Totsukawa Village is Japan’s largest village, and we only stayed there for four nights and five days. We spoke with many different people in the region, and every time we did we found more and more interesting things about the village, so we were running ourselves ragged trying to see them all.

You might be thinking, “Well, you went there to do research, right?”, but you’d be wrong. All we did was follow our Tomodachi Guides around. A Tomodachi Guide is a local who takes you around like a friend would. Our Tomodachi Guides were Ms. Kakuta and Ms. Miura, who live in Totsukawa Village and interact with the people there every day. They led us on a fateful journey to some of the deepest parts of the village that we would never have found on our own. A Tomodachi Guide might even be able to translate for overseas visitors as well.

In other words, with a Tomodachi Guide you can probably experience the same journey we did--or, even better, you might experience things we never did, things we didn’t even know about. Even if you can’t meet with a Tomodachi Guide, we’d be happy if you could use this guide as a Tomodachi Guide. More than anything else, we’d love it if you went out to meet the people we introduced in this guide. Most of the locals in the “Locals you might meet” sections should be somewhere around if you go to the places we suggest. It might be a little hard to meet the mayor, but if you stroll around the village, you’re sure to spot someone. When you do, tell them you listened to this guide. What kind of stories will they tell you when they hear that? Undoubtedly it’ll be a story just for you.


※ Contact a Tomodachi Guide here
https://bit.ly/2SuUjwD

ON THE TRIP Editorial Staff
Design: Shiga Akihito
Written by: Io Kawauchi
Photography: Hiroshi Honma
Translation: Dale Roll, Jean Paul Souki Pacheco
Narration: Kate Beck

Huber. Tomodachi Guide
Hanako Kakuta
Kiwako Miura
https://www.huber.co.jp/

*This guide was created based on documents and interviews and includes some interpretation done by us at ON THE TRIP. Theories differ between experts, so try to find out what really happened on your travels!