You guys! These maps! I’m totally not kidding with these maps.

These maps are from David Moreton’s Shikoku Japan 88 Route Guide, the only English-language guidebook that I’m aware of. That is, if you consider these maps “English-language.”

I ordered the guidebook a few months ago, and when it arrived, I confess that I was a bit … overwhelmed. And, I am a HUGE fan of maps. But these maps really took things to a whole new map-level. If you’re the kind of person who finds a map challenging, well … the Shikoku pilgrimage may not be for you.

The guidebook is basically 90% these maps. Maybe 95% maps. There are well over a hundred pages of maps like this.

But after hours–HOURS!–studying these, they make sense. It’s impossible to explain how they work in a blog post. But basically, understanding them required learning a new “map-language.”