Today exactly one year ago I left Tokyo to start a new adventure. I gave up my house, most of my belongings and packed up the rest of them, only a backpack and a smallish suitcase left. Although in the middle of the Pandemic I decided on a new lifestyle, one of minimalism, driven by curiosity and consistently moving – I became a so-called “digital nomad” in Japan.
So today I am looking back at a year of traveling, from southern tropical Okinawa to the northern prefecture of Hokkaido. I climbed up sand dunes and sat in the middle of calming seemingly neverending lavender fields. I think I did not realize how versatile Japan really was before I started, I had an inkling at best.
It has been a rather crazy year, 30+ places visited (depending on how you count them, some I even stayed more than twice) and as it happens I am back where it all started, my first stop last year, Kyoto.
Has it been easy? To be honest it was surprisingly ok, especially the logistics of it all. With Japan being on the “light” side of restrictions also during their state of emergencies, even promoting travel with their “Go-to Travel Campaign” halfway in, there were hardly any obstacles other than the one I choose for myself. Limiting contact, social distancing, and avoiding closed spaces was important to me to feel safe as I moved around. So certainly, this was always going to be a different experience of Japan. However, what was lost in terms of social interactions I felt was compensated by the natural beauty of the places that I visited and the unique opportunity to experience these locations without the major tourism mayhem, no noise.
So these are some of my impressions from the road, things I have done, people I have met, it is mad looking at them – in a good way. So I am very much looking forward to another year of the same madness and yes I already have a few ideas 😉
The places (and their surroundings) I visited this year included:
•Kyushu and Okinawa: Naha, Chatan, Amami Oshima, Fukuoka
•Chugoku: Hiroshima, Onomichi, Okayama, Bizen, Tottori
•Kansai: Himeji, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Otsu, Shigaraki
•Chubu: Nagoya, Tokoname, Takayama, Shirakawa, Niigata, Sado
•Kanto: Tokyo, Kawaba
•Tohoku: Yamagata, Zao, Sendai, Tono, Morioka, Iwaizumi, Hachinohe
•Hokkaido: Hakodate, Jozankei, Sapporo, Furano, Asahikawa, Otaru
