A closer look
Taking a stroll to clear your head hits a bit differently when it spans 1,500 miles on foot. In 1689, legendary poet Matsuo Basho sold his house, packed almost nothing, and marched into the dangerous northern wilds of Honshu. Modern literature nerds now try to retrace this exact route to experience the grueling conditions that birthed his finest haikus. It turns out that romanticizing isolation is much easier when you actually survive the mountain bandits and torrential typhoons he faced along the way.
