Family Road Trip around Western Japan

We’d visited many of these sights before, back in 2018, when we opted to train and bus hop around Northern Kyushu with nothing but our packs. This time was a more elaborate affair but at the same time particularly freeing as we planned a road trip around western Japan with Amy’s family in tow.

It was invigorating to know these locations still felt so familiar, even years later, and in a different season. And although not much time had passed, there was still a mild nostalgia for the windswept karst landscape of Akiyoshidai Quasi National Park; for the sand and food stalls of Miyajima; for the quiet chaos of Nara’s deer.

But much was new to us: Nagato and its quiet; Tsunoshima Bridge and its clear call to the sea; the Yamanami Highway and its blistering winds; Beppu and its colourful hells; Hiroshima and its solemn statements; Fukuoka and the calm it afforded us before our next leg of the trip.

By far our most beloved way of traveling has been via car, and this road trip around western Japan was no exception. Being on the road has afforded us our greatest ideas and our most animated conversations. Perhaps it’s because we don’t drive or commute on the daily that this otherwise mundane activity has been our ticket to our lives’ most cherished memories.

Snacks, roadside stops, music, and you by my side. There’s nothing sweeter.

CAMERAS
Hasselblad SWC, Olympus PenD, Contax G2

FILM STOCKS
Kodak Portra 160 & 400, Ilford HP5

DEVELOPMENT
The Lab — Vancouver, BC Canada

FILM SCANNING
Half Frame / 35mm on Fuji Frontier SP500
Medium Format via Camera Scanning