Why Honeymoon on the Kumano Kodo
A walking honeymoon builds its own rhythm. You start after breakfast, talk or walk in silence for hours, stop for a packed lunch by a mossy shrine and arrive tired at an inn where someone has run a hot bath. Few trips give couples that much uninterrupted time together.
The Kumano Kodo is also unusually comfortable for a long-distance trail. You sleep in ryokan and minshuku with dinner and breakfast included, not in huts. A local booking service run by the Tanabe City Kumano Tourism Bureau can arrange your inns, luggage transfers and bento lunches as a package.
It rewards curiosity. Shinto and Buddhist traditions blend along the route. Pilgrims collect stamps at shrines. The trail is twinned with the Camino de Santiago in Spain, so walkers who finish both can register as Dual Pilgrims. The forest is the real star, though.
When to Go
The best seasons are spring (late March through May) and autumn (October to late November). Temperatures are comfortable for walking, skies are often clear and the forest is at its most colorful. These months also book up first, so reserve inns early.
The rainy season, roughly June to mid-July, makes paths slippery and views cloudy. July and August are hot and very humid, which turns climbs into hard work. Typhoons are possible from late summer into early autumn and can close trail sections after heavy rain.
Winter is quieter and drier. Snow is rare on the main Nakahechi route, though mornings are cold and some inns close for a break. From December to February, Kawayu Onsen digs out Sennin-buro, a giant free bath in the riverbed that is open to everyone. Check trail conditions with the Kumano tourism bureau before you go, since storms have damaged sections in past years.
Where to Stay
Lodging on the trail is small and personal. Most places have a handful of rooms, a shared hot spring bath and fixed dinner times.
- Chikatsuyu, a village about a day's walk from Takijiri, is the usual first night. It sits beside a river with a public bath at its center.
- Yunomine Onsen, one of Japan's oldest hot spring villages, sits in a narrow valley near Hongu. Inns here pipe in mineral water. You can also boil eggs in the public spring.
- Kawayu Onsen lets you dig your own bath in the gravel riverbank, where hot water seeps up through the stones.
- Watarase Onsen has a large outdoor bath, which some couples like after a long day.
Rooms with private bathrooms are limited. Book early if that matters to you. Expect roughly $150 to $350 per night for two including dinner and breakfast, approximate and varying by inn and season.
Romantic Things to Do
Walk the Nakahechi from Takijiri-oji to Kumano Hongu Taisha over two or three days. The final section from Hosshinmon-oji, about seven kilometers, makes a lovely half day if you prefer a shorter walk. You will come over the last rise to see the shrine roofs among the trees.
Visit Oyunohara, the sandbank where Hongu Taisha stood until floods in 1889. A torii gate about 33 meters tall marks the site. It is wonderful at dusk.
Book Tsuboyu in Yunomine. The tiny wooden bath holds two people, sits right over a stream and is rented by the half hour. Take a numbered ticket at the public bathhouse next door if there is a wait.
Finish at Nachi. Climb the Daimon-zaka stone stairway through giant cedars to Kumano Nachi Taisha, then see the red pagoda of Seiganto-ji framed against Nachi Falls, Japan's tallest single-drop waterfall.
Getting There and Around
The usual gateway is Kii-Tanabe. JR limited express trains from Shin-Osaka or Kyoto take a little over two hours. Buses then run to Takijiri-oji, the start of the Nakahechi, in about 40 minutes and continue to Hongu.
Nanki-Shirahama Airport (SHM) has short flights from Tokyo Haneda. Buses connect it to Kii-Tanabe and the trailheads.
Along the route, local buses link villages, which means you can skip a stage or cut a long day short. Schedules are thin, so carry a printed timetable. Luggage transfer is the key comfort. For a fee, bags travel from inn to inn and you walk with only a daypack.
At the end, buses run from Hongu to Shingu, home of Kumano Hayatama Taisha, then on toward Nachi. Some couples finish with a night at the coast in Katsuura or Shirahama before heading back to Osaka. The Kohechi trail also links the area to Koyasan for serious hikers.
Food and Drink
Inn dinners are a highlight. Expect a long run of small plates built around what the mountains and rivers provide: grilled ayu sweetfish, wild vegetables in spring, mountain yam, pickled plums and local tofu. Wakayama is Japan's top producer of umeboshi, the sour pickled ume, which turns up everywhere from breakfast rice to cocktails.
Many inns cook dishes in hot spring water. In Yunomine you can buy eggs and vegetables to boil yourselves in the public spring, a fun snack between baths.
Order bento lunches from your inn the night before. They are often wrapped in leaves and perfect for a trailside stop. Mehari-zushi, rice balls wrapped in pickled mustard greens, is the traditional pilgrim snack.
Few villages have restaurants. Shops are sparse too. Carry water, snacks and cash. For a drink, inns usually sell local beer, sake and plum wine.
Honeymoon Tips
Book your inns before anything else. The best villages have only a few rooms. Spring and autumn dates go months ahead. Couples who are less confident can use a self-guided package that includes maps, inn bookings and bag transfers.
Pack light hiking shoes with good grip, a rain jacket and trekking poles if you have them. Stone steps get slick when wet. Leave by 9 a.m. so you arrive before dark, especially in autumn when sunset comes early.
The trail is safe and well signed. Keep an eye out for wasps in late summer and for leeches on wet days. Wild boar and monkeys are around but shy. Phone signal fades in valleys.
Public hot spring baths are separated by gender. Rentable family baths, called kashikiri, let couples bathe together, so ask about them when booking. Tsuboyu has a strict 30-minute limit, so time it for a quiet evening slot.
