This text was finalized while listening to this music.
I came to walk the Kumano Kodo in Japan.
Visiting Japan has been a long-time dream, and somehow the idea of completing the dual pilgrimage (the Camino de Santiago and the Kumano Kodo) was enticing enough to squeeze this trip into an already packed year.
Our guide – Kazuhiro san – is a delightful human, a very thin Japanese man who can go up mountains at a rate that got us all breathless and tell wondrous stories with an intensity and enough mimicking to make us feel at the same time marveled and amused.
No description would do justice to what he guided us through, but we clearly felt in a vortex in which ordinary conceptions and assumptions simply cannot exist. Kilometers are a relative concept, time stretches beyond infinity, our senses are overwhelmed by the beauty and sheer magnitude of the landscape, and our soul overflows with awe.
Along the way, he explains the wondrous things that have allegedly happened in the past. We walk from a Shintoist shrine to a Buddhist, and next to a Taoist. No one sees any problem, and in reality, the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage visits shrines of these 3 religions.
Just to add another layer, in the distance we hear the bell of a Christian church play the tune of the Holy Mary of Fatima.
As we approach a huge camphor tree, Kazuhiro san explains that this specific tree is a Deity – and to symbolize this it is surrounded by a rope with some pieces of white paper cut into a specific shape. How simple. Of course, this majestic tree that has stood there for 800 years is a deity – how could it not?
We proceeded to walk up steep slopes and descend on the other side, equally steep inclines. We crossed a bridge over a beautiful river to where a village used to stand. As we walk along the path between the trees and the ruins, we are silent. We feel the awe. We are not scared, we just feel the gravity of that place. We need no words as we all feel it.
Our arrival at Hongu Taisha Grand Shrine was again disconcerting – a mixture of apparently incongruent processes, meticulous Japanese bureaucracy, and unexpected human kindness and empathy.
Overwhelmed by the arrival and the beauty and majesty of the Temple, we followed Kazuhiro san, navigating apparently randomly the due process.
Requests get lost in translation, the tiredness bubbles into frustration, the humid heat, the expectation, the utter lack of clarity leaves us in the eye of the vortex we’ve been experiencing for the last few days.
Half lost, we wander through the Grand Shrine, and suddenly Kazuhiro san is rushing us to join him at the entrance of the Temple.
We wonder there, and the Shinto priest prepares us to enter. He speaks in Japanese with purpose while we stand baffled, not understanding a single word and barely following the meaning of his gestures.
Our guide tells us we should follow the priest into a most sacred part of the temple – apparently, the usual place is occupied.
We follow through the crowd as the priest leads us through a gate into the inner space where the shrines are placed.
Four beautiful massive buildings within a fenced courtyard, cobblestones on the floor – sheer simplicity in the surrounding highlighting the undertoned majesty of the shrines. We stand facing the shrine of the main Deity of Hongu while the priest makes his prayer and ritual. As his prayer gained momentum, a drum started pounding behind us. The air around us buzzed with energy, and we felt out of place and time. As the priest finished his prayer and invited us to make our wishes internally, we felt truly blessed for living this magical experience.
I cannot say what made this such a powerful experience, nor can I demonstrate or guarantee any external results from it. What I can testify to is that this was an extraordinary spiritual and moving experience that touched each of us deeply and changed us inside.
And this is all the magic I need. I will not control the world, and my future will be largely determined by things I cannot control, but in that brief moment, I experienced communion with nature, with fellow humans, with the trees, the rocks, the beautiful temples, and the simple cobblestones under my feet. And I felt clarity and purpose and peace.
As we walked out of the fenced area, the following courtyard that had been crawling with people just a moment before was totally empty. With a big smile on his face, the priest guided us to the next and final step of the celebration of our dual pilgrimage – banging the drum of the temple.
Always speaking in Japanese, he showed me the instructions on how to do it. As I finished the banging of the drum, he looked me in the eyes and said in his best English-
“I hope you will be happy.”
So do I. And I feel this was a step in the right direction.
Note: this text is my recollection of our scouting trip to Kumano Kodo to prepare everything to start bringing participants in 2026, so if this resonated with you, check out the details here.
I know some passages are a little out of our usual reality, but I swear I am faithfully writing what I experienced.
Until our next newsletter,
Keep walking with us!
Nuno Santos Fernandes
Partner, Walking Mentorship
* * The picture at the top was taken in September at Yunomine onsen, after a long day of magic walks :)
Are you ready to embark on 2026?
If you think it is about time to take yourself for a walk, we invite you to join one of our carefully designed upcoming programs 👇
🔹 Fishermans Trail – Portugal | 3 Places available
[27 March-4 April] Start here
🔹 Camino de Santiago – Spain | 5 Places available
[22 May-30 May] Start here
🔹 Parents & Kids – Spain | 4 Places available
[5 July-11 July] Start here
[25 July-1 August] Start here
🔹 Via Francigena – Switzerland | Italy: 4 Places available
[21 August-29 August] Start here
🔹 Camino de Berobreo – Spain | Spain: 9 Places available
[18 September-26 September] Start here
🔹 Kumano Kodo – Japan | Spain: 5 Places available
[10 October- 17 October] Start here
[24 October- 31 October] Start here
What have we been doing?
Well, the last month — at least in our minds — felt like half a year in our lives. Probably because of the beauty, the intensity, and the sheer amount of things we’ve been doing, pretty much non-stop.
In mid-September, we traveled to South Korea to explore new corporate programs. Soon after, we went to Japan, where we walked and tested the legendary Kumano Kodo trail — which we’re thrilled to announce will become part of our programs in October 2026.
Back in Portugal, we delivered a wonderful program with Porto Business School and PricewaterhouseCoopers, gathering a truly inspiring group of people on a perfect day.
A few days later, we were in Sardinia in Italy, guiding a Slow Down short program with an incredible group — most of whom we had already met during Synergy | The Retreat Show. We spent a full week there, and it was nothing short of amazing.
Then, it was back to Portugal again, where we launched another program with our long-time partners at the Transformational Travel Council. This is already the third year in a row we have co-created this special experience, this time with 12 beautiful people walking and reflecting together.
What an incredible autumn of 2025 we’re living!
You can watch the videos of our previous programs on the YouTube channel here.
How can we walk together?
Walking Mentorship is a labor of love that helps you gain deeper insight and equips you to create a meaningful impact on your life and those around you.
How can we work together? We keep things simple by offering, Individual, Group and Corporate programs. You can also offer vouchers as a gift to the people you love. Find the best fit for you and book a call with one of our mentors.
Keep walking with us 🚶♂️, changing the world one step at a time.
