Japan's Peninsulas

About this book

Written and produced in Japan by a Japanese author — this is Japan's own book of its peninsulas, made by the people who live at the ends of them, not a mass-produced import.

Japan's Peninsulas covers 200 peninsulas, headland towns and tip-of-the-land journeys in one traveller's format: the land itself, the towns and life it carries, the journey out to the tip and the food along the way, and the specific safety note that belongs to that shore. World-heritage Shiretoko and axe-shaped Shimokita with its sacred volcano and famous tuna. Boso and Miura facing each other across Tokyo Bay. Shima's pearl bays, Kii's pilgrim coast down to Honshu's southernmost cape, Noto rebuilding above the Sea of Japan. Shikoku's great Pacific capes, Muroto and Ashizuri. Kunisaki's temple valleys, and at the very end of the mainland, Cape Sata under its subtropical sky — with Sakurajima, the volcano that erupted itself into a peninsula, closing the book.

It is honest where the land demands it. Wind, swell, cliff and tide are not a disclaimer in this book — they are part of the format, in all 200 entries: each closes with its own specific cautions and the same instruction to check official sources before you go, and the practical chapters teach you how a peninsula is read, from root town to lighthouse tip. Places you may only look at say so. Shores in recovery — Noto above all — are written as their communities keep them.

Come and travel to where the land ends.