The samurai road and the Kumano Kodo

A thousand years of pilgrimage through cedars, shrines and hot springs.

Japanfrom 9 days16 stops

Free, no account needed. You'll still be able to change dates, travellers and the rest.

Where it goes

Castillo Nijō
The Tokugawa shogun's residence, with “nightingale” floors built to squeak on purpose and give away anyone approaching at night.
Sanjūsangen-dō
A thousand and one statues of Kannon lined up in a 120-metre hall. Photography inside is forbidden, which is exactly why it lands so hard.
Kennin-ji
Kyoto's oldest Zen temple, and where tea was introduced to Japan. Far quieter than the postcard temples.
Museo del Samurái y el Ninja
Real armour and demonstrations. It is the introduction that makes sense of the rest of the route.

Takijiri-oji
The gateway to the Kumano Kodo: sacred ground and the mountain trail officially begin here.
Credencial del peregrino dual
The Kumano Kodo and the Camino de Santiago are twinned: if you have walked both, you get a joint credential stamped.
Tōkei-jinja
The shrine where pilgrims purified themselves before setting out. It is still the stop before the first stage.
Ajikoji
Tanabe's izakaya alley. The last decent dinner before the mountain stages.

Tsuboyu
The only hot spring in the world with World Heritage status. You go in one at a time, in thirty-minute slots.
Kumano Hongū Taisha
The chief of Kumano's three grand shrines, and the end of the long stage. Anyone who arrives on foot gets a different stamp.
Ōyunohara
Japan's largest torii, 34 metres, on the sandbank where the shrine stood until a flood carried it away in 1889.
Kawayu Onsen
A river where you dig a hollow in the bank and hot water wells up. In winter it is dammed into one giant open-air bath.

Kumano Nachi Taisha
The third of the grand shrines, at the top of the stairway, with the waterfall behind it.
Salto de Nachi
A 133-metre drop, Japan's highest in a single fall, venerated as a deity in its own right.
Seiganto-ji
The red three-storey pagoda beside the waterfall: the image that illustrates Kumano in every book.
Daimon-zaka
The stone stairway between 800-year-old cedars. It is only 600 metres, and the most photographed stretch of the whole Kumano Kodo.

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