Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji is set along real places from Mannen Bridge and Nihonbashi in Tokyo to Hodogaya, Edo Bay off Kanagawa, Lake Suwa and the Fuji River at Kajikazawa.
The series was produced c. 1830 to 1832, and each plate names its place. The route follows seven of them, from the capital out toward the mountain. Several spots are only approximate, and the pins mark the nearest modern place.
Mishima's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is set in Kyoto at Kinkaku-ji, with earlier scenes near Maizuru and Cape Nariu, at Nanzen-ji and on the Sea of Japan coast at Yura.
The novel is loosely based on the burning of the Golden Pavilion by a young Buddhist acolyte in 1950. This route follows the narrator Mizoguchi from his childhood on the north coast to the night he sets the temple alight. Three stops are approximate and two are unpinned.
John Manjirō, the Japanese fisherman rescued in 1841, travelled from Tosashimizu in Japan to Honolulu, Fairhaven and New Bedford in Massachusetts, then home via Okinawa and Nagasaki.
This route follows the castaway from his fishing village to the wreck on Torishima, his school years in Fairhaven, whaling in the South Seas, the California gold fields, and his return to a closed Japan. Several stops are approximate: the sources name the places but not exact spots.
The Yamata no Orochi myth is set along the Hii River in Izumo, Shimane, with Mount Sentsu named as the battlefield and Yaegaki Shrine and Susa Shrine honouring Susanoo afterwards. The serpent's sword ends up at Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya.
The route follows the Kojiki story: the god Susanoo sees a chopstick floating down the river, meets a family upstream, and defeats an eight-headed serpent with sake. Every location is a traditional identification of a mythical event, not a proven site.
The Battles of Kawanakajima pitted Takeda Shingen of Kai against Uesugi Kenshin of Echigo on a plain near Nagano, with Zenkō-ji, Kaizu (Matsushiro) Castle and Kasugayama Castle as key sites.
The two warlords fought repeatedly over the plain. This route follows the fourth battle of 1561: Kenshin's march from Kasugayama, the signal fires from Kaizu Castle to Shingen's seat at Kōfu, and the legendary duel at Hachimanbara. The exact battlefield is traditional, and the duel itself is a tale from the chronicles.
Kawabata's The Dancing Girl of Izu (The Izu Dancer) is set on the Izu Peninsula, from Shuzenji and Yugashima over the Amagi Tunnel to Yugano and the harbour at Shimoda.
A student on the last days of his summer holidays follows a troupe of travelling musicians south, drawn to its youngest dancer. The route walks the same road, from the hot-spring towns of the north to the quay where he boards the boat home. Most pins mark a town or area rather than a single building.
Philipp Franz von Siebold's Japan story starts on Dejima, the Dutch trading island at Nagasaki, where the physician arrived in 1823. From there it runs to his Narutaki school, his 1826 court journey to Edo and his museum home in Leiden.
The route follows Siebold from Nagasaki to Edo, then to the SieboldHuis in Leiden and his grave in Munich. Nagasaki's Siebold Memorial Museum and Leiden's SieboldHuis can still be visited. The Edo stop is a general marker, not a single building.
Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, was born at Okazaki Castle and buried at Nikkō Tōshō-gū. His route also crosses the Sekigahara battlefield, Edo Castle in Tokyo and Sunpu Castle in Shizuoka.
Follow five places from his birth in 1543 through the 1600 battle, his rise to shogun in 1603, his retirement and his death in 1616. Sekigahara is pinned approximately to the town.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the foot soldier's son from Nakamura in Nagoya who rose to power, left his mark on Sunomata, Nagahama, Mount Tennozan, Osaka Castle, Jurakudai in Kyoto and Fushimi Castle.
This route follows his rise in order: the birthplace, the legendary one-night fort, his first lordship on Lake Biwa, the 1582 battle that avenged Nobunaga, and the great castles and palaces of his later years. Several of the original buildings are gone, so some stops are approximate.
Krishna's legend is set across northern and western India: born in Mathura, raised around Gokul, Vrindavan and Govardhan Hill, then his city of Dwarka in Gujarat, the battlefield of Jyotisar and his last place at Bhalka.
The seven stops follow the story from birth in a prison cell to his death by a hunter's arrow. Most sites are traditional identifications, so the labels say how firm each pin is.
Saint Nicholas, the early Christian bishop of Myra, was born at Patara, served at Myra (modern Demre) and now rests in Bari, with more relics in Venice. This route follows his legend from Lycia to Nicaea, Gemiler Island and Apulia.
Historians know little of the real man, so the route follows the traditional story and the journey of his bones. It ends in 1087, when sailors carried them across the sea, and in the Venice church that holds more.
Japan's legendary prince Yamato Takeru rides east from Ise Grand Shrine, escapes a burning plain at Yaizu, crosses Ashigara Pass and meets his end on Mount Ibuki. His sword ends up at Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya.
The route follows the legend, told in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki chronicles, through five places. Several are traditional identifications, so the pins mark shrines and mountains tied to the tale, not proven battlefields.
Momotarō, Japan's peach-born ogre-slayer, is tied to Okayama through the legend of the ogre Ura, Mount Kijo's fortress, Kibitsu Shrine and Megijima, the island of caves linked to Onigashima.
The route follows the Ura legend from the hilltop fortress to the shrines of Prince Kibitsuhiko, then the island of ogres and the statue at Okayama Station. The Okayama link to the tale is modern, and some stops are traditional identifications.
The legend of Romulus and Remus begins at Alba Longa in the Alban Hills and ends on Rome's Palatine and Aventine hills, with a she-wolf's cave and a fig tree along the Tiber in between. The bronze Capitoline Wolf still carries the story to visitors on the Capitoline Hill.
The route follows the myth from the twins' birth to the quarrel that leaves Romulus as founder. Most sites are traditional rather than proven, and the stops say so.
The Olympian gods' birthplaces are scattered across Greece: Zeus in a cave on Crete or on Mount Lykaion, Apollo and Artemis on Delos, Apollo's oracle at Delphi, and the gods' home on Mount Olympus.
The route follows the myths from Zeus's cradle to the mountain where the gods live. Ancient authors disagreed about where Zeus was born, so those first two stops are traditional claims, not proven sites.
The Irish legend of the Children of Lir runs from Lough Derravaragh in Westmeath to the Sea of Moyle off County Antrim, the mouth of the Bann, and Erris and Inishglora on the Mayo coast.
Four children of the sea-lord Lir are turned into swans by their jealous stepmother and spend 900 years on Ireland's waters. The route follows the three 300-year sentences to the bell that ends them. Several pins mark traditional areas, not exact spots.
The Mabinogion, Wales's medieval collection of myths, is set across Narberth in Pembrokeshire, Harlech, Tomen y Mur, Segontium and Dinas Emrys in Gwynedd. Its tales of Rhiannon, Branwen, Lleu and two fighting dragons have all been tied to real hills, forts and castles.
This route follows three of the Four Branches and two native tales, from Pembrokeshire to Gwynedd. Several identifications are traditional rather than proven, and each stop says so.
Egil's saga is set in Iceland, Norway and England, and begins at Borg, the farm where Skallagrim settled near today's Borgarnes. Its hero Egill is a poet and warrior whose road runs through the ale feast on Atløy, the battle of Vínheiðr, the Gulating assembly and York.
The route follows the saga from Skallagrim's settlement to Egill's old age, ending with the legend of his hidden silver near Mosfellsbær. Several places are only approximate, because the saga's sites are not firmly identified.
Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes follows a real 1878 walk from Le Monastier through Pradelles and the hills of Gévaudan to Pont-de-Montvert and Saint-Jean-du-Gard, with a night at a Trappist monastery on the way.
The route follows his stubborn donkey Modestine from the first purchase to her sale, at the end of the trail that now bears his name (GR 70). One stop, near Fouzilhac, is approximate because the book gives no precise position.
Isabella Bird's 1873 ride through Colorado, told in A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, runs from Greeley and Fort Collins to Estes Park, Longs Peak and Manitou Springs. She lived out of doors and on horseback, and climbed a 14,700-foot peak with the guide Rocky Mountain Jim.
Six stops follow her letters from the Plains into the mountains and on to Colorado Springs. Most pins mark towns, because her letters rarely name exact buildings.
Captain James Cook's third voyage ran from Plymouth Sound by way of Table Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound and Christmas Island to the Hawaiian Islands, where he first landed at Waimea on Kauai and later died at Kealakekua Bay.
The route follows the ships across seven stops: the Cape, a New Zealand anchorage, a coral atoll, and the two Hawaiian landfalls that ended the voyage for its commander. Positions for the bays and the atoll are approximate.
The Trans-Siberian Railway runs 9,289 kilometres from Moscow's Yaroslavsky Station across Krasnoyarsk, Lake Baikal and Khabarovsk to Vladivostok, crossing a record eight time zones.
The line was begun in 1891 and finished only when the Amur bridge opened in 1916. This route follows it west to east through five landmarks: the two matching terminal stations, the great Yenisei bridge, the loop line around Baikal and the long Amur crossing.
In 1648 Semyon Dezhnyov sailed from the Kolyma River past Cape Dezhnev and through the Bering Strait, eighty years before Vitus Bering entered the strait in 1728, and ended up wrecked near the mouth of the Anadyr.
The route follows the voyage from Srednekolymsk to the cape, the Diomede Islands, the Anadyr mouth and the winter quarters at Anadyrsk. Some details, including the exact route, are debated, so most pins are approximate.
The Burke and Wills expedition of 1860–61 set out from Royal Park in Melbourne to cross Australia from south to north, by way of Menindee, the Dig Tree on Cooper Creek and the swamps near the Gulf of Carpentaria. Only one man of the four who made the dash north came back alive.
The route follows the journey in order, from the crowd-watched departure to the tree where a carved message and a buried cache were missed by hours, and ends at the Melbourne General Cemetery, where a state funeral was held in 1863. The Gulf pin is approximate: the party's last camp, not a proven shore.
