What the Route Is
The Shikoku Henro is a circuit of 88 temples around the Japanese island of Shikoku, associated with the monk KΕ«kai, known posthumously as KΕbΕ Daishi. Walked in full it runs to roughly 1,200 kilometres and takes most people somewhere between six weeks and two months. It is one of the few long pilgrimage routes in the world that is still walked by ordinary local people rather than mainly by visitors, and that is what gives it its character.
You do not need to be Buddhist, or religious at all, to walk it. Pilgrims are called henro, and the white vest, conical hat and staff are worn by walkers of every persuasion. Nobody will ask what you believe.
What It Actually Feels Like Underfoot
The route is often described as a trail, and it is not one. Some sections are mountain footpath through cedar forest, steep and quiet. Others are pavement beside a main road, past vending machines and traffic lights, for hours at a time. That mixture surprises most first-time walkers, and the road sections are the ones that hurt: asphalt fatigue is the usual reason people stop, well ahead of hills or weather.
Planning a Three-Week Section
Walking the whole circuit needs the better part of two months, which few people have. Sectioning it is entirely normal and carries no stigma. A three-week block covering eastern and central Shikoku is a common and satisfying choice, and the shape that tends to work is five or six walking days followed by a rest day, repeated.
- Days 1–6: Tokushima prefecture and the coastal approaches, where the temples come close together and the walking eases you in
- Day 7: rest, laundry and a gear reset, taken before it is needed rather than after
- Days 8–14: the mountain stretches, with early starts and shorter distances
- Days 15–21: the Kagawa side, where the road walking returns and the days shorten
Where You Sleep
Accommodation is a mix of small family-run minshuku, business hotels in the larger towns, temple lodgings and free shelters maintained for pilgrims. The minshuku are the heart of it and usually include dinner and breakfast, which solves the problem of arriving somewhere rural at six in the evening with nothing open. They are also small, so booking a day or two ahead matters, particularly in spring.
Note that many of these places are priced per person with meals rather than per room, which makes this one of the few long trips where travelling alone carries no real accommodation penalty.
Etiquette and Osettai
Walkers are often given small gifts by local people along the route, a practice called osettai: fruit, a drink, occasionally money towards a bus fare in bad weather. The convention is to accept graciously rather than to refuse politely, because the giver is understood to be participating in the pilgrimage through the gift. A simple thanks is enough, and pilgrims traditionally carry name slips to offer in return.
At the temples themselves the sequence is straightforward and worth learning before you arrive: wash at the basin, make the offerings, then take the stamp at the office. The stamp offices keep shorter hours than the grounds, which shapes the walking day more than most people expect.
Gear That Matters
Comfort and weather resilience beat ultralight optimisation on this route, because so much of it is hard surface in variable weather. A breathable rain shell, a wide-brimmed hat, blister tape and two pairs of socks rotated relentlessly do more than any equipment upgrade. A paper notebook is genuinely useful for temple numbers and closing times. Carry cash, since rural Shikoku is far less card-friendly than Japanese cities.
What It Costs
The pilgrimage is not an expensive trip by Japanese standards, and the daily cost is dominated by accommodation rather than anything else. Minshuku with two meals are the main expense and are broadly predictable; free shelters and temple lodgings reduce it further for walkers prepared to use them. There is no entry fee for the temples themselves, though the stamp book and each stamp carry a small charge, and offerings are customary in coins.
Because lodgings are generally priced per person with meals included rather than per room, this route avoids the usual penalty for travelling alone, which is unusual and worth knowing if the cost of solo travel is normally what puts you off a long trip.
Getting There
Shikoku is connected to the main island of Honshu by bridge and is reachable by train and bus from Osaka, Kobe and Okayama, with airports at Tokushima, Takamatsu, Kochi and Matsuyama. Most section walkers start at Temple 1 near Naruto in Tokushima, which is straightforward to reach and is where the route is best signposted and best supplied with pilgrim outfitters. Starting elsewhere is entirely acceptable and slightly harder logistically.
Walking It Alone or With Someone
The Henro is traditionally a solitary walk, and walking it alone is the default rather than the exception. You will not be isolated: the same walkers appear at the same lodgings for days at a time, and a loose company forms without anyone arranging it. That pattern is why the route suits a solo traveller particularly well.
Walking with someone changes it in ways worth thinking through first. Pace is the one that matters: a difference of two kilometres an hour is invisible on a day walk and decisive over three weeks, and it is the most common reason pairs separate on long routes. The mountain sections are safer in company and the road sections are considerably less tedious. If you are considering it, agree in advance that either of you can walk alone for a day without it meaning anything, which is the single arrangement that keeps long walks pleasant. When you stop getting along mid-trip covers the rest.
Before You Go
Check the current entry requirements for your passport, and arrange travel insurance that covers multi-day hiking rather than general leisure travel. Spring and autumn are the comfortable seasons; summer on the road sections is punishing and the mountain paths take real care in wet weather.
Common Mistakes
Four errors account for most abandoned attempts. Planning by distance rather than by terrain, which puts a thirty-kilometre day immediately before a mountain section. Breaking in new boots on the route rather than before it. Treating rest days as optional and dropping them in week one, which is precisely when they are doing the most good. And carrying too much: the pack that felt reasonable on day one is the reason people stop on day nine, and Shikoku has excellent forwarding services that will move a bag ahead to your next lodging for a modest fee.
What It Is Good For
The pilgrimage is not a wilderness experience and it is not an escape from modern Japan. It is a way of moving through an ordinary island slowly enough that small interactions become the substance of the trip rather than an interruption to it. That is the reason most people who walk a section come back for another one.
