February 23 2026 / Japan / Letters from Japan /

Hiking Japan: From Okinawa to Hokkaido

This piece is from the monthly letter series in my newsletter Letters from Japan, the newsletter extension of my website Letters from Asia. If you would like to subscribe: Letters from Japan.

Good afternoon,

According to Japan’s traditional micro-season calendar, which divides the year into 24 solar terms and then into 72 micro-seasons, each marked by adorably descriptive natural events such as “fish emerging from the ice,” spring has already begun.

Yet last Sunday, just as “the east wind was melting the ice” and “bush warblers were about to start singing in the mountains,” with plum blossoms already out across the city, Tokyo seemed to defy these seasonal signs, crowning this much colder-than-usual winter with a snowstorm.

Snow is rare in Tokyo and, fearing it might disappear at any moment, I went out at 3 a.m., moving from one neighbourhood to another, struggling to decide which ones to cover, aware that the show could end at any second.

Apart from the joy of experiencing the city at such a slow pace, this was also my first time seeing plum blossoms in the snow. I was glad for the scenery, though worried the petals might not survive the weight (they did). It was certainly a beautiful day, one that gave me new reasons to appreciate this wonderful city.

Snow, after all, always seems to bring out the soft side of big cities, even when it may not truly exist. My hometown, Istanbul, adopts a timid aura the moment the first flakes begin to fall, becoming unusually approachable. For a while, you forget the intense chaos and demands it throws at you on any other day. It lets you engage with it differently, even feel a little in charge, setting aside its otherwise commanding presence, the one that otherwise dominates your days and, if you let it, would happily take over your entire life.

In Tokyo’s case, though, snow works a little differently. It strips the city of its excuses for hiding its true self. It puts everything into slow motion, making it easier to see it for what it really is, beneath the fast pace and high-tech image amplified by that big façade: the world’s largest small town disguised as a metropolis.

It is like a little boy wearing his father’s jacket – a city made of thousands of tiny villages that together feel much larger, and a little scarier, than they are individually. But the experience of living in this surprisingly gentle city is better reflected in one of those tiny villages than in its grander, slightly intimidating outer shell.

So, on that fine Sunday, I thought how lucky passersby were to experience Tokyo at its softest, which is, in fact, its truest self.

Unless Tokyo has another surprise in store for us, this was likely my last snow encounter of the year, and therefore the last snowy edition of Letters from Japan for a while, after January’s Snow Country and, more recently, early February’s Shibu Onsen and the Snow Monkeys.

Snow monkeys in Japan — Snow monkeys of Nagano

But now, if we trust Japan’s micro-season calendar, which says that “the grass will soon sprout, and trees bud”, it may be a good time to start imagining warmer days and to delve a little deeper into one of the main underlying themes of this newsletter: hiking in Japan.

So, in this month’s letter, I come to you with the geographical breakdown of some of my favorite trails in the country, covering peak hunts, island traverses, mangrove kayaking routes, pilgrimage paths, and a few entirely DIY walks.

Naturally, the list includes only the trails I have personally experienced and is therefore far from comprehensive. You will notice that the country’s hiking mecca, the Japanese Alps, known for its hair-raisingly exposed trails, is represented with only a few routes. For those looking for a much more exhaustive list and technical guidance, David Lowe’s thoughtful blog, Ridgelineimages, is a wonderful resource that will have you safely covered.

The format of this letter will be similar to September’s Reading Japan: From Hokkaido to Okinawa, jumping between regions and offering brief mentions of the trails I love in each one, but this time in reverse order.

We will start in Okinawa, on one of its southernmost islands, Iriomote; move on to another island destination, Yakushima; cross the mainland slowly with various stops along the way, occasionally leaving it again for smaller islands; and finish in Hokkaido, first exploring the mainland and then crossing to one of its farthest islands.

Okinawa is not one of the first destinations that come to mind when one thinks about hiking in Japan. The islands are better known for their swimming waters, some of the best in the world, and their locals, who long ago unlocked the secret to the “eternal youth”, which, in their own words, has more to do with the diet than hiking.

SangaraFalls2 — Iriomote Island, Okinawa

Yet the archipelago, consisting of 160 islands, is also blessed with subtropical rainforests and mangrove fields that you can kayak through, offering a jungle-like hiking experience – complete with hidden waterfalls – that cannot be found on the mainland.

I don’t think I fully appreciated the climatic diversity this long, skinny country harbors until I visited Iriomote Island, one of the southernmost islands in the Okinawa chain, in January. While Hokkaido, with its subarctic climate, was in the harshest phase of its endless winter, we were kayaking and hiking through the jungles of Iriomote, as if it were a summer day.

Iriomote, the second-largest of the Okinawa islands, is almost entirely covered by forest and mangroves and is home to the endemic Iriomote cat, a nocturnal species found nowhere else in the world. With only around ten percent of its land devoted to urban development, it is no surprise that the island, albeit a little late, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2021.

The Pinaisara Falls and Sangara Falls trails, both beginning with a kayak journey through mangrove forests and ending at a waterfall after a dense climb through the jungle, were two routes I got to experience – both making me feel a little ashamed that I had, until then, only visited Okinawa for its beaches and its otherworldly swimming waters.

Moving north from Okinawa, but not quite yet on the mainland, we arrive at another island whose hiking-related reputation extends far beyond Japan. Some call it the place where it rains thirty-five days a month. “The Alps of the Ocean” is another nickname favored by travel brochures.

Hikes in Japan — Mount Hasa as seen from Hirauchi in Yakushima

These cheesy descriptions point to two essential truths about Yakushima, which, in fact, is one of the least cheesy places I have been to in Japan. It is rainy, the wettest place in the country, and home to an unusually diverse climate, where, on the same day, you can move from a subtropical coast to near-subarctic peaks, including Kyushu’s highest mountain, Mount Miyanoura.

Two women in a tide pool in Yakushima Japan

The heart-shaped island, also on the UNESCO World Heritage list, owes much of its global fame to Hayao Miyazaki, who reportedly drew inspiration from its moss forests for Princess Mononoke. While Shiratani Unsuikyo, home to Miyazaki’s moss forest, is a beautiful trail, the island traverse hike, ideally done over two days, offers a more memorable chance to experience Yakushima’s unique ecosystem and climate.

Hiking in Japan — Mount Miyanoura in Yakushima

The traverse, despite its intimidating name, is not especially challenging, particularly when paired with a stay at one of the mountain huts along the way. While it is served by numerous trailheads, the more common route, which I also followed, starts at Yodogawa, crosses the river in the early morning light (the eternal kind on a sunny day), climbs to Mount Miyanoura by around noon, and then descends through a dark, deliciously spooky forest to one of the huts.

The next day takes you to Jomon Sugi, the oldest tree in Japan, with the option to finish either at Arakawa by following old train tracks for the final two hours, or via a detour to Shiratani Unsuikyo for a longer but visually more rewarding ending.

Now taking a little break from the small islands off the mainland, we move to a much larger main one: Kyushu, also known as the land of fire.

Among the various trails that I got to experience on this highly volcanic island, the one that I repeatedly return to is the Kuju Mountains.

Kuju is the neighbour of the better-known Mount Aso, with which it shares the national park’s name: Aso-Kuju National Park.

While Aso, one of the world’s largest and most active volcanoes, with a massive caldera, is geologically the more interesting of the two, the Kuju side of the park always feels scenically more enticing to me, especially in late May, when its various peaks bloom with azaleas. It is also one of the rare mountain regions in a country famous for brutally steep trails, where the effort you put in feels almost too small for the scenery you are rewarded with.

Hikers looking down in mount Kuju — Kuju Mountains

The Kuju range is home to various trails. One can easily spend a week up there, exploring a new route each day. So, if you have time, staying in the mountains for a few nights is a great option, either at the ever-welcoming Hokkein Sanso or at one of the campgrounds. But if time is tight, the day hikes are also worth the trip.

Just north of Kyushu lies Japan’s most rural main island, Shikoku. Best known for the Shikoku 88-Temple Pilgrimage Route, the island is, in my view, also one of the best places for DIY walks.

With its 1,200-kilometer-long pilgrimage route, the 1,500-kilometer-long Nature Trail, and scenic coastal routes connecting small fishing towns, Shikoku, which is fortunately also a little short on bears, presents many options to simply get out there and walk.

And last May, I did exactly that. I flew to Kochi, took the local train south, then a bus, and simply started walking, following the coastal route down to Cape Ashizuri. There was not much route planning involved, beyond following the coastline and giving my walk the made-up title of “Southern Shikoku Coastal Walk.”

The route, covering half the coast of Kochi Prefecture over four days, took me past surfing beaches, gorgeous lighthouses, small fishing villages, seaside shrines, and the iconic Cape Ashizuri, among many other sights, including plant-covered abandoned houses, a signature scene on the island.