Before my husband, Erik, and I started hiking together, I had done a few solo long-distance hikes in Japan. The first one, the Shikoku Pilgrimage, was why I got hooked on hiking, especially on old/historic trails.
The sixty-day walk literally changed my life. — Not only did I start walking on other historic trails, but I also found a job, moved to Tokushima, one of the four prefectures on Shikoku Island and joined the local volunteer group that conserves pilgrimage trails around one of the most beautiful mountain temples among the 88 sacred sites pilgrims must visit. These changes eventually led me to meet my partner for life — Erik, my husband, a Dutch pilgrim who had completed the Shikoku Pilgrimage three times and later added one more round with me.
2025 marks 10 years since my first solo Shikoku Pilgrimage walk in 2015.
Though my blog, Mountain-Penguin.com, focuses only on the hikes and travels we did together, I had the privilege to contribute some articles about my solo hikes for my good friend, David Gilbert, whose website, Ramdomwire.com, is undoubtedly one of the most read online resources for aspiring future pilgrims of the Shikoku 88, Kumano Kodo and Shodoshima 88 pilgrimages.
I wrote the article “Stories from Shikoku: Masako’s Journey” in the summer of 2021, so of course, some updates in my life have occurred since then. Namely, we have hiked many more long-distance trails, and we are currently based both in Japan and the Netherlands, traveling frequently. But those are minor things that don’t affect what I wanted to talk about in the article.
If you are interested in my story, please read the full article on David’s Randomwire.com.
