Koichi.

Japan guide, rooted in the Kumano Kodo, Wakayama

This is Koichi. His journey with Spain began for a very simple reason: a girl he liked at university signed up for a Spanish class, so he did too. The romance did not last — but his love for Spanish did. He studied the language for four years, spending many afternoons in the library and working part-time to save money for his first trip to Spain. When he was nineteen, he finally had the chance to join a language course there. It was his first time living abroad, and honestly, he was very nervous. At the beginning, he could barely speak Spanish. One evening, after a difficult first week, he felt overwhelmed during dinner with his host mother and started crying because he felt so lost. She hugged him and said, "You are my son. This is your home. Don't worry." He still remembers those words clearly.

From that day, Spain stopped feeling like a foreign country. He and his host family watched TV together, talked about everyday life, and little by little, he began to feel at home. Before he left, he promised her that he would return one day and stay longer. But life took a different path. The pandemic cancelled his plans, they lost contact, and for a while he lost his motivation too. He went to Canada to improve his English, but things did not go as he had hoped. When he returned to Japan, he felt unsure about what he was doing with his life. Later, he began walking the Kumano Kodo more deeply. In its forests, old shrines, small villages, and quiet mountain paths, he started to feel a connection he could not ignore. The Kumano Kodo reminded him of Spain. He learned that it is connected with the Camino de Santiago as a sister pilgrimage route, and along the way he met travellers from many countries, including Spanish-speaking pilgrims. Somehow, the language and the country he thought he had drifted away from started to come back into his life through Kumano.

That connection lit something inside him again. Seven years after his first visit to Spain, he returned and walked the Camino de Santiago himself. It was a meaningful journey — not because he had all the answers, but because walking helped him reconnect with the things that mattered to him. That is why he guides. Koichi knows what it feels like to arrive in a new place feeling excited, nervous, curious, and maybe a little lost. He also knows how powerful it can be when someone welcomes you, shares a story, or simply walks beside you. For Koichi, guiding is not only about explaining history or showing famous places. It is about helping you feel comfortable, creating space for real conversations, and sharing the quieter moments that make a journey stay with you. Whether you're walking through the sacred forests of Kumano, exploring Kyoto, Nara, Mount Fuji, or discovering another part of Japan together, he hopes you will leave not only with beautiful photos, but with memories that feel personal. He guides in English and Spanish, and would be very happy to welcome you to Japan.