If you are talking about the main island, Honshu it has been done but it wasn’t on one specific trail. With careful planning you could, but Japan is rugged, not unlike the PCT just a different rugged. Your starting season will be important. If you are looking for a really long “trail” look up the Tohoku Nature Trail and Hokkaido Nature trail. Both are longer than the length of Honshu, but may be easier to plan. Both are extremely tough and dangerous, but Hokkaido is probably on another level in regards to the danger levels.
I don’t know about the whole length but you can do the 1000+ km from Sendai to Aomori on the Michinoku Coastal Trail. It’s a spectacular piece of the country as well.
Assuming you are referring to the four main islands, I believe it is possible to walk from the southern tip of Kyushu up to the northern tip of Honshu, via the Kanmon tunnel. However, to my knowledge, there is no pedestrian access to Hokkaido – you would have to take a train/boat. The walk itself, I believe is very doable but I don’t have the knowledge to provide you with specific routes or trails.
This should get you from Kyushu to Tokyo. I also found this site showing you the main trails: [https://m-tc.org/explore/about/trail/](https://m-tc.org/explore/about/trail/)
I’ve done it, op.
What would you like to know? No path, but Japan is the easiest place in the world to pick your own path and go.
Happy to share my route if you like, but if you’re thinking of doing it, strongly suggest you plan out what looks good to you and then just tweak with little bits and pieces. Don’t optimise the fun out of it.
Read ‘The Roads to Sata’ by Alan Booth, a wonderful travel diary of the author doing just that in the 1980s. It’s a 2000 mile walk — he went north to south.
I am planning on going from Cape Sata in Kyushu to Cape Soya in Hokkaido (or reverse) using only human power sometime before I turn 40 so I’ve spent a decent amount of time looking into this.
There are several coastal trails like Michinoku and San’en Trail, you could cross over the Kita alps and go up the Shinetsu trail, try Nakesendo and a bunch of options.
However you would have to go out of your way to connect all these and some and would be very inefficient. The Michinoku coastal trail which takes you from lower Aomori to Miyagi is 1000km however using google maps to plot a path from the top of Aomori to the Kanmon tunnel which is all of Honshu is 1500km… with less then 7000 meters of elevation gain which is nothing compared to the total distance.
Hokkaido and Kyushu are not much different if you take roads. There is some elevation gain but it’s not like hiking in the Alps.
To go from Honshu to Hokkaido you need take a ferry, train, or to the extreme kayak or swim. With decent weather it’s a 7 hour kayak going from Honshu to Hokkaido. That’s the only section I wouldn’t do alone.
Personally I would just plot where you want to go google maps and follow that and if you want to more trails do some long trails or some traverses of the alps.
A lap of Japan is ~11,000km and takes about 2 years, so tip to tip would be a bit less than half that. Usually they’ll walk for a while, work part time for a while, rinse and repeat; you won’t be able to do that legally, though.
## The Roads to Sata: A 2000-Mile Walk Through Japan – Alan Booth
>Traveling only along small back roads, Alan Booth traversed Japan’s entire length on foot, from Soya at the country’s northernmost tip, to Cape Sata in the extreme south, across three islands and some 2,000 miles of rural Japan. The Roads to Sata is his wry, witty, inimitable account of that prodigious trek.
11 comments
If you are talking about the main island, Honshu it has been done but it wasn’t on one specific trail. With careful planning you could, but Japan is rugged, not unlike the PCT just a different rugged. Your starting season will be important. If you are looking for a really long “trail” look up the Tohoku Nature Trail and Hokkaido Nature trail. Both are longer than the length of Honshu, but may be easier to plan. Both are extremely tough and dangerous, but Hokkaido is probably on another level in regards to the danger levels.
The Nakasendō is the only one i’ve heard about. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakasendō
Not the whole country though I’m afraid
I don’t know about the whole length but you can do the 1000+ km from Sendai to Aomori on the Michinoku Coastal Trail. It’s a spectacular piece of the country as well.
https://www.michinokutrail.com/
Assuming you are referring to the four main islands, I believe it is possible to walk from the southern tip of Kyushu up to the northern tip of Honshu, via the Kanmon tunnel. However, to my knowledge, there is no pedestrian access to Hokkaido – you would have to take a train/boat. The walk itself, I believe is very doable but I don’t have the knowledge to provide you with specific routes or trails.
Edit: there is of course the [https://www.tokainaturetrail.com/](https://www.tokainaturetrail.com/) connecting Tokyo to Osaka.
And the Kyushu nature trail (info in Japanese): [https://kntf.jp/maps/](https://kntf.jp/maps/)
The Chugoku nature trail (info in Japanese): [https://www.env.go.jp/nature/nationalparks/pick-up/long-trail/chugoku/](https://www.env.go.jp/nature/nationalparks/pick-up/long-trail/chugoku/)
There is then the Kinki nature trail (info in Japanese): [https://www.env.go.jp/nature/nationalparks/pick-up/long-trail/kinki/](https://www.env.go.jp/nature/nationalparks/pick-up/long-trail/kinki/)
This should get you from Kyushu to Tokyo. I also found this site showing you the main trails: [https://m-tc.org/explore/about/trail/](https://m-tc.org/explore/about/trail/)
I’ve done it, op.
What would you like to know? No path, but Japan is the easiest place in the world to pick your own path and go.
Happy to share my route if you like, but if you’re thinking of doing it, strongly suggest you plan out what looks good to you and then just tweak with little bits and pieces. Don’t optimise the fun out of it.
Read ‘The Roads to Sata’ by Alan Booth, a wonderful travel diary of the author doing just that in the 1980s. It’s a 2000 mile walk — he went north to south.
I am planning on going from Cape Sata in Kyushu to Cape Soya in Hokkaido (or reverse) using only human power sometime before I turn 40 so I’ve spent a decent amount of time looking into this.
There are several coastal trails like Michinoku and San’en Trail, you could cross over the Kita alps and go up the Shinetsu trail, try Nakesendo and a bunch of options.
However you would have to go out of your way to connect all these and some and would be very inefficient. The Michinoku coastal trail which takes you from lower Aomori to Miyagi is 1000km however using google maps to plot a path from the top of Aomori to the Kanmon tunnel which is all of Honshu is 1500km… with less then 7000 meters of elevation gain which is nothing compared to the total distance.
Hokkaido and Kyushu are not much different if you take roads. There is some elevation gain but it’s not like hiking in the Alps.
To go from Honshu to Hokkaido you need take a ferry, train, or to the extreme kayak or swim. With decent weather it’s a 7 hour kayak going from Honshu to Hokkaido. That’s the only section I wouldn’t do alone.
Personally I would just plot where you want to go google maps and follow that and if you want to more trails do some long trails or some traverses of the alps.
A lap of Japan is ~11,000km and takes about 2 years, so tip to tip would be a bit less than half that. Usually they’ll walk for a while, work part time for a while, rinse and repeat; you won’t be able to do that legally, though.
https://japantrail.jp/ might be of interest
Totally unrelated but read the book “To the White Sea”.
Read [this book](https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Alan-Booth/dp/1568361874):
## The Roads to Sata: A 2000-Mile Walk Through Japan – Alan Booth
>Traveling only along small back roads, Alan Booth traversed Japan’s entire length on foot, from Soya at the country’s northernmost tip, to Cape Sata in the extreme south, across three islands and some 2,000 miles of rural Japan. The Roads to Sata is his wry, witty, inimitable account of that prodigious trek.
I think he wrote in [another book](https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Alan-Booth/dp/1568361483/ref=pd_sbs_d_sccl_1_1/357-0396646-5772221?pd_rd_w=gIpMO&content-id=amzn1.sym.2e3b388a-4d35-4ac5-b8d6-fcf3da7dd6b4&pf_rd_p=2e3b388a-4d35-4ac5-b8d6-fcf3da7dd6b4&pf_rd_r=422SWHV1AFYCY4YDQYBH&pd_rd_wg=IaDMM&pd_rd_r=232c4b81-fd09-40e2-a90b-4d488acc0697&pd_rd_i=1568361483&psc=1) where he tried to walk some of the famous old trails but found that they were so overgrown and full of hornets that it was hard going. The traditional routes and trails are often under used these days as people will travel through the tunnels that have been blown through the landscape instead of the tracks that took them over the hills and mountains that separated and isolated large parts of Japan before modern road and tail tunnels were made.