Last Updated: Jul 27, 2024

Two of Eighty-Eight

My First Temples on the Shikoku Henro

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

Ever since first learning of the Shikoku Henro Pilgrimage’s existence many moons ago, my heart has been yearning to embark on this journey. This epic experience comprises a circuit of eighty-eight temples that are strewn across Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four major islands. Spanning over 1,200 kilometers in total, the Shikoku Henro Pilgrimage route requires one to two months to complete the passage on foot. Not for the faint of heart, this arduous trek is one thing that I hope to tackle in its entirety at a later point in my life. Given the length of the popular pilgrimage though, I’ll likely need to either crowdfund it or collaborate with a sponsor.

Anyway, while it only amounted to metaphorically dipping my toes into the water, I recently had an opportunity to visit two of the eighty-eight temples on the Shikoku Henro Pilgrimage. The objective of this week-long outing across much of western Japan was to explore several of the regions that will be hosting events…