Planning Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands

Okinawa - by some compared as Japan's Hawaii - is known to most travelers to Asia and Japan in particular. It is also the favourite destination for Japanese tourists in the Ryukyus. They get what they look for - a well developed and convenient sub-tropical holiday paradise. But maybe it's only due to lack of time, as the entire island chain of some 150 islands streches over more than 1.000 km from the southern end of Kyushu to Taiwan.

The Ryukyus itself are locally better known by its regional archipelagos, like the Osumi Islands, Amami Islands, Okinawa Islands, and down South the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands. So maybe it is good to have a rough guide of the journey in your mind, and it is obvious that you need time. Especially when the starting point is solotravel, backpacking and camping, whereever possible.

A rough guide is not that difficult, as 'island hopping' in the Ryukyus is nowadays as simple as reliable - mostly by ferry, and larger distances by plane. And no worries on information of key destinations, local attractions and activities, although 'classic' travel guidebooks in western languages are limited. The 'First Comprehensive Guide to the Entire Ryukyu Island Chain' by R. Walker might come up on your first internet search. It provides an extensive list of the islands, but for my needs and travel mode the lengthy geographical descriptions 'as the crow flies' occupy too much space (and thus weight) ... and it's me who carries the backpack.

Indeed, these days - or should i say 'digital times' - there is plenty of tourism and transport related information by local authorities, tourism businesses and transport companies on the internet.There is also an open facebook group 'Hiking, climbing and camping in Japan' as well as 'freecampingjapan' that you can join for plenty of information regarding camping, backpacking and hot springs (to relax from any hard night out there).

It is true, especially for most of the remote islands in the archipelagos, many websites are in Japanese only. But a simple tool like 'google translate' instantly transformes most written content into a desired language ... and opens a new dimension to 'Westerners' visiting Japan.

And as mentioned in my last blog, my backpack is stuffed, and my 'rough guide' turned with the help of all that web information, google maps and google translate towards the first move: From Fukuoka to Ishigaki by Peach Airline, taking a ferry to Iriomote-jima to start my Ryukyu adventure from down South, hopping up island by island ...