This week’s travel dream: Japan’s ancient pathways

There is so much more to Japan than Tokyo, Osaka, and other “crowd-filled steel-and-concrete metropolises,” said Bill Fink in the San Francisco Chronicle. On my most recent visit, I discovered a different way to see the country, to develop an understanding built upon history and “devoid of Hello Kitty and bullet trains.” For me, a 10-day guided tour was the solution, but our itinerary grew out of a concept that would be useful to any tourist. We were to walk the pathways traveled by each of the four classes in feudal Japan—samurai, peasant, artisan, and merchant. In a sense, the acronym “SPAM” would be our guidebook.

In truth, I could have done without most of the “merchant” stops on our trip. I saw enough souvenir chopsticks and kimonos during our tour to last a lifetime. But those detours were sandwiched between long hikes in the country that allowed us to step back in time. To understand farmers’ lives, we walked the Yamanobe (or “beside the mountain”) Trail, an ancient road that winds through fields and quiet communities, past smiling old women in sun hats and “a fabulous cornucopia of bounty from family-run farms.” Everywhere there was rice, of course, but also eggplants, red peppers, and limes. “The modern mini-tractors added a contemporary touch, as did the scarecrows with Mickey Mouse heads. Still, the friendly small-town vibe of the villages felt as if it had been unchanged for centuries.”

I didn’t envy the life of Japanese artisans. Even today, the craftspeople we visited in a Hirasawa lacquerware shop seemed to labor in a sweatshop environment—and this was an outfit whose owner had designed the medals for the 1998 Nagano Olympics. But I could easily get used to the luxuries enjoyed by the samurai. For part of our trip, we sent our luggage ahead of us while we walked the historic Nakasendo Trail, which connected ancient capitals. At day’s end, we ate meticulously prepared multicourse meals at family-run inns, then soaked in hot baths. One night in the old post town of Magome, we danced to a samurai song on a cobblestone street illuminated only by red lanterns and the moon.

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Mountain Travel Sobek (mtsobek.com) offers 11-day tours of Japan’s ancient trails that start at $4,995.