Tosa, Kōchi → Gohoku, Kōchi

Map of Kōchi Prefecture with author’s route between Tosa and Gohoku highlighted. 🗺 Open map in GaiaGPS →


A white racing kayak on the roof of a vehicle.

A Japanese village under a foggy winter sky.

A Japanese house turned into an American South-themed bar on a cold winter morning, with a sign saying: Be Nice or Fuck Off. 📍 Tosa, Kōchi

I was not nice, so I fucked off.


An abandoned-looking grocery store in the countryside.

The frozen hood of a white Nissan GT-R on a sunny winter morning. 📍 Tosa, Kōchi


Red berries on a bush at the side of a village street.

A traditional Japanese house in a village, complete with stone wall and carefully manicured trees.

The sun sets behind the hills in a valley lined by low forested hills.

A small Japanese house on a hillside below a road.

A stone Godzilla statue tied down with a yellow chain.

A very beautiful coniferous tree lit up by the afternoon sun. 📍 Kamiyakawa Kamibun, Kōchi

The valley snaked southwest and I walked alone. The deathly gloom of inner Tokushima receded with every curve in the road and the land was thinly dotted with people now. I walked across along the oxbow lakes of villages bypassed by the new highway, across low mountain passes fading rapidly into the endless cedar forest, under plums blooming in shades of pink and purple and Miura green, into a diamond sun which lit up the valley with a cold, brilliant glow, and I slept in a warehouse next to empty crates of fruit.


Two cartoonish flying squirrels and a rainbow on the side of a blue corrugated shed. 📍 Gohoku, Kōchi

Shikoku Field Diary was written on the 500-kilometer walk across Shikoku in January and February 2019 that became the subject of The Wilds of Shikoku, my first book.