Last Updated: Jun 21, 2024

Nara Prefecture

Far More than Just the Famous Deer Park

This story was originally published on donnykimball.com and has been syndicated here on Medium.

“While this article was originally written during the pandemic, all of the locations and information featured are still valid…”

— Donny Kimball

Greetings readers! I hope you’re all safe and staying sane. As I write this, most of the world is currently on lockdown. Legally, Japan cannot mandate that everyone stay home yet the governor of Tokyo has requested all to refrain from any unnecessary outings. Furthermore, voiding any such request in place, my unfamiliar foreign visage would likely terrify anyone in rural regions. After all, foreign visitors to Japan were down as much as 94 percent in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a dark time indeed for the tourism industry and my heart breaks when I think of all the local vendors whose income is entirely dependent on travelers.

Tragically, there’s little I can do for the time being to help the market other than continue to produce content for when we can all hit the road once again. So, on that note, we’ll be attempting to cover ALL of Nara Prefecture in the following paragraphs. While typically a tad ambitious for a single article, I am stuck at home…