A spontaneous cycling journey around northern Japan

The summer I was 25, I had graduated from university but still had no clear sense of what I wanted to do with my life. I had already decided to go to Australia on a working holiday, and with some time to spare before I left, I decided to set off from Kyoto on a cycling trip around northern Japan. I was working as a rickshaw driver at the time, so I was confident in my stamina and started out fairly casually. But just three days into the trip, my knees were already giving out. I seriously thought, “Maybe I should just go home.” Instead, I checked into an inn, gave my body a chance to recover, and somehow managed to get back on the road. Eventually I found my rhythm and the journey began to fall into place—but with no one to talk to along the way, the loneliness started to build.

Unexpected encounters that carried me through a solo journey

Things changed once I reached Hokkaido. Among cyclists traveling around Japan, there’s something of a tradition of gathering in Aomori for the Nebuta Festival—and that was one of my goals on this trip, too. As I traveled through Hokkaido, I kept meeting other people headed to the same place, both on the road and at simple lodgings for riders. By the time I reached the festival, I had made more than 20 friends. During the festival, we camped together, shared meals, and joined the festivities wearing matching costumes. Before setting out, I never could have imagined the trip unfolding this way.

One of the friends I met at the festival was this pretty unusual guy traveling all the way around Japan on a BMX with nothing but a small bag (laughs). After the festival, I went to visit him in the Ogasawara Islands, where he lived. I ended up spending ten days there with the locals, almost as if I were living on the island myself.

I saw all kinds of scenery on that trip, but what stayed with me most was the connection I found with people. Once, a passing bus driver treated me to a meal. Another time, when I visited an area affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, I was given the chance to help out at a sushi restaurant operating out of temporary housing. I still haven’t forgotten the kindness people showed me along the way. When you’re traveling alone and someone reaches out to you, it moves you because you feel that they’ve noticed you—that your presence matters. Maybe it’s close to the feeling of being acknowledged.

Travel and life are both a series of choices.
Now I want to help shape someone else’s journey.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe that cycling trip lasted only four months. It was such an intense, full experience. Of course, it wasn’t always fun. There were days when things didn’t go the way I wanted, and times when I felt deeply alone. But if you keep moving, another landscape appears, you meet someone new, and something in that encounter changes the way you see things. Where do I go? Who do I meet? What do I feel? As I made each of those choices for myself, I began to think that life might not be so different from travel. Both are shaped by the choices you make, and I don’t regret mine.

Along the way, I also realized that what I love most is meeting people who are traveling and sharing a little of that time with them. I want to keep meeting travelers—and now, I want to be on the side that helps create those memories. That’s what led me to work at a hostel. So many people reached out to me on my own journey. Now I hope I can do the same for someone else, helping make their travels—and perhaps even their life—a little richer.