Audio walking guides in Mount Fuji
Photo: Manish Prabhune · CC BY-SA 4.0
These are self-guided audio walks around Mount Fuji. You pick a route, put one earbud in, and the guide talks you through it stop by stop — what you are looking at, and why it is there. There is no group to keep up with and no meeting time. 10 walks covering The Postcard, Climbing It, The Volcano, The Mountain as a God, Thirty-Six Views, The Five Lakes, Aokigahara, Where the Water Comes Out and more, 289 minutes of narration in total.
Start your free guideA free account is needed before a guide plays. Hear a minute first if you would rather try it than sign up for it.
Every walk in Mount Fuji
The Postcard: Chūreitō Pagoda and Fujiyoshida
There is a staircase in front of you and it goes up a long way. Just under four hundred steps, cut into a wooded hillside, and at the…
Climbing It: The Yoshida Trail
You are at about two thousand three hundred metres, in a car park with vending machines, shops selling walking sticks, and a great many people in brand-new outdoor…
The Volcano: 1707 and What Comes Next
The cone in front of you is not one volcano. It is three, built on top of each other over several hundred thousand years, and the smooth shape…
The Mountain as a God
This is Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha, at the southern foot of the mountain in Fujinomiya, and it is the head shrine of a network of somewhere around thirteen…
Thirty-Six Views: How Fuji Became an Image
Katsushika Hokusai was around seventy years old when he began the series that made him permanently famous, which is worth sitting with. He had been working as an…
The Five Lakes
Lake Kawaguchi is the one everybody comes to, and with reason: it has the train station, the hotels, the buses, the ropeway and the best reflection. It sits…
Aokigahara: The Forest That Grew on Lava
A word before we start, because you may have arrived here having seen this forest presented as a horror location. Aokigahara has an international reputation built almost entirely…
Where the Water Comes Out
Oshino Hakkai means the eight seas of Oshino, and it is eight spring-fed ponds in a village between Lake Kawaguchi and Lake Yamanaka. The water in them is…
The Eastern Side: Gotemba, Hakone's Edge and the Grasslands
Stand on the eastern side and the mountain looks different, and the difference is that there is far less forest on it. The northern and western flanks are…
When to Come and Where to Stand
Start with the uncomfortable fact. On a large proportion of days Mount Fuji cannot be seen at all, and a great many visitors travel here and go home…
Questions about walking Mount Fuji
What is the best self-guided walking tour in Mount Fuji?
It depends how long you have. The Postcard: Chūreitō Pagoda and Fujiyoshida (30 minutes, 6 stops) starts at Arakurayama Sengen Park, Fujiyoshida and is the one most people begin with. Climbing It: The Yoshida Trail covers a different part of the city in about 31 minutes. All 10 walks in Mount Fuji are listed on this page with their length and starting point.
Do I need to book a walking tour in Mount Fuji?
No. Every wanderaudio walk is self-guided, so there is nothing to book and no departure time. You start whenever you arrive, and you can stop halfway and pick it up the next day.
How much do the Mount Fuji audio guides cost?
Your first guide is free. You make a free account before it plays, with an email address or a Google login, and no card. After that a single guide is $4.99, a 30-guide pass, spendable on any guides in any cities, is $29.99, and every guide in Japan is $59.99. It is a one-off payment, not a subscription.
Are these tours in English?
Yes, all 10 Mount Fuji walks are narrated in English. Other languages are not available yet.
Can I do these walks alone?
Yes — that is what they are built for. There is no group and no guide waiting for you, so walking alone works exactly the same as walking with someone. You choose the pace and the order.