Japan’s Smallest and Least-Populated Major Island Is a World of Pilgrimages, Delicious Food and Plenty of Forest Bathing

Each year, more than 100,000 people hike at least part of a 750-mile route on Shikoku that connects 88 Buddhist temples and other sacred sites

Laura Kiniry | Travel Correspondent

September 29, 2026 3:40 p.m.

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I had just arrived at Konsen-ji, the third temple on Japan’s Shikoku Pilgrimage route, when a young Japanese girl presented me with two origami cranes. These tiny gifts, I would later learn, symbolized wishes for a safe and smooth journey along the 750-mile circuit connecting 88 Buddhist temples, as well as other sacred sites, on Shikoku, the smallest and least populated of Japan’s four main islands.

On my week-long visit to Shikoku, I encountered many acts of kindness, from the innkeeper at Sudachi-an, a local guesthouse in the village of Nabeiwa, driving me to my lodging when I ended up lost in the rain, to a taxi driver insisting that I take a couple of sweet, kiyomi oranges to help sustain me on my day’s trek. This rural Japanese island is a place where history, hospitality and natural beauty converge.

The 7,063-square-mile island is the most rustic and remote. In fact, the first bridge connecting Shikoku to the main island of Honshu, where you’ll find big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, wasn’t built until 1988. Even today, only three routes connect the two islands. Shikoku is a quiet rural slice of Japan where Westerners remain a rarity, though that’s slowly changing.

The Shikoku Pilgrimage is one of the island’s top draws for travelers. Between 100,000 and 150,000 people undertake at least part of the route annually, with the best times of year for walking the circular trail being spring and fall. All its sites are associated with Kobo Daishi, a Japanese monk who lived during the ninth century and founded Shingon, a major school of Buddhism that focuses on the attainment of enlightenment during a practitioner’s lifetime. While the individual temples and sacred sites span a variety of dates, mostly from the eighth century onward, the circuit itself wasn’t fully established until the late 16th to early 17th century. About 80 percent of the route is paved asphalt and concrete, often passing through small towns and farmlands. However, the rest of the pathway winds along dirt trails and ascends steep mountainsides and ancient stone steps through sections of remote wilderness. Along the way, pilgrims tend to stay in a mix of traditional ryokan (Japanese-style hotels), shukubo (temple stays) and local family inns. Most provide food, and some have onsens for bathing. While some Shikoku Henro (the Japanese word for “pilgrim”) set out to complete the entire 750 miles, many—like myself—choose to tackle only portions of it. Some people do it for spiritual reasons. Others are simply looking for a slower pace and to disconnect from the stressors of everyday life.

Armed with little more than the itinerary for my Oku Japan self-guided tour and a small day pack carrying my essentials (a local courier service makes it easy to ship larger luggage to stops along the way), I set out on a truncated five-day Shikoku Pilgrimage alone—determined to get off the grid. As it turns out, wandering among bamboo forests and towering cedar trees and along moss- and fern-laden trails taught me as much about the local culture as it did about myself. Arriving at each temple, I’d first clean my hands with a ladle at the outdoor hand-washing station and often drop a few coins into each main hall’s offering box, connecting it to a personal wish for things like good health and peace of mind. One day I partook in a morning meditation at a temple lodging before heading out on my route, and I’d typically share breakfasts of steamed rice, miso soup and salted mackerel or salmon with a couple of other female pilgrims I’d met at a bus stop on our first day. My favorite site was Tairyuji Temple, which sits nearly 2,000 feet high, near the summit of Mount Tairyuji. Known as Temple 21, this remote compound is perched among centuries-old cedar and cypress trees. Its main hall is a timber structure adorned with incredibly intricate wood carvings and the painting of a massive dragon on the ceiling of its interior corridor. The Tairyuji Ropeway, the longest cable car route in western Japan, runs between Temple 21 and the town of Naka—a perfect way of ending the day’s journey after reaching the temple on foot.

“Shikoku is an island on an island country,” says David Moreton, a historian who has spent nearly three decades studying the Shikoku Pilgrimage. “Because it’s also a rural place, it’s been able to maintain traditions longer and better than the main island.” Moreton says that, more and more, pilgrimages are attracting people who are looking for time and space to self-reflect. “To think more about life and to give thanks for what they’ve had.”

Shikoku’s people tend to see intrinsic value in helping pilgrims. Many residents, Moreton says, believe Kobo Daishi wanders the island in disguise. This means that anyone they meet might be the Buddhist monk. “By helping them, you’re doing good and may be rewarded in the future.”

Matthew Bennett, a Shikoku pilgrim who helps design sustainable adventures for the tour planning company Yugen DMC, agrees. “The culture of helping others along the pilgrimage is called o-settai,” he says. Pilgrims are considered the manifestation of Kobo Daishi. “So when people are helping you, they’re actually helping him directly.”

According to Moreton, this notion has led to a culture of hospitality that has spread throughout the island. He says it’s this feeling of welcomeness that draws people to the island and persuades them to return to the pilgrimage.

Bennett, for example, has completed the route four times. “There’s a word for people like me,” he says. “Shikoku-byo. It means ‘Shikoku sickness.’” He says that people are drawn to the circuit again and again both for the inner peace it offers and the kindness of Shikoku’s residents. “I would just catch ‘the sickness’ and want to return.” So ten years ago, he moved to Japan from the United States.

The Japanese word Shikoku means “four countries.” It’s an accurate description, since the island is broken up into four prefectures: Ehime, Kagawa, Kochi and Tokushima. Geographically, they’re separated by the Shikoku Mountains, creating four distinct regions, each with its own unique culture and cuisine. However, the Shikoku Pilgrimage route connects them all.

“Each prefecture on the island is different,” says Moreton, “in the same way that the U.S. South is very different from California and New York.”

The sparsely populated Kochi Prefecture on the island’s south side is a natural food capital, with fruits like juicy musk melon, caramelly sweet Niitaka pears, and, most famously, tart yuzu. In Kochi’s tiny village of Umaji, where over 80 percent of the cultivated land is farmed organically, yuzu is everywhere. At Umaji Onsen, guests can soak in yuzu baths during winter solstice and dine on inaka sushi—a local delicacy made with mountain vegetables instead of fish, and yuzu-infused sticky rice.

Kagawa Prefecture is famously known as the “Udon Prefecture.” In the historic town of Kotohira, the Nakano Udon School invites visitors to “dance” on dough, stomping on it with their feet to create the noodle’s chewy texture. Ehime Prefecture is brimming with natural scenery and hot springs, including the famous Dogo Onsen—inspiration for the bathhouse in the 2002 animated film Spirited Away. Tokushima Prefecture (nearest to Honshu) produces the vast majority of Japan’s natural indigo dye. Naruto, a city in Tokushima, is also home to Otani Ware, a traditional Japanese pottery known for its iron-rich clay and an unusual “lying down” wheel technique. The enormous rustic earthenware jars are used to ferment indigo leaves. The pottery’s origins are also directly connected to the Shikoku Pilgrimage: Bun’emon, the Japanese craftsman who brought the pottery wheel to Tokushima in the late-18th century, had first come to Shikoku to visit its 88 sacred sites.

“There’s so much interesting history and culture related to the pilgrimage across Shikoku,” says Moreton. In addition to Otani Ware, he tells me about the World War I era Bando Prisoner of War Camp in Naruto. I passed the site commemorating it on my walk to Ryozenji, the first temple on the pilgrimage. Known as German Village Park, it marks the camp where the Japanese held approximately 1,000 German soldiers, who were given surprisingly free rein. “Tokushima has always had that open feeling to outsiders,” Moreton says, thanks to the community’s deep-rooted tradition of o-settai. Residents received them openly and showed humane kindness, and the Germans taught locals how to play orchestral instruments, make beer and bake German-style bread, which some Naruto bakeries still sell today.

By the end of my week on Shikoku I had hiked nearly 30 miles up severely steep inclines and through forests popping with spring flowers, sat beside koi-filled ponds and followed statues of the beloved Bodhisattva Jizō—the guardian of travelers—often with nobody else in sight for miles at a time. But it was those moments when I did encounter others, whether it was my orange-giving taxi driver or fellow pilgrims on the trail, and the hospitality they showed this solo traveler that have stuck with me most.

After all, Shikoku has welcomed pilgrims for hundreds of years.

Laura Kiniry is a San Francisco-based freelance writer specializing in food, drink, and travel. She contributes to a variety of outlets including American Way, O-The Oprah Magazine, BBC.com, and numerous AAA pubs.