Big camping goal

We started camping back in 2011 because we wanted to see more of Japan (on a missionary's budget). Back in 2017 I wrote a post that showed, using a jigsaw puzzle, how many prefectures we've visited (either driven through, or stayed a night) And just to clarify: a prefecture is like a state, and—aside from Hokkaido, which is bigger tham Tasmania—they're a lot smaller than Australian states! So it's been an informal goal for some time, but recently I've found myself saying, "We want to camp in every prefecture before we retire." Someone asked me this week how many prefectures we've already camped in, and I wasn't sure. 

So I took some time to figure it out. I think it's 14, so we've got a fair way to go to get all 47 in before we retire (granted, we've theoretically got more than 15 years left). Given we camped in five of these in a single two-week trip, we can probably manage to knock a few off fairly quickly in a summer "camping tour". For example, one trip to Shikoku Island (the smallest of Japan's four main islands, which is roughly one quarter of the size of Tasmania) and we'd be able to visit the four prefectures on the island fairly quickly. Japan doesn't seem so large when you realise that we come from a country that is about 20 times larger and hence the prefectures are a lot smaller than our states.

These are the prefectures we've camped in, some of them multiple times: Hokkaido, Akita, Niigata, Ishikawa, Tochigi, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Aichi, Shiga, and Wakayama. (Pictured below)

These are the prefectures we've camped in (we've stayed in several others, but not in tents).

One hard aspect about this year has been how difficult it's been to plan. I had a conversation about this just yesterday. I'm supposed to be helping run a two-week onsite workshop in January. But it's really hard to know if that's going to be able to go ahead in its usual format. How much do you plan, and risk wasting a lot of time? When do you make the call?

Starting school this last month is another example. Usually we would be able to count on certain events happening: like inter-school competitions, camps, bazaars, etc. But this year we simply haven't. A week or so ago I realised that we've got a four-day weekend next month (teachers have good holidays, but there's not much choice about when you take them). October is a beautiful time to camp in this part of the world, so we're working on a plan for that. We're aiming to visit a prefecture that we've missed up till now, but really isn't that far away: Gunma. Nothing set in concrete yet, but you'll hear about it! 

Red arrow is where we live. Purple arrow points to Gunma Prefecture. Not quite
sure how we've missed camping there!

Camping, and planning for camping, are good ways for David and I to stay mentally and emotionally healthy. I'm so excited that there's one more chance before winter clamps its bone-chilling hand on the remainder of our year.