Walk Japan, the leading adventure travel company in Japan, has launched its latest immersive walking tour the Shikoku: Kochi & Ehime Discovery, visiting the bucolic Kochi and Ehime Prefectures of western Shikoku.

The Shikoku: Kochi & Ehime Discovery is a fully-guided, seven-day tour exploring two of Japan’s most beautiful but remotest prefectures. This region exudes elegance and tranquility, characterized by pristine streams and rivers that meander leisurely through deeply forested mountainous terrain and lush valleys to the coast and the steely-blue Pacific Ocean. Here in numerous small farming and fishing communities set in idyllic countryside, the warmly welcoming locals maintain a timeless and gentle pace of life.

Shikoku has been considered a sacred island for over a thousand years and is famed for its 745-mile 88-temple Ohenro pilgrimage, the feature of Walk Japan’s Shikoku Temple Pilgrimage tour. The Shikoku: Kochi & Ehime Discovery also includes the theme of pilgrimage with visits to the exquisite Chikurin-ji, the 31st Ohenro temple, and a little-known 7.5-mile mini-pilgrimage set in a rustic valley. It also explores old mountain routes including one that was once vital in transporting sea salt, a precious commodity, to remote communities, and another, the Dappan-no-Michi, that follows in the daring footsteps of Sakamoto Ryoma. Ryoma is a Japanese hero renowned for his exploits at the end of the samurai-dominated Edo Period (1603-1868) when under pain of death he escaped from his clan from Kochi via Ehime.

Other highlights include Yusuhara, a gorgeously-sited mountain town, where a cluster of buildings designed by world-acclaimed architect Kuma Kengo is found; Ozu, a charming, castle town featuring the captivating Garyu Sanso, a Japanese masterpiece of garden, villa and teahouse; and local culinary delicacies such as katsuo seared bonito fish and myriad varieties of citrus fruit.

The Shikoku: Kochi & Ehime Discovery is a seven-day, six-night, fully-guided walking tour for up to 12 participants commencing in Kochi City and concluding in Matsuyama’s Dogo Onsen. Daily walking ranges from five to eight miles along mountain trails and quiet country lanes. A Level 4 tour, it is suitable for anyone who leads a reasonably active lifestyle. Prices start from $2,660 USD based on double occupancy.

Established in 1992, Walk Japan is an independently owned and managed walking tour company that enlightens and enriches its guests on walking tours through many less-traveled regions of Japan from Hokkaido in the nation’s far north to Okinawa in its far south. Walk Japan’s pioneering tours evolved from study trips run by two Hong Kong University academics and since then, Walk Japan’s Tour Leaders have guided many tens of thousands of people from around the world through Japan’s natural beauty, history, society and culture that is otherwise often difficult to access and fully appreciate.