Every route on this site is walked, researched, tested, and maintained by real people. No algorithms. No scraped content.
Every route is walked personally, usually 3–5 times, at different times of day and in different seasons. We note actual walking times, not Google Maps estimates.
We research the history of every stop using local history books, city archives, and interviews with shop owners and residents.
Routes are tested by volunteer walkers of different ages and fitness levels. We refine directions based on where people get lost.
We revisit routes annually. Shops close, streets change, new places open. Our routes are living documents.
Nippon Itinerary started in 2020 when founder Maria Gonzalez, a Santa Fe-based travel writer, found herself frustrated by group tours in Kyoto. She wanted to walk slowly, stop for coffee when she felt like it, and spend 20 minutes photographing a moss garden without holding up a group.
She created her first route — the Yanaka walk — for friends visiting Tokyo. They shared it with their friends. Within a year, 50 routes existed as PDFs passed between travelers. In 2022, Nippon Itinerary became a proper website. Today our 32 routes are used by over 100,000 travelers annually.
Travel writer. Lived in Kyoto 2018–2020. Has walked every route on the site at least twice.
Historian specializing in Japanese urban development. Based in Kanazawa.
Kyoto native. Updates our Kyoto and Osaka routes and verifies seasonal changes.