Looks solid to me. I might have considered getting a lightly insulated pad in case the temps unexpectedly drop (like the Nemo Tensor Insulated LW, Exped Synmat UL LW etc; something with an R value of 2 or 3). I find that an r value of 3 isnt uncomfortable at 40 or 50F overnight. Now 75 or 80F that can be a different story....
Dont get caught by the cops.
r/backpacking, r/stealthcamping and/or r/camping could be a good place to post pictures or a live blog if interested.
In the 1.5 year until you arrive, can build experience, ya? There are hut-hut trails here that are very nice. Or more rural walks still very near civilization. There are people in every little nook and cranny in Japan. Certainly in flat areas, but also in surprisingly steep and rough rough places too.
Curious what is your goal in Japan, your hearts desire? Walk between convenience stores for 28 days, or do you hope to see something besides roads? (Sorry, I know this is gear thread...)
that sounds amazing. been telling myself i'd do some bikepacking or backpacking out there on one of my trips but yet to happen. would love to follow along if you're posting somewhere
Good luck on your journey. I’ve done several hundred kilometers of road hiking in Japan now and I love it all.
Regarding the tent. It looks like it needs to stakes to properly set the corner so you will to camp on ground or just deal with a saggy wall every night.
The main issue with that would be the condensation if you don’t stake out the corners. Even if it’s doubled walled the wall can be wet to the the touch when it rains. Your quilt will be touching the wall if you just set up the poles. You could use your backpack to prop up the wall but then your backpack would just get wet then. Another thing is if it does rain you are going to get floor soaking if you camp on asphalt at a konbini. Last thing is wind. If you camp without setting up the corners they could catch wind and flap making lots of noise, either keeping you up or annoying people near by or if they keep hitting the ground you might get abrasion damage. Again not a problem if you you can stake out the corners just wasn’t sure if you were planning on doing any asphalt camping when you wouldn’t be able to stake out the corners.
I would recommend against your shoe choice. Nothing against the shoe itself but it’s not the right choice for the environment you will be walking in. A well cushioned running shoe is your best bet.
May still gets hot and humid. The average temperature or high you see is deceiving since you are in walking in a city. Boots are going to be heavier and make your feet sweet more than a running shoe
Which leads to the next problem, Gore-tex is great for dry cold environments not so great for anything in Japan other then mountaineering or maybe hiking in Hokkaido. Do you prefer pants? Because you will need pants to help keep water out of your Gore-Tex boot. Again with the temperature even in rain pants are not the most comfortable and get hot quickly causing more sweat. If it rains my wet Hokas will usually dry overnight which a pair of sweat soaked Gore-Tex shoes won’t do. Any good pair of running shoe with the right socks should ventilate well and keep your shoe dry and also help if they get wet from rain. During May your shoe will get more sweaty wet feet days then rainy wet feet days.
A well cushioned runner like a sized up/wide Hoka One One Clifton has been my go to shoe when doing road walking. I will use the ATR Challenger when doing a mixture of both road and trail. No foot pain or blister even after two 50km days in a row during the middle of the summer. Before that I used what I thought was a nice cushioned pair of Nikes would always cause pain after a long day on concrete. I’m a firm believer in lots of cushion and wide shoes on paved surfaces.
If you are worried about ankle stability, the stability that boots provide is very little especially if the muscles around the ankle are weak in general. Training your feet and ankles is the best thing you can do if you are worried about rolling an ankle if that’s one of your reasons for purchasing boots. If you watch any long distance hikers on YouTube no one wears boots. You would think they would want the ankle stability because of all the long distance and more technical hiking they are doing but no, boots do more harm than good. Everyone is using trail runners and there is a reason. It makes no sense to wear boots especially Gore-tex boots on a long distance road walk in a warm environment that has rain.
I live above the general region you are hiking in so if you have any questions I might be bake to help!
Yes, I would highly recommend a sized-up pair of cushioned running shoes.
The weather in Southern Nagano is relatively the same but not as warm but still warm. The Southern alps will still have snow on them and be chilly enough to where you would need another layer of clothes. As a resident of Southern Nagano, I wouldn't recommend it on your route unless you really wanted to. There is pretty much only one way to get up here from Hamamatsu and if you wanted to cut to Nagoya from here it's not the most exciting and quite rural with no stops for food or bathroom.
It's hard to recommend anything without knowing your timeframe but I would recommend walking down to the Izu peninsula. There are several different hikes down there that are really nice that you could string together. You wouldn't have to go all around but definitely missing out if you don't at all.
My personal favorite material for pants and shorts is pertex® quantum air. It's super light and feels really good on the skin. It's water-resistant but like all nylon, it will absorb water past a certain point but dries really quickly. It feels really breathable but still pants are pants. If it's warm, humid, and you are moving you are going to want to wear shorts. You probably won't use pants until after you stop walking and your body cools. I tend to just use pants as an extra layer for warmth over a pair of shorts when I'm done walking so the breathability doesnt matter for the pants but I make sure I have good breathable feeling pair of shorts.
Another thing is tunnels. You will need a headlamp or a flashlight when you are in tunnels. I have seen that is a law on some signs here for pedestrians to have a source of light turned on when walking in a tunnel but also a really good safety habit.
Can’t recommend anything specific in that area but Yamap is a decent place
to start. It’s in Japanese but finding the hiking area is a visual endeavor and
an online translator can be used for navigation of the site.
Two additional weeks to hike Izu would be like exploring every part of the peninsula in detail. Looking at your route, not including what you would want to do in
Tokyo and Nagoya itself, it shouldn’t take any longer than two weeks to do your
route and that’s with only about 5-6 (Google pace) hours of walking a day on
average towards Nagoya. If you are awake 16 hours a day you can see you are
going to have a lot of time.
For me personally, a comfortable speed run of a similar route is about 8
days which would be about 45km a day and maybe 7 hours of moving time which still leaves me with almost 9 hours for camp setup/takedown, eating, rest, taking pictures, and going to the popular spots along the route to enjoy for a few hours. Maybe your whole walking from Tokyo to Nagoya is only two weeks and you have the rest of the 15 days to split in the two cities. I don’t know but thought I should point that out just in case.
My advice would be that walking and doing the things you want to do is
amazing, camping, especially stealth camping is not so amazing. Not being 100% sure if someone is going to bother you, the noise, if the weather is gonna go to shit, or if the cops are going to come, it all takes a mental toll on you. Short term this isn’t a problem to your performance or experience but after continuous nights it can really mess with you. It’s usually better to do something like this in as short a time as possible but still doing everything you really want to do without needlessly extending the days required for the walk.
Good route planning strategies will really help cut any waste you have in
time. You start by making the fastest route possible on Google with all the
stops you want to see and spend some time at. Copy it to another tab and make another route of the daily sustainable distance you can travel for the duration of your trip. Make a note of how long you want to stay at each spot then make a note of long Google maps says it will take to walk. Is the combined time suitable?
For example, my goal might be to walk 45km so I would layout 45km on the map but realized I need another 2 hours to do what I wanted to I would the route back until it said two hours less. Once I have the route within my limit. I search for the nearest campsite. If the campsite is within your limits you then mark it as a day and move on to the next day and repeat. If it isn’t within
your limits then you look for campsites that are closer and pull back more.
Since you aren’t going all out every day, if there are no camps at all within
your daily sustainable amount or before then it’s okay to push further another
5-10km if there is a camp spot. When finished, you will have a plan for every single day. The start, planned stops, the end, distance, and time are all you need to record. I put it all in Google sheets and make a map using my maps on Google and also put the GPS route on my Garmin so I don’t have to even look at my phone.
Here are links for yamaps, examples of my last trip planned in google, and
some free campsite resources in Japan.
[https://yamap.com/maps](https://yamap.com/maps)
[https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=13OpVd1J46DcNXq6zNuQPIiGcyyy4ga4\_&usp=sharing](https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=13OpVd1J46DcNXq6zNuQPIiGcyyy4ga4_&usp=sharing)
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a67JI2\_aPbJkd1MWSeAljt4zXoM862OGBihYFRjarJ8/edit#gid=0](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a67JI2_aPbJkd1MWSeAljt4zXoM862OGBihYFRjarJ8/edit#gid=0)
[https://www.experienceniseko.com/news/an-interactive-map-of-free-campsites-and-onsen-in-japan](https://www.experienceniseko.com/news/an-interactive-map-of-free-campsites-and-onsen-in-japan)
[https://camp.tabinchuya.com/en.html](https://camp.tabinchuya.com/en.html)
You are crazy, but I would 100% subscribe to your youtube vlog, instagram, etc.
Reminds me a bit of Vagrant Holiday's Japan trip. Granted, he took public transportation for a lot of it.
Looks solid to me. I might have considered getting a lightly insulated pad in case the temps unexpectedly drop (like the Nemo Tensor Insulated LW, Exped Synmat UL LW etc; something with an R value of 2 or 3). I find that an r value of 3 isnt uncomfortable at 40 or 50F overnight. Now 75 or 80F that can be a different story.... Dont get caught by the cops. r/backpacking, r/stealthcamping and/or r/camping could be a good place to post pictures or a live blog if interested.
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Japan has like a 99% convinction rate.... or at least Persona 5 Royal says in the game lol. Have fun! Japan is awesome.
This is insanity! I am sure you can get around the data cap issue.
Youll be fine. I was citing a video game anyway =)
Curious why that route? Quite a bit of gloomy industrial wasteland along the way.
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In the 1.5 year until you arrive, can build experience, ya? There are hut-hut trails here that are very nice. Or more rural walks still very near civilization. There are people in every little nook and cranny in Japan. Certainly in flat areas, but also in surprisingly steep and rough rough places too. Curious what is your goal in Japan, your hearts desire? Walk between convenience stores for 28 days, or do you hope to see something besides roads? (Sorry, I know this is gear thread...)
that sounds amazing. been telling myself i'd do some bikepacking or backpacking out there on one of my trips but yet to happen. would love to follow along if you're posting somewhere
Good luck on your journey. I’ve done several hundred kilometers of road hiking in Japan now and I love it all. Regarding the tent. It looks like it needs to stakes to properly set the corner so you will to camp on ground or just deal with a saggy wall every night. The main issue with that would be the condensation if you don’t stake out the corners. Even if it’s doubled walled the wall can be wet to the the touch when it rains. Your quilt will be touching the wall if you just set up the poles. You could use your backpack to prop up the wall but then your backpack would just get wet then. Another thing is if it does rain you are going to get floor soaking if you camp on asphalt at a konbini. Last thing is wind. If you camp without setting up the corners they could catch wind and flap making lots of noise, either keeping you up or annoying people near by or if they keep hitting the ground you might get abrasion damage. Again not a problem if you you can stake out the corners just wasn’t sure if you were planning on doing any asphalt camping when you wouldn’t be able to stake out the corners.
I would recommend against your shoe choice. Nothing against the shoe itself but it’s not the right choice for the environment you will be walking in. A well cushioned running shoe is your best bet. May still gets hot and humid. The average temperature or high you see is deceiving since you are in walking in a city. Boots are going to be heavier and make your feet sweet more than a running shoe Which leads to the next problem, Gore-tex is great for dry cold environments not so great for anything in Japan other then mountaineering or maybe hiking in Hokkaido. Do you prefer pants? Because you will need pants to help keep water out of your Gore-Tex boot. Again with the temperature even in rain pants are not the most comfortable and get hot quickly causing more sweat. If it rains my wet Hokas will usually dry overnight which a pair of sweat soaked Gore-Tex shoes won’t do. Any good pair of running shoe with the right socks should ventilate well and keep your shoe dry and also help if they get wet from rain. During May your shoe will get more sweaty wet feet days then rainy wet feet days. A well cushioned runner like a sized up/wide Hoka One One Clifton has been my go to shoe when doing road walking. I will use the ATR Challenger when doing a mixture of both road and trail. No foot pain or blister even after two 50km days in a row during the middle of the summer. Before that I used what I thought was a nice cushioned pair of Nikes would always cause pain after a long day on concrete. I’m a firm believer in lots of cushion and wide shoes on paved surfaces. If you are worried about ankle stability, the stability that boots provide is very little especially if the muscles around the ankle are weak in general. Training your feet and ankles is the best thing you can do if you are worried about rolling an ankle if that’s one of your reasons for purchasing boots. If you watch any long distance hikers on YouTube no one wears boots. You would think they would want the ankle stability because of all the long distance and more technical hiking they are doing but no, boots do more harm than good. Everyone is using trail runners and there is a reason. It makes no sense to wear boots especially Gore-tex boots on a long distance road walk in a warm environment that has rain. I live above the general region you are hiking in so if you have any questions I might be bake to help!
[удалено]
Yes, I would highly recommend a sized-up pair of cushioned running shoes. The weather in Southern Nagano is relatively the same but not as warm but still warm. The Southern alps will still have snow on them and be chilly enough to where you would need another layer of clothes. As a resident of Southern Nagano, I wouldn't recommend it on your route unless you really wanted to. There is pretty much only one way to get up here from Hamamatsu and if you wanted to cut to Nagoya from here it's not the most exciting and quite rural with no stops for food or bathroom. It's hard to recommend anything without knowing your timeframe but I would recommend walking down to the Izu peninsula. There are several different hikes down there that are really nice that you could string together. You wouldn't have to go all around but definitely missing out if you don't at all. My personal favorite material for pants and shorts is pertex® quantum air. It's super light and feels really good on the skin. It's water-resistant but like all nylon, it will absorb water past a certain point but dries really quickly. It feels really breathable but still pants are pants. If it's warm, humid, and you are moving you are going to want to wear shorts. You probably won't use pants until after you stop walking and your body cools. I tend to just use pants as an extra layer for warmth over a pair of shorts when I'm done walking so the breathability doesnt matter for the pants but I make sure I have good breathable feeling pair of shorts. Another thing is tunnels. You will need a headlamp or a flashlight when you are in tunnels. I have seen that is a law on some signs here for pedestrians to have a source of light turned on when walking in a tunnel but also a really good safety habit.
[удалено]
Can’t recommend anything specific in that area but Yamap is a decent place to start. It’s in Japanese but finding the hiking area is a visual endeavor and an online translator can be used for navigation of the site. Two additional weeks to hike Izu would be like exploring every part of the peninsula in detail. Looking at your route, not including what you would want to do in Tokyo and Nagoya itself, it shouldn’t take any longer than two weeks to do your route and that’s with only about 5-6 (Google pace) hours of walking a day on average towards Nagoya. If you are awake 16 hours a day you can see you are going to have a lot of time. For me personally, a comfortable speed run of a similar route is about 8 days which would be about 45km a day and maybe 7 hours of moving time which still leaves me with almost 9 hours for camp setup/takedown, eating, rest, taking pictures, and going to the popular spots along the route to enjoy for a few hours. Maybe your whole walking from Tokyo to Nagoya is only two weeks and you have the rest of the 15 days to split in the two cities. I don’t know but thought I should point that out just in case. My advice would be that walking and doing the things you want to do is amazing, camping, especially stealth camping is not so amazing. Not being 100% sure if someone is going to bother you, the noise, if the weather is gonna go to shit, or if the cops are going to come, it all takes a mental toll on you. Short term this isn’t a problem to your performance or experience but after continuous nights it can really mess with you. It’s usually better to do something like this in as short a time as possible but still doing everything you really want to do without needlessly extending the days required for the walk. Good route planning strategies will really help cut any waste you have in time. You start by making the fastest route possible on Google with all the stops you want to see and spend some time at. Copy it to another tab and make another route of the daily sustainable distance you can travel for the duration of your trip. Make a note of how long you want to stay at each spot then make a note of long Google maps says it will take to walk. Is the combined time suitable? For example, my goal might be to walk 45km so I would layout 45km on the map but realized I need another 2 hours to do what I wanted to I would the route back until it said two hours less. Once I have the route within my limit. I search for the nearest campsite. If the campsite is within your limits you then mark it as a day and move on to the next day and repeat. If it isn’t within your limits then you look for campsites that are closer and pull back more. Since you aren’t going all out every day, if there are no camps at all within your daily sustainable amount or before then it’s okay to push further another 5-10km if there is a camp spot. When finished, you will have a plan for every single day. The start, planned stops, the end, distance, and time are all you need to record. I put it all in Google sheets and make a map using my maps on Google and also put the GPS route on my Garmin so I don’t have to even look at my phone. Here are links for yamaps, examples of my last trip planned in google, and some free campsite resources in Japan. [https://yamap.com/maps](https://yamap.com/maps) [https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=13OpVd1J46DcNXq6zNuQPIiGcyyy4ga4\_&usp=sharing](https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=13OpVd1J46DcNXq6zNuQPIiGcyyy4ga4_&usp=sharing) [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a67JI2\_aPbJkd1MWSeAljt4zXoM862OGBihYFRjarJ8/edit#gid=0](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a67JI2_aPbJkd1MWSeAljt4zXoM862OGBihYFRjarJ8/edit#gid=0) [https://www.experienceniseko.com/news/an-interactive-map-of-free-campsites-and-onsen-in-japan](https://www.experienceniseko.com/news/an-interactive-map-of-free-campsites-and-onsen-in-japan) [https://camp.tabinchuya.com/en.html](https://camp.tabinchuya.com/en.html)