Matagi Adventure Trail: A Five-Day Journey with Japan’s Last Hunter-Gatherers
ANI · AKITA · NORTHERN JAPAN
Guardians of the beech forest, still walking their trail.
A five-day journey into Ani-Moriyoshi, storied home of a hunting-and-gathering culture whose own account traces back over a thousand years. Guests trek with living Matagi, not costumed guides.
WHY THIS BELONGS IN YOUR CATALOG
Northern Tōhoku is the one populated corner of Japan where humanity’s longest-running experiment in sustainable living — the Jōmon world of 10,000 years ago — never fully gave way to what came after. Its clearest living thread is the Matagi: not a heritage performance, but working people who still hunt, forage and share by a code of gratitude older than the nation itself, and who are, right now, choosing this life on purpose and passing it to the next generation.
That is the rarest inventory an adventure-travel catalog can carry: authenticity that cannot be staged, only found — and found, still, in 2026. Built for the buyer selling transformation rather than sightseeing, this itinerary is aimed squarely at active 20s–50s hikers and travelers seeking real spiritual depth in nature — a profile very much in demand at ATWS this year. Guests leave having done more than watch a tradition; for five days, they lived adjacent to it.
From our own 2024/25 FAM: a Matagi guide walks visiting guests through wild kuromoji-leaf identification before brewing tea over the fire — the kind of encounter this itinerary is built to deliver, not stage for a photo.
Japan → Tōhoku → Akita Prefecture → Ani-Moriyoshi
WHY NORTHERN TŌHOKU
A forest that never fully joined the modern world.
“Make the lowland people shudder,” wrote the folklorist Kunio Yanagita in 1910, after collecting the mountain legends of Tōno for what became Japan’s founding work of folklore studies. He meant that something in these mountains could still unsettle people whose worldview had been smoothed flat by modern civilization — not that the Matagi are strange, but that they kept a relationship with the forest most of Japan had already let go of.
That line is about Tōno’s ghosts and mountain deities, not about the Matagi directly — but Yanagita returned to hunters in his own right: his 1926 Yama no Jinsei (The Life of the Mountain) records the seasonal rounds of Akita’s traveling Matagi, trading bear meat and gallbladder for grain as they crossed as far as Jōshū and Shinshū. Tōno Monogatari and that later work share the same instinct: an animist thread in Japanese life that Yanagita worried an urbanizing nation was about to forget.
The Jōmon era, from roughly 10,000 years ago to a few centuries BCE, was one of humanity’s longest-running experiments in sustainable living: a hunting-and-gathering society, at peace and culturally sophisticated, that thrived for millennia in these same deciduous forests and rich seas — among the more densely settled parts of Jōmon-era Japan, by the archaeological record. It’s worth asking whether “thrived” undersells it: the historian Yuval Noah Harari’s case in Sapiens is that agriculture’s balance sheet favored the species more than the individual — longer hours, a narrower diet, new disease, in exchange for feeding more mouths overall. On that reading, Jōmon Tōhoku looks less like a place progress hadn’t reached yet, and more like a society that had, for the time being, gotten the trade-off right. When rice cultivation spread from the south a few centuries BCE, it transformed western Japan’s population almost overnight; Northern Tōhoku — too cool for the era’s rice — simply carried on as it was, rich in forest and hunting grounds regardless. The cool, concentrated deciduous forests that resulted are why the neighboring Shirakami mountains now hold UNESCO World Heritage status.
Ani’s Matagi may not descend directly from Jōmon people, but they have carried a hunting-and-gathering lifestyle forward inside these same forests for centuries, even developing their own mountain dialect — inheriting that world’s spirit, perhaps, more purely than anywhere else in Japan still populated today. Their own origin account traces to the 9th century, to a hunter named Banji Banzaburo, who is said to have aided the mountain deities in a great battle; in gratitude, the emperor granted him a scroll permitting free hunting throughout the land. Matagi lineages still preserve these imperial scrolls today — it’s why this valley, not just “somewhere in Tōhoku,” carries the name.
The Matagi are the clearest living thread back to that world: a hunting culture organized around gratitude rather than conquest, still practiced — part-time, and increasingly by young people who moved here on purpose — in the villages around Ani.
WHO ARE THE MATAGI
Not hunters. Guardians standing between two worlds.
Matagi is often translated simply as “hunter,” but the people who carry the name describe something closer to a boundary-keeper — someone who moves between the human world and the mountain world, and answers to both.
A hunting party is led by a shikari, chosen for judgment and character as much as skill. Game is never described as “taken” — it is itadaita, received, a gift the mountain deity happened to grant that day. What’s caught is shared equally among the party (matagi kanjō), and nothing is wasted. Foragers by the same code leave several plants standing in every patch they harvest, so their grandchildren find the same patch still full.
“Leave enough for those who come after us.”
Paraphrased from an interview with a Matagi guide of ORIYAMAKE, on why he never takes everything a plant offers.That ethic has a modern edge, too. As Japan’s rural population thins, the buffer zone between forest and village has quietly disappeared — and bears have followed it into towns, a national news story most years. Matagi hunting, practiced at the scale it always was, is one of the older answers to keeping that boundary where it belongs.
That pull increasingly runs both ways. In a Japan where modern life can feel airless — screens, competition, distance from anything that visibly sustains you — a small but growing number of young people are choosing the opposite: a relationship with nature built on sharing rather than competing, and a spirituality that seems to offer real peace of mind and self-belief alongside it. Several have moved to Ani specifically to become Matagi within the last decade; one of the newest is a programmer who is now a Matagi as well.
This itinerary does not include hunting, and guests are never asked to take part in one. Depending on the season, a guided forest walk may pass through active management land, so incidental wildlife activity (such as pheasant) can occasionally be part of the surrounding landscape rather than the day’s program. What guests do eat — deer culled separately under Japan’s wildlife-management program, and bear taken under the Matagi’s own strictly licensed seasonal hunt — is prepared with the same gratitude shown to anything the mountain provides.
THE PEOPLE YOU MEET
Working Matagi, across three generations.
Everyone your guests meet earns their living in this valley — forestry, farming, an inn, a mountain guiding business. The community is aging, but it is not disappearing: several of today’s active Matagi, including some of the youngest, moved to Ani from elsewhere on purpose, within the last decade, and are now the ones carrying the culture forward.
Shikari (leader) · Uttō Matagi Group
Hideo Suzuki
Ninth-generation Matagi, born into a hereditary hunting lineage and formally initiated at 15 — Suzuki-san has spent a lifetime inside the role, not arrived at it late. As shikari he is the one every other Matagi in this story ultimately answers to, the only person authorized to perform kebokai, the ritual returning a bear’s spirit to the mountain deity. Guides describe him as leading with quiet humor rather than authority. His personal backing — “master of masters” among Ani’s living Matagi — is what makes this program possible at all: it is offered with his support, not around him.
Host · Lodge ORIYAMAKE
Hideyuki Oriyama
Originally worked in film production in Tokyo, but the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake prompted his return to Akita. Three months into fatherhood, with Tokyo’s water supply compromised, he was handed two 2-liter bottles to last his family a week — while his own family back in Akita had a wood stove, a spring, and their own smoked fish and foraged greens, and told him not to worry. That contrast sent him home, where he became a Matagi and established Lodge ORIYAMAKE. Nine years into hunting, he now hosts guests from 18 countries in his family’s farmhouse.
Younger Matagi
Kou Masuda
Drawn to the Matagi way of life, Kou relocated from Hiroshima to embrace this ancient mountain culture. As a young practitioner, he represents the new generation of Matagi finding innovative ways to sustain traditional lifestyles in the modern world — including an online shop for local specialty products such as kuromoji-wood tea.
Younger Matagi · Ryōgetsusha Farm
Nozomi Kimura
Nozomi relocated to Ani from Yamanashi Prefecture with his wife, captivated by Matagi culture. He operates Ryōgetsusha Farm while serving as a SUP and kayaking instructor — traditional Matagi never used watercraft, so this is the modern evolution of Matagi life, not a revival of it.
Younger Matagi · Matsuhashi Ryokan
Kakeru Matsuhashi
The 16th-generation heir to both Matsuhashi Ryokan and a hereditary Matagi family lineage — inherited status on both counts, not just one. Japan’s depopulating countryside has let its forests grow back to a scale not seen in three or four centuries — since before the Edo-era logging that once left its mountains bare. That recovery has come out of balance: deer and other wildlife have surged along with it, and conflict with nearby villages has surged too. The traditional answer, Matagi hunting to keep predator and prey in check, continues today mostly as government-mandated culls — but the game meat (jibie) it produces often has nowhere to go, and much of it is wasted for lack of a distribution channel. That waste troubles Kakeru. Taking up his father’s calling to become a Matagi himself, he’s working to build wider distribution and use for that meat, so what the mountain gives is used the way the Matagi’s own ethic of gratitude asks: with nothing wasted. His father Toshihiko is profiled below.
Two more who make it possible
A craft partner, and the innkeeper whose river runs through Day 2.
Craft partner · Nishine Bladesmith
The Nagasa Forge
The nagasa is the one tool every Matagi still carries — as functional as a samurai sword was symbolic, and, guides say, its soul. Guests visit the forge where they’re still hand-made, and can commission their own. (A craft encounter, not a Matagi profile — the smith supplies the community rather than hunting himself.)
Proprietor & fishing guide · Matsuhashi Ryokan
Toshihiko Matsuhashi
The proprietor of Matsuhashi Ryokan and a Matagi in his own right, Toshihiko personally guides guests on river fishing along the valley’s streams — the hands-on counterpart to his son Kakeru, who is carrying the family’s Matagi lineage forward (profiled above).
Which hosts are available depends on the season and each host’s own schedule — this is a living community, not a cast.
A note on the Akita dog
Akita’s own dog breed has a real thread back to this valley. Tokyo’s most famous Akita, Hachikō, waited at Shibuya Station for a decade after his owner’s 1925 death and today stands as one of the city’s best-known landmarks — but Hachikō was born, and the breed itself was developed, in nearby Ōdate. Part of that ancestry traces to matagi-inu, the hunting dogs Matagi once brought into these mountains as essential partners; brought down to Ōdate and bred larger over generations, that stock became the registered Akita Inu. Few Matagi hunt with a dog today, but the same regard for a dog as partner hasn’t gone anywhere — and Genta, who traces to that same working lineage, is one way guests can add a small piece of the older, dog-accompanied way of entering the mountain (see Day 2).
A note on the nagasa
Guests already shape a trail marker and their own chopsticks from one blade on Day 3 (see “What A Day Feels Like,” above) — the nagasa is built for exactly that kind of improvisation. Single-edged and roughly 18–21cm long, it clears brush, dresses game, and doubles as an emergency weapon, one blade covering jobs a modern packing list would split across three tools. Some versions, called fukuro-nagasa, take that logic further: the handle is a hollow socket, so a hunter caught without a spear could slide a cut sapling into it and improvise one on the spot. It’s handled with the same quiet respect shown to anything the mountain provides — never brandished, and passed hilt-first when shared. Guests who commission their own at the Nishine forge on Day 3 aren’t buying a souvenir; they’re continuing a hunter-to-smith relationship this valley has kept alive for generations.
The guides who carry the story across the language line
Every group travels with an interpreter-guide from one of our partner organizations, so nothing is lost between a Matagi’s own words and your clients.
Akitainu Tourism (Local DMO)
Seika Jasper Soh
Originally from Singapore. Tour coordinator for Akitainu Tourism with extensive knowledge of the Matagi, and has also produced content in collaboration with them — day-to-day continuity between the Matagi households and the group.
Representative · Yumeijin
Makito Kochihira
Originally from Okinawa, raised in Nepal. Leads Yumeijin, our Kakunodate-based partner — whose Akita INAKA Travel guiding program covers the samurai-district and craft context that opens the itinerary.
Co-founder · Three Goats
Quinlan Faris
Originally from Madison, Wisconsin, USA; moved to Japan more than two decades ago. A seasoned hiker with a passion for history, Buddhism and esoteric spiritual traditions, he leads the physically demanding sections, including the Akamizu Gorge trek.
WHAT A DAY FEELS LIKE
Small, specific, physical things.
01
Purified in wood smoke
Before entering the mountain, guides burn Morobi fir branches to mask the human scent — and, by tradition, to clear the mind. The same gesture opens the shrine blessing on Day 2.
02
You cut your own trail marker
Using a nagasa, guests shape a forked walking stick — and even their own chopsticks from kuromoji wood — one tool doing the job of three, the Matagi way of carrying less.
03
You read the forest floor
A cracked walnut shell tells you which animal ate it. Guides teach guests to reconstruct who passed, and when, from what’s left behind.
04
Dinner around the irori
Kiritanpo hot pot and game stew, cooked over the sunken hearth, likely followed by a side-by-side sake tasting with your hosts.
THE FLAGSHIP PRODUCT
Matagi Tour — 5 Days / 4 Nights
Our existing, tariffed product — built from our 2024/25 international trade familiarization tours and run every season since. This is the version to quote from today; the formats in the next section extend it.
The samurai gateway
Akita Shinkansen from Tokyo, 9:08 → 12:18. An oyakodon lunch on arrival, then Yumeijin leads a guided walk through preserved samurai residences, with a choice of one further experience: samurai iaido sword practice, Zen meditation, a fermented-food lecture and shopping at Ando Brewery, a sake-and-water workshop with local merchants, or a kabazaiku cherry-bark-craft workshop — a first, gentler encounter with Tōhoku’s respect for natural materials before the mountains begin. Overnight at a choice of Wanoi (a renovated samurai storehouse) or Wabizakura (a countryside farmhouse with hot springs).
Onto the Akita Nairiku Line
The single-track Akita Nairiku Jukan Railway carries guests into Matagi country, 9:58 → 10:54 — local farm mothers often board to sell handmade regional sweets along the way. A short taxi ride reaches Uttō Onsen Matagi-no-yu, where the shikari and young Matagi welcome guests and give a full lecture on Matagi life using the onsen’s own Matagi Museum exhibits, followed by a ramen-or-curry lunch. Then the Matagi Shrine mountain-entry ritual: purification in the smoke of burning Morobi fir branches, led by Suzuki-san. A hike to Yasunotaki Falls follows (about 2 hours, 3.6km, +192m/−191m elevation), walked alongside the shikari himself, past the quiet pond at Tsubunuma (an early-summer walk alongside Genta, an Akita dog who joins by arrangement through Akitainu Tourism, can be added here on request). In the evening, a second local train carries the group to Ani-Maeda, 16:31 → 17:35, where another Matagi is waiting; a short taxi ride reaches the lodge (ORIYAMAKE or Ryōgetsusha Farm) for a kiritanpo hot pot dinner over the irori, where the innkeeper — who once worked in Tokyo — shares his own story of returning to become a Matagi. Local movement within Ani uses the area’s scheduled community-taxi tourist route where timing allows; when it doesn’t line up with the day’s plan, we switch seamlessly to guide-driven transport or a nearby taxi.
A full day with the mountain
A morning on Oriyama-san’s own backyard mountain behind Lodge ORIYAMAKE: craft walking sticks and chopsticks from fallen branches using a nagasa, forage wild plants and mushrooms as the Matagi do, then an outdoor lunch cooked over his own fire using the harvested vegetables, mushrooms and game — including bear. In the afternoon, SUP or kayaking on Shikimi Lake with Matagi-turned-instructors, and a visit to the Nishine Matagi Nagasa Blacksmith to watch the forging of the knife every Matagi still carries. The day closes at the Quince Moriyoshi onsen, with dinner at the Mori no Terrace steakhouse. Overnight in Moriyoshi.
Akamizu Gorge, on foot Level 3–4 / demanding
The tour’s hard-adventure day: a 15.16km route with +422m / −423m of elevation change, on the ancient path Matagi once traveled to reach hot-spring resorts to sell meat and medicine, and to help communities troubled by wildlife damage. The trail still bears bear-claw marks on trees and animal tracks. Lunch is Matagi-prepared trail food, cooked on a small, low-impact fire kept deliberately light on the forest under Leave No Trace practice. Route and pace are confirmed day-of against current water levels; when conditions don’t allow the gorge crossing, we substitute a forest route on the same day. The destination is Shin-Tamagawa Onsen — entrance to Towada-Hachimantai National Park and, by reputation, Japan’s most acidic hot spring — where a Matagi hunter is said to have watched a wounded deer heal in these waters in 1680.Weather & water-level dependent
A softer final day
A bus from Shin-Tamagawa Onsen to Lake Tazawako, 9:30 → 10:34 — Japan’s deepest lake, almost perfectly circular, roughly 20km around and 423.4m deep. The same acidic water flowing down from Tamagawa Onsen gives the lake its mysterious lapis-lazuli glow. Cycling or SUP on the lake, an onigiri-making workshop at a local farm using prized local rice, and a stop at a honey shop before the journey ends with a bullet train from Tazawako back to Tokyo.
Rates & terms — 2025/26 season
Per Michinori Travel Tohoku’s current tariff, effective through the 2026 season| Format | 4 nights / 5 days |
| Group size | Min. 4 — max. 8 per our official tariff, set by host-household capacity; up to 12 possible with an adjusted guide ratio, on request |
| Difficulty | Level 2 overall; Day 4 (Akamizu Gorge) is Level 3–4 — 15.16km, +422m/−423m — see itinerary |
| Meeting / finish | JR Kakunodate Station, 13:30 → JR Tazawako Station, 16:00 |
| Operating season | June – November per our official tariff (a broader May–November window is possible on request; a winter, snow-tracking edition is in development — ask us) |
| Languages | Japanese & English, with an accompanying interpreter-guide |
| Client profile | Independent travelers & small groups |
| Dietary / access | Vegetarian and allergy requests accommodated with advance notice; Day 4 requires moderate fitness — a gentler substitute route is available |
- Through-guide, Japanese–English interpretation throughout
- All meals
- All ground transport, meeting point to dismissal
- Twin-share accommodation each night
Not included
- Rail/transport to JR Kakunodate and from JR Tazawako
- Alcohol beyond the included sake tasting, and gratuities
- Travel insurance; single-occupancy supplement quoted on request
A 3-day / 2-night “Matagi Encounter” format (Ani only, no Kakunodate/Tazawako extension) is also available as a shorter add-on to an existing Japan itinerary — ask us for rates. Cancellation terms run on 60/30/14-day tiers; the full policy, our standard guide-to-guest ratio of roughly 1:6 with an additional sweep guide added on technical sections such as the gorge day, and our insurance coverage are confirmed in writing with every formal quotation.
Along the line: the Akita Nairiku Railway, station by station
One single-track railway carries this entire itinerary through Matagi country. For buyers building their own variation, here’s what sits at each stop.
Where Day 2 begins
A short taxi ride reaches the Matagi Museum, Uttō Onsen Matagi-no-yu, and the Matagi Shrine mountain-entry ritual — the welcome station for this itinerary.
Matsuhashi Ryokan
Home to Toshihiko and Kakeru Matsuhashi, and the river-fishing encounter and Matagi photo archive featured above.
Gateway to Moriyoshi
Onward transport toward Mt. Moriyoshi and the wider Moriyoshi area, where Day 3’s mountain workshop takes place.
Ryōgetsusha Farm
The closest station to one of our two Day 2 lodging options, run by Nozomi Kimura.
Lodge ORIYAMAKE
Our other Day 2 lodging option, the stop for the Nishine Matagi Nagasa Blacksmith visited on Day 3, and the station Quince Moriyoshi — Night 3’s onsen — is built into.
Station and landmark positions are plotted to their real surveyed coordinates, not schematized — the bends around Ani-Matagi and Hitachinai are the line’s actual route through the valley. The Day 3–5 road/bus legs beyond Ani-Maeda-Onsen are shown as straight indicative connections, not a surveyed road path.
WHERE THEY SLEEP
Four nights, each a different kind of Tōhoku.
None of these are chain hotels. Every night is inside the same story the day was telling — a storehouse, a Matagi’s own farmhouse, a station platform, a volcanic spring.
Wanoi
Six rooms built inside renovated 100+-year-old storehouses and a former samurai residence in the historic district — a silk warehouse, a document store, a pickle cellar — each keeping the character of its original use.
Wabizakura
A 200-year-old thatched farmhouse relocated to a quiet mountainside 15 minutes from Kakunodate Station, with private in-room hot-spring baths fed by a continuous natural source.
Lodge ORIYAMAKE
Hideyuki Oriyama’s own family farmhouse (or Ryōgetsusha Farm as an alternate) — where the kiritanpo hot pot is cooked over the sunken hearth the night guests arrive, and where the next morning’s backyard-mountain activities begin.
Quince Moriyoshi
An onsen hotel built into the Akita Nairiku Railway’s own Ani-Maeda station building, with indoor and outdoor baths and rooms looking directly onto the platform. (Photo to follow.)
Shin-Tamagawa Onsen
Entrance to Towada-Hachimantai National Park and, by reputation, Japan’s most acidic hot spring — the trail’s reward after the Akamizu Gorge crossing.
MORE WAYS TO SELL IT
The same guides, shaped for different clients.
Same place, different lens: the flagship 5-day format is our best-tested product, and these are formats we can build to spec around the same hosts and locations — tell us which fits your client base and we’ll develop a full itinerary and rate.
The Hunter’s Line
Tōdō Falls into Akamizu Gorge, a night at Shin-Tamagawa Onsen on the park’s edge, then deeper into Towada-Hachimantai National Park toward Hachimantai itself — retracing a route Matagi once walked between mountain hot-spring markets. Hachimantai’s own onsen resorts and comfortable ryokan make a soft landing after the hard days, with scheduled bus service into Morioka — northern Tōhoku’s transit hub — in under two hours, an easy launch point for whatever comes next, the Michinoku Coastal Trail included.
The old Matagi road out of the mountains, still walkable.
Irori & Sansai: The Matagi Table
Forage → cook over the hearth → visit the knife-maker who makes it possible → a contrasting river-fish dinner at a second guesthouse. One valley, three food systems.
Eat the whole story, not just the highlight dish.
Forest Detective
Animal-track reading reframed as a kids’ field investigation; trekking-pole-making and an Akita-dog walk sit alongside optional adult-only hard-adventure days (knife work and sake tasting are not part of the family day — children join a parallel guided activity).
Kids read the forest like a detective reads clues.
Paddle & Pedal
Built around SUP and cycling rather than trekking — on Shikimi Lake, Lake Tazawako, and the valley’s back roads — with the same hosts and hearths, for clients who want the culture and scenery at a lower-impact, water-and-wheels pace. Day count and route built to your client; ask us.
Same valley, a gentler rhythm.
Also available on request: a rail-narrative format built around the Akita Nairiku Line itself, a photography/media-creator itinerary with golden-hour access and consenting host portraits, and — in winter — snowshoeing or backcountry skiing at Mt. Moriyoshi’s Ani Ski Resort with Anaba Lodge, run by a long-time American resident guide whose Japan Ski Tours also guides across northern Tōhoku and Hokkaidō.
BEYOND ANI
One valley, or a whole region — depending what your client needs.
Same story, wider map: Matagi country sits inside a wider northern Tōhoku that includes samurai-era craft towns, a volcanic highlands, and 1,000 km of post-tsunami coastal trail. We’ve already run one such combination as a trade FAM; the rest are itineraries we can develop to the same standard.
Craft & Culture Rail Journey
Kakunodate → Ani → Tazawako — this is our flagship 5-day product above, described as what it also is: a single-prefecture route on rail infrastructure we already operate on, with only one variable transfer to plan around.
Mountains to Sea
Matagi culture set against the Sanriku fishing communities’ very different relationship with a sea that gives and occasionally takes everything. Developed from our 2024/25 international FAM itinerary using Akita Shinkansen, the Akita Nairiku Line, JR Hachinohe Line, and Sanriku Railway.
- Day 1 — Kakunodate → Ani-Matagi by chartered rail car; shrine ritual & welcome
- Day 2 — Hachimantai highlands stop (ranch & craft encounter) en route to the coast
- Day 3–4 — Sanriku coast: a Michinoku Coastal Trail day-hike, a fishing-village lunch, and an afternoon with residents who choose to share their own account of the 2011 recovery, on their terms
Open for quotation once transfer legs are reconfirmed — ask us for the full FAM itinerary and current-season rate.
Two Mountain Cultures
Matagi hunter-gatherer pragmatism, then Dewa Sanzan’s Shugendō pilgrimage in Yamagata — two different answers to the same mountain, framed as a single reflective arc. We’re finalizing the Yamagata guide partnership now, and aiming to have this bookable for the 2027 season.
Jōmon Roots to Shirakami-Sanchi
A further 3–4 hours north sits the Shirakami-Sanchi UNESCO World Heritage beech forest — home to a separate Matagi community and genuinely untouched old-growth wilderness. En route, the Sannai-Maruyama Jōmon ruins near Aomori make the deep history behind “Why Northern Tōhoku” (above) a physical site guests can stand in, not just a story we tell — for operators building a 10+ day flagship Tōhoku circuit.
Also available to build to spec: a Towada-Hachimantai National Park loop through volcanic highlands and onsen country — with a visit to Hitomi Satō, a local craftswoman, at her own 100-plus-year-old farmhouse for a home-cooked regional meal — and an Oku-Nanbu route tracing the Old Kazuno Road and its lacquerware tradition, which can take in a sake-brewery visit in Ninohe. Both extend naturally from either end of the flagship itinerary.
Every combination beyond the flagship product is quoted after we confirm exact transfer times, partner accommodation, and seasonal access with you. What sets Michinori Travel Tohoku apart from a generic Japan cultural-tour listing isn’t a claim — it’s that our own guides built the Michinoku Coastal Trail’s tourism infrastructure and live in the region we’re selling, so a transfer that breaks gets fixed by someone local, the same day.
THE GUARDIAN ETHOS
Sustainability isn’t the pitch. It’s the product.
01
Guests never hunt
Every experience is observational and participatory in craft, ritual, and foraging — never in hunting itself. Full detail on our approach to hunting and food is in “Who Are the Matagi” above.
02
Income that keeps the culture alive
Several of today’s Matagi, including some of the youngest, moved to Ani specifically for this way of life. Guiding income is what lets a genuinely part-time tradition support a new generation.
03
Trained to the standard you expect
Our guiding team includes a holder of the GSTC Professional Certificate in Sustainable Tourism and a Leave No Trace Level 1 Instructor, and trains to those standards across all our guided programs.
WHO’S BEHIND THIS
A Tōhoku-based DMC, not a Tokyo agency reselling one.
Michinori Travel Tohoku is a registered travel agency headquartered in Morioka, Iwate, built by a public bus operator, Iwate Kenpoku Bus, whose day job is keeping regional transport running for the towns it serves — not a Tokyo head office with a Tōhoku brochure. That’s the root of the whole approach: landing-type tourism (chakuchigata kankō) developed for this region, by people already embedded in it. Together with Three Goats — an adventure-guiding company founded by one of Michinori Travel Tohoku’s own former employees — we’ve built a genuine track record at the front edge of northern Tōhoku adventure travel, arranging the inbound adventure-travel work behind the Michinoku Coastal Trail, the 1,000km long-distance trail we helped develop after the 2011 earthquake, well before this Matagi product existed.
That work was recognized outside the region in 2026, when Three Goats was named to The 30 Collection — the inaugural 30 winners of Forbes JAPAN’s “Destinations of the Year” award, co-hosted with J-CAT, which singles out operators turning a place’s own culture, nature, food, craft, and human relationships into the experience itself. Established April 1, 1994, with 65 million yen in capital and a team of 5 executives and 33 employees, the company is led by President & CEO Takahiro Soma, operating branch offices in Miyako, Kuji, and Hachinohe, a Tokyo branch, our own Travel Information Center, and an office in Taiwan — a footprint built for exactly this kind of inbound itinerary, with a fallback if a route needs to change on short notice. We deliver this product end to end through established partnerships with Three Goats (English-language adventure guiding), Yumeijin (Kakunodate cultural guiding), and Akitainu Tourism (Ani’s local DMO) — alongside sister travel agencies Cassiopeia DMC and KI Travel, and, within our wider group, East Japan Transportation’s Jōdogahama Park Hotel and Morioka Tsunagi Onsen Shikitei. Unlike a general Japan cultural-tour listing, every leg of this itinerary runs on infrastructure and relationships we built ourselves.
BEFORE YOU QUOTE IT
Questions ATTA-member buyers usually ask us first.
Is this safe for clients who aren’t experienced hikers?
The 5-day format includes one genuinely demanding day (the Akamizu Gorge trek, Level 3–4). We grade every group’s fitness before confirming that day, and can substitute a gentler forest walk instead. The 3-day “Encounter” format and the Forest Detective family concept skip the gorge day entirely. Every day includes a briefing on risk, weather, wildlife, and cultural etiquette before guests set out.
What’s the guide-to-guest ratio and emergency plan?
Our standard ratio is roughly one guide per six guests, with an additional sweep guide added on technical sections such as the gorge day. Guides carry radios and GPS, first-aid and thermal kits, and satellite communication where terrain requires it. Exact ratios, licensing, insurance coverage, and our emergency-evacuation plan for that day are confirmed in writing with every formal quotation — tell us your group size and we’ll provide specifics.
Do guests actually hunt, or see live hunting?
This itinerary does not include hunting, and guests are never asked to take part in one — see “Who Are the Matagi” above for the full explanation, including how the deer and bear served at meals are sourced.
Net rate or commissionable?
The price shown is our published net rate; retail commissionable structure is quoted separately on request, along with rooming arrangements, single supplements, and our 60/30/14-day cancellation tiers.
What about dietary needs or guests with limited mobility?
Vegetarian and allergy requests are accommodated with advance notice. Day 4’s gorge trek is the one physically demanding day; groups can substitute a gentler forest walk, and the 3-day “Encounter” format skips it entirely.
Does everyone have to arrive via the Akita Shinkansen?
Tokyo by Shinkansen via Morioka to Kakunodate is our default routing and what we quote from. The region also has two domestic airports of its own: Akita Airport (AXT — ANA and JAL, roughly nine Haneda flights a day plus Osaka, Sapporo, and Nagoya routes) connects to Kakunodate by a reserved shared-taxi service (about an hour) or by airport bus to Akita Station and onward rail; Ōdate–Noshiro Airport (ONJ — ANA, three Haneda flights a day) connects by airport bus to Takanosu or Ōdate, both on the JR Ōu Main Line with a change to the Akita Nairiku Railway. Neither airport has international service, so overseas guests still connect through Haneda or another gateway first — but either can shorten the trip in for a domestic-heavy or Haneda-based itinerary.
Reference diagram, not to scale — schematic connections only; confirm date-specific train and transfer times before booking. Sources: Natural Earth, Ōdate–Noshiro Airport, Akita Airport, JR East, Akita Nairiku Railway.
Can you build a longer, multi-region itinerary?
Yes — see “Beyond Ani” above. The Craft & Culture Rail Journey is quotable today; Mountains to Sea is open for quotation once transfer legs are reconfirmed; the remaining regional extensions are built to spec once we’ve confirmed transfer times and partner capacity with you directly.
SEE IT FIRST
Watch before you sell it.
Three short films from our own social channels — the same footage we show adventure-travel buyers before they commit to a FAM trip. Play any of them right here. For the full story, there’s also a long-form documentary.
FULL-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY · YOUTUBE
Echoes of Tradition: Matagi Mountain Guardians
An independent documentary profiling the shikari and Matagi hunters our tour is built around — worth watching before any buyer call.
Not ready for a full quotation yet? We’re glad to set up a short call, walk through a sample day-by-day cost breakdown, or host you or a colleague on an upcoming FAM trip — see contacts below.
TALK TO US AT ATWS 2026
Let’s build your clients’ route to the guardians of the beech forest.
Travel proposals & commercial terms
Wakako Sakuraba
Send your dates, group size, and comfort level for a tailored itinerary and trade quotation via our enquiry form.
w.sakuraba@michinoritravel-tohoku.jp
Go to the enquiry form →
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