo metropolis is far away both physically and metaphorically.
Highlights include the Ramsar-registered Kushiro Shitsugen wetlands; Mashu-ko, an extraordinary caldera lake; and the UNESCO-listed Shiretoko Peninsula, Japan’s last untouched wilderness of any significance. Along the way, we are likely to encounter some of Hokkaido’s abundant native wildlife including, with good fortune, the rare tancho red-crowned cranes.
Beginning in Kushiro, the East Hokkaido Walk follows trails over farmland and through natural forests at a pace suitable for the most leisurely walkers, covering between 6 to 9km (3.8 to 5.6 miles) each day. Almost every evening we soak in relaxing onsen hot spring baths before always feasting on sumptuous cuisine created from locally sourced ingredients. Please click here for further details on the East Hokkaido Walk including the full itinerary and currently scheduled departure dates.
Year of the Snake
This is the year of the Snake, a symbol of revival, renewal and vitality, and we wish you all a happy and fruitful 2025. Walk Japan is in vigorous form and the signs remain propitious.
Developments for 2025 include greater capacity across all our tours, the introduction of a number of new tours including the recently released East Hokkaido Walk, a significant expansion of our rice farming endeavours and the branding of our shiitake mushrooms. We are also greatly looking forward to welcoming so many of you who are booked on our tours during the year ahead.
Recently, we took over the rice farm of a good neighbour of ours who, unfortunately, could no longer continue on his own. By local standards, it is a sizeable operation and marks a significant expansion of our agricultural activities. As many of his paddies were extensively damaged and made unusable by severe flooding in August 2024, this year we are in the process of recovery and rehabilitation to bring them back into production for 2026. This will not only prevent the loss of fertile land and help maintain our community’s picturesque countryside, but next year will allow us to increase our rice production sevenfold or more.
Since the beginning of 2025, we have welcomed two new young recruits, Aki and Masaki, as full-time employees and have been welcoming a stream of volunteers from around the world. Aki and Masaki join our original team of three full-time employees and two part-timers to help us cope with the greatly increased workload. With their assistance, we also hope to complete the preparation of our shiitake mushrooms for sale to visitors and online.
Once again, we were delighted to welcome NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, to the Kunisaki Peninsula to film OITA Kunisaki Peninsula: A Land of Buddhas and Gods. The program explores the rich religious history of the region and features our CEO, Paul Christie, and our great friend Etchan discussing Walk Japan’s work in rural revitalisation. The program, which is in the English language, is available online here.
In The World’s Press
Financial Times
Nat Geo Traveller
Henry Wismayer joined the Michinoku Coastal Trail and writes elegantly about the Tohoku region which was struck by a series of earthquakes and tsunami in 2011, its subsequent recovery and the positive forward-looking attitude of the locals.
National Geographic Traveller’s Oliver Berry shares his experience of our Shikoku Wayfarer, a self-guided tour introducing the island’s historic 88-temple pilgrimage, including his memorable encounters with fellow pilgrims along the way.
T+L Asia
Forbes
Travel + Leisure Asia featured the dramatic coastlines, seafood-rich cuisine, and soothing onsen hot springs that reward walkers on our Izu Geo Trail.
Walk Japan’s recently introduced Onsen Gastronomy: Noto tour was featured in Forbes in January soon after the first anniversary of the earthquake that hit the region on New Years Day 2024.
