Hiking Yakushima, Japan: forests, monkeys and mountains on island that inspired a Hayao Miyazaki film

Ancient cedar trees and unique wildlife are among the attractions of a hike across mountainous Yakushima, a Unesco World Heritage site

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Wilson’s Stump, the remains of a giant cedar tree in the forests of Yakushima, southern Japan. A three-day hike takes visitors across the mountainous island. Photo: Fiona Ching

Cameron Dueck

Published: 11:55am, 10 Jun 2024Updated: 4:41pm, 10 Jun 2024

We are only a dozen steps into the forest the first time we stop to gawp, our necks craned to scan the towering canopy.

We are surrounded by trees that creak in the gentle wind, and 1,000 shades of green that shimmer in the morning light.

This is why we have come to Yakushima, an island about 200km (125 miles) south of the city of Kagoshima in southern Japan. We are craving a dose of chlorophyll, and a three-day trek amid the mountain peaks of an island famed for its wildlife and ancient cedar forests promises all that we can take.

Most of Yakushima was logged at some point, starting early in Japan’s Edo period (1603-1867), but the forest has been conscientiously replanted since logging ended in the late 1960s.

The author hikes up a trail in Yakushima. Photo: Fiona Ching

Now the circular island is a protected national park criss-crossed by hiking trails and dotted with natural onsen, or hot spring baths, attributes that saw it become Japan’s first Unesco World Natural Heritage site in 1993.

Having sailed in and tied up our boat in the fishing port of Anbo, one of two small towns where most of the island’s 13,486 inhabitants live, we enter the forest at the Yodagawa Mountain Trail Entrance, clutching maps found at the tourist information office.