Although a Japanese smartphone with cell service would give accurate GPS locations (or a foreign phone with rental SIM card from the airport or telecommunication shop), even without such a things it is possible to find one’s current location and compare this to the trail and road lines on the pilgrimage map. By knowing one’s position and where to go next, navigation is usually easy enough. The complication comes when parts of the trail are absent, when landmarks (businesses, train stations, hotels) are incomplete or absent, and when there is conflicting detail between print guides and software displays of the map view. Since one has to be flexible to overcome challenges from incomplete (or sometimes wrong) information, the experience of navigating the circular 88-temple pilgrim route of the island of Shikoku is a kind of metaphor for navigating the obstacles and imperfect information in one’s life more generally: figure out what you need to know in order to go where you intend on the pilgrimage and you probably also can figure out what you need to know when navigating landmarks and obstacles of life, too. Such are the parallels when “Life is a journey; but also, journeys are like a life.”
The adage that “well prepared is half-completed” is true of the many logistics, terrain and weather considerations, seasonal hours of available daylight, accommodations and sources for food and water involved in doing all or parts of the pilgrimage in one form or another, whether on foot in the traditional clockwise (or counterclockwise) direction, or like the majority of (Japanese) pilgrims at this time do: by package arrangement with motor transportation and reservations for meals and lodgings. “Well prepared” when traveling on your own schedule and logistical coordination includes navigation: knowing where you are and how to get to the next destination all right.
During the last days of November and first week of December, two of us non-Japanese had good weather and safe passage to a dozen temples on the east side of Shikoku, beginning in Tokushima prefecture with temples 1–2–3 then jumping to 11 and 12 before moving north and east to neighboring Kagawa prefecture for temples 79, 80, 81 (but time, energy, daylight ran out and so we failed to reach it), 82 (but missing 83), 84–5–6–7. Twice we needed a taxi to close the distance (to reach 11 while also getting to lodgings before dark; to get from 79 to the bus stop at Takaya-cho that begins the climb to 81). But other times the trains took us between lodging location and the main pilgrimage route (usually on roads, but interspersed with mountain segments off the road, too).
Two print-edition guidebooks in English were the foundational knowledge to narrow the scope of the 88 temples to our single week of walking. This also give practical advice. One is the latest edition of Oliver Dunskus, The 88 Temples of Shikoku: A Guide for the Walking Pilgrim. The other was called “the bible” by local city staffers at the tourism office: Shikoku Japan 88 Route Guide by Naoyuki Matsushita (originally 2007; eighth edition 2023). Matsushita gives intricately annotated maps.
Another indispensable guide was the online raft of details, advice, and descriptions at https://88shikokuhenro.jp/en/introduction-of-shikoku88/ with each temple listed with map location and routes (main, nature-centric options, history-centric options). In order to move across the landscape offline, making screenshots the evening before at lodgings (almost always offering wifi) was a good way to cross-check the route from the print books, the map apps, and this website’s clear directions.
The third leg of the tripod besides books and the reference website is the smartphone apps that function even when one has no subscription to Japanese (voice or data) cellphone services and subscriptions. Maps.me has a free edition (limited to 8 map databases) and a paid edition. The free edition gives present location by pinging surrounding cellphone towers. Zooming in and out, and rotating the view to suit one’s screen or north heading, for instance, is handy, too. A distance scale appears when zoomed in close enough, as well. Usually, the main pilgrimage (お遍路 henro, or with the honorific ‘O’ attached, Ohenro) trails that branch off the paved road also show up, although they are not labeled “pilgrimage route.” Few shops or placenames display, though — at least on the free edition. To fill those real-time, currently in-business features, Google Maps is helpful. It also pings nearby cell towers to display the user’s present coordinates on the map. The pilgrimage trails are not always shown in Google Maps, however. Between Maps.me for the trails, roads and back streets, and Google Maps for landmarks and businesses, it is possible to confirm one’s hunch about current position seen in the print (book) maps, any hard copy online screenshots carried along, and the reference route maps seen via the 88shikokuHenro website listings of each temple.
In summary, knowing one’s current position and how to get to the destination temple requires a combination of map reading, guidebook reading, and terrain/landscape reading. Aside from these aids, paying attention to geographical features and the physical fingerboards, stickers, and blazes or tags dangling from branches to aid pilgrims on their way is also part of navigating the pilgrim routes. And while books, screenshots, and apps that work offline seem complicated, with a little practice and the motivation of reaching the goal and the hope of a warm bed and hot bath to follow, then navigating the routes on the Shikoku Pilgrimage is not any more complicated than navigating modern (consumer) life and the storms of Too Much Information surrounding many people who decide to venture onto the trail.
