{Shikoku Hachijūhachikasho Meguri}

--PLANNING--
--WHAT DOES IT COST?--

Cost Calculator

I think it is obvious that the cost of this pilgrimage is going to vary widely depending on whether or not you are starting from a home in Japan or overseas, whether you stay at a minshuku each night or sleep outdoors, whether you walk it in two months, one month, or go around in some other way, etc. There is no way to say what this trip is going to cost each and every henro — we are all different. Having said that, these are some guidelines to use as a benchmark and help you make plans.

Below i have included two tools to help you figure out what the trip might cost you. First is a list of the items that you may need to buy and the range in their approximate prices. At the very bottom of the page is a calculator that uses those costs and should allow you to come up with an approximate total for your trip.

In general, though, it can be said right up front that this trip is not cheap, even if you camp out each and every night. Almost all henro will end up carrying large sums of mney — maybe thousands of dollars.

Traveler's Checks
In the "old days" i carried my money as a mixture of cash and traveler's checks, but traveler's checks are no longer an option — to the best of my knowledge, no banks or post office branches on Shikoku now exchange them. The last time i tried at a bank they told me that there are too many forgeries floating around so all banks have stopped accepting them. In past editions of Shikoku Japan 88 Route Guide about a dozen post office branches were listed as willing to exchange them, but in the new 5^th edition of the guidebook (2017), that has been removed and it now says that these dozen post office branches only exchange foreign cash currency.

The best option today, and the option almost everyone uses, is to carry some cash and take money out of ATM machines every few days to replinish your supply as needed.

ATM Machines
Almost everyone now uses ATM machines to get cash, and these are everywhere because they can be found in most post offices and in every 7-11 convenience store all around the island. There are ATM machines in all convenience stores, but only the 7-11 ATMs allow allow cash withdrawals with non-Japanese issued credit and debit cards.

• 7-11 is your ticket to accessing your money, and everything you need to know about where, when, and how can be found on their web site: www.sevenbank.co.jp/intlcard/index2.html. They say the limit per transaction for foreign issued cards is ¥100,000.

• Every post office indicated in the guidebook Shikoku Japan 88 Route Guide will have an ATM machine from which you can withdraw money. It seems that how much you can withdraw with each transactions depends on your card: some cards are limited to ¥30,000/transaction, others are limited to ¥50,000/transaction. Once you find a machine you can choose which language you want to interact with. Then simply follow the instructions. See their web site: www.jp-bank.japanpost.jp/en/ias/en_ias_index.html.

• Post office ATMs are not open 24x7. Plan carefully. Typical small town ATMs are available from 9:00am to 5:30pm, Monday through Friday. 9:00am to 12:30pm, Saturday. Closed on Sunday and holidays. However, the large, central post office in major cities (like prefectural capitals) will have longer hours and can be open on Sunday.

• Banks are usually open from 9:00am to 3:00pm, Monday through Friday. Some branches in the larger cities may keep later hours, and some may be open on Saturdays until 2:00 pm.

A Few Words of Caution
Because you are travelling in a cash oriented country, you are going to end up carrying a lot more cash than you may be used to. However, my recommendation is NOT to carry all of your money in cash. During each week of the walk, withdraw just enough cash from an ATM to cover your planned expenses for the next week, plus a little extra "just in case." If the worst should happen and you lose your money (through foolishness or robbery), if you were carrying everything, you are out of luck and your pilgrimage may be over; if most of your money is still in the ATM, you can't lose everything.

The good news is that the crime rate in Japan is still very low. I never once felt threatened while on the island, and never once felt worried about my money. With common sense precautions, carrying all this money will not be a problem. These precautions include:

• Never show how much money you have. I.E., don't flash large wads of cash at the convenience store.

• Keep the vast majority of your money in your money belt or in the bottom of your pack. Only keep small amounts of cash readily available. People rarely see more than ¥10,000 in my possession. The rest is always out of sight.

• If you are going to have your money stolen, my guess is that it will happen at your lodging for the night, even though i have never seen it. There are no such things as locks on the doors, and when you are in the bath, you can't very well take your money with you. This means that at some point you are going to leave your money unattended. I long ago decided that i am comfortable just burying all of my money at the very bottom of my pack when i check in, and then not worrying about it. And i have never had a problem.

• You usually pay for your room in the morning just after eating breakfast. My recommendation (based on the policy of never showing how much you really have) is to get out enough money to last the entire day and set that aside while still in the privacy of your room. Bury the rest in your pack or money belt. At breakfast, when you pay for your room, pay from this small amount of money. When you pull out your wallet or money pouch, no one sees more than about ¥10,000 in your possession.

• The other place it could be possible to have your money stolen is at a temple. What all of us henro do is: arrive at a temple, find a bench, drop our pack there, take out our stamp book, head to the hondō and Daishiō, then to the stamp office. After that, we return to the bench to where we left our pack. We all do this. Virtually (maybe literally) 100% of us. That means our pack is out of our sight the entire time we are at a temple. If you leave your money sitting inside your pack, but at the very top, it could go missing. Keep it buried at the very bottom. I've never heard of someone having their entire pack stolen, or of someone coming back to a pack and finding that someone has opened it and dug everything out. If your money is at the bottom of the pack, you should be OK.

In general
Excluding the costs of outfitting yourself, the costs of any books & maps, and the costs of getting there, in general you can use these average costs as a starting point in your plans:

• $80 – $100/day, if you stay in a minshuku every night
• $50/day, if you stay at minshuku, but use free lodging whenever it is available.
• Less than that if you camp out every night.

Specifically
I spent about $6,300 for my walk in 1999, but that included airfare, books, everything else. The cost has obviously gone up since then, but for my most recent walk of Kōchi, Ehime, and Kagawa Prefectures in 2016 the total cost was about $3,500, not including airfare. During this 2016 walk, i usually spent about ¥8,000–¥8,500/day. Of that, ¥7,000 was for lodging each night and the remaining ¥1,500 was for lunch, snacks and occasional miscellaneous.

Anthony Kimple walked the trail in 2005, and either camped out or stayed in a Tsūyadō or Zenkonyado every night. Regarding his total cost, he says:

Sam Miller and Noah Zimmerman walked the trail in 2006, camped out every night. Regarding their costs, Sam wrote: