The Kumano Kodo are the ancient pilgrimage routes in the Kii peninsula (Wakayama Prefecture). El Camino de Santiago Japanese style.

  • Beauty/fun: Hills, green, cute temples and statues, good accommodation and wonderful food. The main route is not spectacular and if you want a bit of sense of adventure you will need to leave the main paths. A good initiation for multi-day hiking, but nothing comparable to Nepal or the Great Walks in New Zealand, to give you a couple of other examples.
  • Difficulty: 2/10 for the paths shown. Nakahechi route is really easy with tons of intersections with villages and roads. Kohechi is more isolated in some sections and you might be on your own for long, with few hikers and villagers around. The marking is quite good, “Kumano Kodo” signs everywhere, and there are very few places where you can get lost for a little while, even without speaking/reading any Japanese.
  • Map of route hiked (how to download to your phone)

See full screen and the Garmin tracks of Nakahechi (Takijiri to Tsugizakura, to Hongu, to Nachi Taisha) & Kohechi (Hongu to Totsukawa, to Omata, to Koyasan) routes.

There are different routes that crisscross the peninsula connecting the Grand Shrines of Kumano. The most known and hiked route is Nakahechi, crossing the peninsula West to East. Kohechi, North-South starting or ending in Koyasan, is more mountainous, although highest peaks are barely above 1,200m.

Map from the Shingu City tourism association

Map from the Shingu City tourism association

Ohechi, South along the coast, might have been the most scenic route in the past, but now a major part of the original paths are concrete roads. Iseji 170km route on the East coast is a mixture of the previous two but with very low hills, max 300m. Finally, Omine Okugakemichi is the most mountainous route, 70 of its 90km being at elevations between 1,000 and 2,000 meters above sea level.

The latter sounded interesting, but there was very little English information available and Japanese people tend to be over cautious, so trying to scare me.

The main information source and accommodation booking provider is Tanabe’s dedicated website. Nakahechi route maps are easy to find on their web, but you can find the maps for Kohechi too. The links that I used are down, therefore I have a copy uploaded in my Drive (2017 end version) and, in any case, you can get the printed version in the information centers in Hongu, Koyasan, and I guess Takijiri (I did not spend almost any time there). Even if there are webs that tell you that doing the route without knowing Japanese is difficult, the reality is that you can do it relatively easily. I only encountered a sign that I did not know what it meant on a fence that was blocking my way. And with the Google Translator and a local person’s hand signage, I understood that it had been set to avoid animals crossing to the vegetable gardens further down, but that I could go on closing the door behind.

For accommodation, nowadays, it is easy to find more options through Google Maps, Booking and others. So even if the Tanabe web said that there was none (you might need to book half year or more beforehand for most isolated/demanded places), I was able to booked on advance hotels nearby my expected stops. You can reduce a bit the pricing too that way. In any case, not a cheap trip. It is Japan.

So my final route was Nakahechi West to East, bus back to Hongu and head North through Kohechi to Koyasan. I did it, as usual, in fast mode and with all my gear on. Hiking several stages in one day. You could do it way easier, doing each stage in one day and even sending your luggage to the next stop with the shuttle service in Nakahechi.

Compared with the humid and hot Hong Kong the late March weather was incredibly comfortable for hiking. 10-20°C and with little humidity. I never needed more than a liter of water per day while on the paths, not even with 40+ km. Only in Koyasan the temperature dropped below 0°C in the super early morning. If going in other seasons you might find a bit more espectacular landscapes, with the clouds surrounding the hills. More slippery too.

Pictures and summary of Nakahechi

Same for Kohechi.

There are several terms interesting to know before going there.

Onsen. Hot springs and all the facilities around them. Quite some people love finishing the day with an onsen, saying that helps them incredibly to accelerate the recovery after the long hike. You should at least visit one to live this very Japanese tradition. Video from the Tanabe’s web explaining how to do it.

They have tons of them explaining almost everything you would want to know about Nakahechi.

Minshuku. Japanese style bed and breakfast. Traditional housing, meeting the family who owns it, delicious home made dinners and breakfasts… I really enjoyed those nights on the hills.

You could arrange the food for the next day lunch with the minshukus themselves or convenience stores in the villages. I was fully prepared with bars, gels and others, but soon I discovered that I would not need them. Even in some little villages local people had various snacks ready to be sold to hikers. Here one of the minshuku lunchboxes. Really tasty.

I bought an ebook about all Kumano Kodo and detailed information of Nakahechi. Good to have a bit more information of the historic and cultural aspects of the route. Just an OK read, no more.

I flied through Osaka. So I included couple of days extra in the trip to visit a bit the city (its Castle and others), and Nara around. If you have not been before, I would suggest you to go to Kyoto instead. The latter is even a bit more touristic but nevertheless I prefer it. Very photogenic and small cute.

Before I went to Japan I checked that, in my case, buying the Japan Railway Pass made no sense. So I bought normal tickets. Here you have a calculator to check if it is worthy for your itinerary. I also bought a prepaid card with docomo that I picked up as soon as I landed in the airport. Quite convenient to have best internet connection from the start. Lastly, if you want to know a bit more about the feeling of hiking in Japan, here a good funny post with which I agree almost completely. Enjoy if you go!