Editor Tokaido Road has the Roots of Modern Travel

The Edo Period’s greatest road, The Kyu-Tokaido Road, is a 490 kilometer journey. The road was built over 400 years ago and was at the time the world’s cleanest, safest and most traveled road. The Tokaido road is also one of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s greatest contributions to Japanese commerce and culture. The road linked Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto via a series of 53 stops.

Fortunately, there are still many parts of this historic road intact and for issue #36 we offer our readers a chance to travel back in time, and in the process, perhaps catch a glimpse of the future. Traveling back is not merely going backwards but rather looking back and relearning so that we can travel forwards in a balanced and stable way. On the Tokaido Road, Edo Japan most certainly reveals hints of the future.

Today, Japan is dependent on approximately 80% of its energy and 65% percent of its food. But for approximately 250 years during the Edo Period, Japan was self-sufficient in all resources including its energy needs. The key according to author and Edo scholar Eisuke Ishikawa was that Edo was not only an agricultural country but also a plant-based country. Edo’s efficient use of plants can be found all along the Tokaido route via the many Japanese pine trees which were used for shade to keep travelers cool on hot days.

The entire Tokaido route can be walked in 13 -17 days and many of the mountain passes still consist of the original stones from 400 years ago. As one walks though the mountains of Hakone or the Mie village of Seki (where about 1.8 kilometers of original merchant houses are still intact), or stays at the last-running ryokan on the route from the Edo era in Akasaka, there is definitely a sensation of connecting the past to the present. Interestingly, I calculated that 1 full day of walking is approximately 10 minutes of time on the Shinkansen. While the train is merely a blur and literally a means to an end, a single day of walking along the Tokaido is a lifetime: the people, sounds, tastes and adventures form a memory compiled of the past, present and future which lives on forever.

PAPERSKY #36: EDO FUJI TOKAIDO | genten

Tags: adventure, health, hike