Nikko and Yumoto Onsen walking tour, Japan

Planet

With this tour, we are using local public transport from and to Tokyo. This minimizes your environmental impact and complements the fact that this tour does not require long-distance travel around the country. Furthermore, this tour includes walking, which further helps minimize your carbon footprint. On this tour, you travel at your own pace through beautiful and unspoiled scenery, hiking the scenic and varied Oku Nikko plains, taking in waterfalls, lakes and the peaceful Yukawa River. Spending three nights at traditional Japanese inns, all with their own Onsen hot-spring baths, you support local communities and businesses. Your hosts value locally-produced food, which has a lower carbon footprint and further encourages the economic activity in the community. With this walking tour in Nikko’s UNESCO area, we aim to ensure the long-term sustainability of natural resources, culture and society, treating them with respect and fairness. We follow the principles of ‘Leave no Trace’ on our walking tours. Additionally, we do not leave behind any waste on our tours. On our walking tours we dispose of all waste properly to avoid contamination of water sources. We avoid as much the use of paper, and do as much of our marketing as possible on-line, using internet, email and avoid printing.

People

With rapidly-growing numbers of overseas visitors to Japan, we believe it is vital to encourage exploration of rural communities, lessening the crowding at major urban tourist sites and spreading the economic benefits of tourism more widely. We promote travels to often visit the lesser-known (but equally enchanting) areas of the countries we visit, and this helps to spread the economic benefit of tourism more evenly. With a focus on Nikko’s UNESCO area, this self-guided walking tour features stays in small, family-run hot-spring Ryokan inns, supporting local communities and fostering genuine interaction between local populations and visitors. Encouraging economic activity in the community means that their society and culture can endure, too. This is particularly important for rural areas of Japan, which faced decades of decline and depopulation as younger people moved away to the cities like Tokyo. There are now welcome signs that this tide has started to turn. Bringing visitors to rural and remote communities, such as the Nikko area, helps sustain their economic viability.