Basho Steps

Walk, and Basho's journey moves with you.

In 1689 the poet Matsuo Basho set out from Edo on foot and walked the deep north for about 150 days. This pedometer turns your own steps into that road. Each milestone opens a new station of Oku no Hosomichi, with the original hokku and a fresh English rendering written for this app.

THE FREE ROAD - TO MATSUSHIMA Leave the grass door at Fukagawa. Pass Senju, Nikko, the barrier at Shirakawa, the twin-trunk pine, and the morning bell at Shiogama. At 18,000 steps you reach Matsushima Bay - the most beautiful place on the journey, and the one where the master wrote no poem at all. Some places are already poems. You only walk into them.

THE OKU ROAD - ONE PURCHASE, THE DEEP NORTH Past the bay the road bends inland: the summer grass of Hiraizumi, the stillness of the mountain temple, the gathered rains of the Mogami, the rough sea at Izumozaki, the scent of the springs at Yamanaka, and the clam-shell parting at Ogaki, where the journey ends by beginning again.

WHAT THIS APP IS

• Real hokku by Basho in the original, with original English renderings
• Your steps only, counted on your iPhone and kept on your iPhone
• An Apple Watch companion that sends each station to your wrist
• A travel pack of ten things you cannot use, and are glad to have

WHAT THIS APP IS NOT No ads. No account. No tracking. No data collection. No location. No health claims - this is a book that happens to count steps, not a fitness program.

One purchase opens the second half forever. There is no subscription.