The desire to travel does not wane with age, but the body¡¯s ability to recover from it does.
Turning 70 in 2025 was a milestone, one I chose to mark with a year of travel. Whether I had the stamina for it was another question. I¡¯ve been traveling through Japan since I was 25, and now I wonder what has changed more ¡ª me or the country I have spent so long exploring.
Birds have captivated me since childhood, and Japan has fascinated me since my 20s, so I set out on my yearlong journey focusing not on famous sights or geographic extremes but on Japan¡¯s birds. In the 1980s, I introduced to Japan the idea of a ¡°birdathon,¡± defined as 24 hours of nonstop birding. For 2025, I decided, perhaps rashly, to attempt the equivalent of a yearlong series of birdathons ¡ª a ¡°big year¡± of birding.
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