{
  "project": "Small Guide",
  "type": "route",
  "city": "Kumano Kodo",
  "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
  "place_line": "Kii-Katsuura / Shingū / Nachi",
  "country": "Japan",
  "curator": "André Ribeirinho",
  "description": "Radically simple, authored city guides. Small, edited lists of places, curated by André.",
  "url": "https://smallguide.to/kumano-kodo",
  "updated": "July 2026",
  "symbols": {
    "◎": "Soulful",
    "◌": "Planned (not yet visited)"
  },
  "places": [
    {
      "name": "Daimonzaka → Nachi Falls",
      "slug": "daimonzaka-nachi-falls",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Nachi",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Walk",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Stone, cedar, stairs, water; a short walk that carries more gravity than its distance suggests.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Kumano Nachi Taisha",
      "local_name": "熊野那智大社",
      "slug": "kumano-nachi-taisha",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Nachi",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Look",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Shrine, waterfall, mountain, and the feeling that landscape came before architecture.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Seiganto-ji",
      "local_name": "青岸渡寺",
      "slug": "seiganto-ji",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Nachi",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Look",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "The pagoda-and-waterfall image is famous for a reason; still, go past the image.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Nachi Falls",
      "local_name": "那智の滝",
      "slug": "nachi-falls",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Nachi",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Look",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Water as presence; loud, vertical, and older than every explanation around it.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Kumano Hayatama Taisha",
      "local_name": "熊野速玉大社",
      "slug": "kumano-hayatama-taisha",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Shingū",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Look",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A quieter Kumano gravity in town; good after the train, before the next walk.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Katsuura Port Tuna Auction",
      "slug": "katsuura-port-tuna-auction",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Kii-Katsuura",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Look",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Japan’s biggest fresh-tuna landing; from a second-floor deck you watch the morning auction, around seven most days but not Saturdays, rows of gleaming tuna and brokers working the floor, five minutes from the station.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Shirahama",
      "slug": "shirahama",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Shirahama",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Look",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A white-sand onsen town up the west coast; a good stop on the way in or out if you’re coming from Osaka or Kyoto, for the beach, the sea-cliffs, and an ancient bath at the water’s edge.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Minakata Kumagusu Museum",
      "local_name": "南方熊楠記念館",
      "slug": "minakata-kumagusu-museum",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Shirahama",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Look",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A museum to Minakata Kumagusu, the self-taught naturalist who catalogued slime moulds by the thousand, lectured the Emperor on them, and fought the shrine mergers that would have cleared these Kumano forests; ocean views from the top.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Oshokuji Dokoro Hirokichi",
      "local_name": "お食事処 ひろ吉",
      "slug": "oshokuji-dokoro-hirokichi",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Kii-Katsuura",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Eat",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "One of the finest meals I’ve had anywhere; small, intentional cooking that lets great ingredients lead, a short walk up from the harbour.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Yakiniku Hige",
      "local_name": "焼肉 ひげ",
      "slug": "yakiniku-hige",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Shingū",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Eat",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A yakiniku counter grilling certified Kumano beef, the only place in Wakayama licensed to serve it, and fifty years at it; marbled wagyu over the coals with a house sauce that hasn’t changed, walkable from Shingū Station.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Tanpuku",
      "local_name": "丹福",
      "slug": "tanpuku",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Shingū",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Coffee",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Good specialty coffee (and cake) a few minutes from Shingū Station; as much a gathering point for the Kumano Kodo walking community as a café.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Hotel Urashima",
      "local_name": "ホテル浦島",
      "slug": "hotel-urashima",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Kii-Katsuura",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Architecture",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "The area’s iconic hot-spring hotel, out on a cape you reach by its own boat; the Bokidō bath is the largest natural sea-cave onsen in Japan, open to the Pacific and best at sunrise, and the Space Walker, a 150-metre escalator bored up through the mountain, climbs to a summit bath and a 360° view.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Kii-Katsuura Station",
      "local_name": "紀伊勝浦駅",
      "slug": "kii-katsuura-station",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Kii-Katsuura",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Move",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Not a destination but the useful hinge: trains, buses, rain, walking legs, and the next temple.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Shingū Station",
      "local_name": "新宮駅",
      "slug": "shingu-station",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Shingū",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Move",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A practical base for shrines, rivers, buses, and plans that change with the weather.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Hongū",
      "local_name": "本宮",
      "slug": "hongu",
      "city": "Kumano Kodo",
      "local_city_name": "熊野古道",
      "area": "Hongū",
      "country": "Japan",
      "category": "Move",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "The pilgrimage’s pivot; buses run up the Kumano River from Shingū to Hongū, and from here more fan out to the trailheads and onsen villages of the Nakahechi.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    }
  ],
  "rituals": [
    {
      "title": "Start early",
      "area": "Kumano",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Walk before the day becomes humid and full; buy water, trust the buses, and let the first hour be quiet.",
      "google_maps_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Kumano+Kodo"
    },
    {
      "title": "A swim in the Pacific",
      "area": "Nachi Bay",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "After a day on the trail, the Pacific at Nachi Bay; the little station sits almost on the sand, so you step off the train and straight into the sea.",
      "google_maps_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Blue+Beach+Nachi"
    }
  ]
}