Walking Goto Islands: Day 1

Travel diaries: March 2nd - arrival and visiting Egami Church in Naru Island.

Good morning,

I am writing this sitting in my room at Hostel Ta Bi To, in the tiny town of Tomie on Fukue Island, the largest of the five islands of Goto Islands Archipelago.

I just finished my breakfast in the cafe next door, Te To Ba, which is also run by the hostel owners. The owners who moved to Goto Islands from Tokyo right before the pandemic did an excellent job converting two traditional Japanese-style houses into a hostel and a cafe. Not only does their initiative makes Tomie a wonderful and attractive base for travelers who wish to explore Fukue and other islands of Goto by offering a cozy alternative to the standard hotels located in the center, but it also adds greatly to the liveliness of this tiny town where the cafe, with delicious Japanese style breakfast/lunch and baked goods, relaxing music and friendly owners, serves as a daily hang-out venue for the locals (who also seem to always happy to come across a foreigner visiting their modest fishing village).

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This is the first of my travel diaries that I plan to post on a daily basis during my nine-day stay in Goto Islands, where I plan to do some island hopping and walking as much as I can.

In my latest Letter from Japan, I named Goto Islands my favorite island destination in Japan:

What I love about the Goto Islands is the opportunity to experience traditional rural fishing village life while having access to beaches on par with those in Okinawa and historical sites linked to a critical phase in Japan`s history not very well known to the outside world. When you visit an island off mainland Japan, you get to experience one or two of these facets (traditional rural life, nature/beach, and historical sites), but rarely all three.