Hiking the Kyoto Trail — Departure Day
Travel diaries: November 1st, hiking the Kyoto Trail—departure day.
Good evening from the Tokyo-Kyoto Shinkansen, which departs every ten minutes from Tokyo Station in the evening hours and covers the 365-kilometer distance between the two cities in just over two hours—this still excites me.
This visit to Kyoto has a different purpose than my previous trips, which often take place in early December to enjoy the fall colors or during the sweltering summer (please, don’t ask why). Over the next six days—before I fly to Aomori for an exciting reunion with friends from Turkey—I’ll be hiking the 130-km Kyoto Trail, which consists of two main sections.
My focus will be the 84-km trail that encircles Kyoto City on three sides and is divided into four parts: the Fushimi-Fukakusa Course (9.5 km), the Higashiyama Course (24.6 km), the Kitayama Course (Eastern and Western, totaling 37.2 km), and the Nishiyama Course (12.3 km). If I have any time left—though I doubt it—I also plan to explore parts of the second main trail, the Keihoku Course (49.6 km), which traverses rural areas and forests in the northern part of the city through the Tamba district.
While I’ve done many day hikes in between, including several on Rebun Island in Hokkaido in the summer and some fall hikes more recently, this will be my first multi-day hike since the Great Ocean Walk in May 2024. I expect this trail to be logistically—and physically—a lot less demanding, as it never diverts far from Kyoto City— enabling me to stay at the same hotel every night and easily commute between my hotel and the daily end/start points by public transportation. This will allow me to hike with a day pack. Based on what I read, the only relatively challenging section of the trail appears to be the 4-hour route that connects the top of Mount Hiei to Ohara, which I hopefully will be covering on a rain-free day.
The Kyoto Trail primarily passes through mountains but occasionally wanders into more urban and dense areas, including those home to some of the city’s most famous landmarks, such as Kiyomizu-dera, Fushimi Inari, Ginkaku-ji, Arashiyama, and Enryaku-ji, among others. I have visited all these sites before, but if time permits, I wouldn’t mind making another quick stop.
I decided to hike the Kyoto Trail only last week after I received an email from HR about some unused vacation days that had somehow gone unnoticed and needed to be used—what an email to receive. With the upcoming winter season limiting hiking opportunities, I wanted to take advantage of these days off for a long hike. Since the wintery conditions were already kicking in on higher-altitude trails, I didn’t have many options.
I considered multiple alternatives, including the Kunisaki Trail in Kyushu and the Ise-ji Route of the Kumano Kodo, which I partially explored a few years ago. In the end, what attracted me to the Kyoto Trail—that I heard about only two years ago from a fellow hiker—was not only the chance to spend almost a week in one of my favorite cities in the world but also the simplicity of the logistics. The trail has many exit points connecting to the main road, allowing me to stay at the same accommodation throughout the hike. Additionally, since the trail is known for its temples and forested sections rather than scenic vistas, bad weather conditions would be much less of a mood killer. That said, according to the forecast, the first day of the hike is expected to be completely rainy (thanks to a typhoon), followed by almost a week of sunshine. In any case, I wouldn’t mind walking alongside a highway for a week these days, so I doubt that the Kyoto Trail will disappoint.
I am also grateful for the wonderful dual-language (English-Japanese) guidebook published by the Kyoto Trail Guide Association and the separate maps covering each section—which all helped tremendously with the planning process.
I will be posting a trail report for each day of the hike, just as I did during my ten-day walk last year exploring the Goto Islands off the coast of Nagasaki. While I intend to post daily or every couple of days, I sometimes struggle to keep up with that schedule (since I tend to go to bed a little bit too early). Daily posts also occasionally take me out of the moment, though not always. In the end, I plan to share six posts outlining the trail, one for each day, which I hope will be helpful if you decide to hike it yourself. Some parts of these trip reports will be exclusive to monthly and annual subscribers. Most of these posts will be Substack-only, as I don’t want to flood your inbox with six more messages this month, but there may be one mid-trail or end-of-trail email drop as well.
As always, thank you for being here. I hope to be back tomorrow evening (or day after) with a report from the first—very rainy—day of the hike.
All the best,
Burcu
You can now read the trip diaries:
The hotel you stayed at looks wonderful! I’m heading to Kyoto soon and would love to do a day hike or two along the trail, weather permitting.
Looking forward to read as I often do this kind of semi-urban hikes with convenience of one hotel. Hope it is not crowded.