A Traveler of Eternity: Van Milton’s Unexpected Journey
Van Milton (Okayama, 2008-2013)
Interviewed by Marco Blasco (Aomori, 2021-2024)
“The days and months are travellers of eternity, just like the years that come and go. For those who pass their lives afloat on boats, or face old age leading horses tight by the bridle, their journeying is life, their journeying is home.”
-Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, Translated by Tim Chilcott (The Narrow Road to the Deep North, 2004)
When I read these lines of Matsuo Basho’s famous poem, I was struck by the simplicity and the depth. As with all poetry, the meaning is left open, tapping the hearts and minds of each person differently. For me, Basho’s work points to the inevitability of life as travel. Of the constant change, the constant moving. In many ways, we are always seeking, and in this seeking the journey itself becomes home and life, not the steadiness.
This quote hummed in my head after my conversation with JET alum Van Milton. Perhaps it was because Van works in the travel industry. Or perhaps because I found many similarities in our stories of coming to Japan. But after thinking on it, I realized that the reason this quote came to me after our conversation was because of Van’s idea of life as exploration, life as a journey to be discovered, not completed. And despite our different years and JET experiences, these ideas resonated in me, and I sought Basho’s words.
In many ways, Van’s journey to Japan through the JET Program is an often heard story. During his teenage years, his interests in anime and Japanese pop-culture led him to wonder about a culture so different from his own. He wasn’t merely interested in “the other” that was Japan, but rather wondered why this culture was so different from his own. He wasn’t merely hooked by the action of Dragon Ball Z, but rather fascinated by the existentialism in Akira.
Van teaching a specialty Science-in-English lesson.
Bit by bit, he had more experience with Japanese culture through a trip during high school and studying the language in college. He learned about the JET Program from a college professor, and in 2008, he came to Japan on the program. His first placement was in a small town in Okayama, and Van felt the shock of the rural placement. His nearest JET colleague was forty-five minutes away, and any anonymity that a bigger city might have afforded was gone. Though the adjustment was difficult, Van started to find community and had an opportunity that most JETs do not. He transferred in his third year from small Tsuyama to Okayama City, where his science background was put to good use at a specialty high school.
It was there that Van was able to get more involved in the local community, and connect with international students from the nearby university. He built connections through getting involved in the Association for Japan Exchange and Teaching (AJET) and hosting barbecues by the river. All the while, Van taught high school classes of forty-plus students and built an extensive list of places he wished to explore in Japan.
Van (center left in all black) at an AJET hanami with fellow JETs.
But for Van, he felt that during his time on JET, he hadn’t fully scratched the surface of what he wished to see and do in Japan. His journey, as Basho might view it, was far from traveled.
After returning to the United States, Van thought he would pursue a PhD in the sciences. He was interested in bioplastic research and thought to use his skills to help better the environment. Yet, after struggling to find funding or suitable programs, and after what he thought had been a sure position fell through, Van found himself in his mid-thirties doing work that he had not intended on doing. It was not the path he had imagined, and he remarked to me about how he couldn’t believe that he’d spent nearly ten years behind a desk. It was not the life he wanted to live—not the life he imagined. Thankfully, and despite his initial plans, he was soon called back to Japan.
In Denver, he found work with InsideJapan Tours, and took on the mantle of their outdoor specialist. In 2019, the company wished to send him to Japan and have him work as a tour guide. Van moved, and though he had never originally planned for it, found himself back in the Land of the Rising Sun. His plan was to develop outdoor adventure tourism that might appeal to a larger number of people, but Van’s journey once again took an unexpected turn when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His company downsized, and though Van was kept on, when travel did resume, he realized that the outdoor adventure that he so craved was no longer going to be a part of the company strategy.
One of Van’s bike tour groups along the shores of Lake Biwa.
Now, Van splits his time between Outdoor Adventure Specialist company KODO and freelance guiding. He is developing outdoor adventure tours, particularly cycling routes. He loves to focus on small group, multi-day experiences. When I asked him how his experiences on JET still help him today, he said that there were countless ways.
He talked about how he still has to manage large, diverse groups of people, similar to when he was in the classroom. Bringing people with different personalities and skill levels around on a cycling route is not so different from taking charge of a classroom full of high schoolers. He also mentioned that his teaching experience on JET has really helped him in distilling information. During tours, he is responsible for giving people historical and cultural information about the places they visit. Picking and choosing what information is important and how it connects with the rest of the tour is not so different from relaying information in the classroom. He also uses his language and cultural skills to connect with the locals. So many tour routes use local inns and restaurants as stops along the way, and Van is responsible for connecting with them and upkeeping those relationships.
Van leading an adventure on wheels.
In the last few years, however, Van has helped tackle one of the major talking points surrounding tourism and Japan. As travel to Japan has not only resumed in the past couple of years, but has reached historical numbers, Van is also actively seeking solutions to over-tourism. When I asked him about his opinion on this subject, it was, as one might expect, quite nuanced.
Over-tourism is a problem, Van said. He has waited for a bus in his local Kyoto for over thirty minutes because each one that came was too crowded to even board. The locals suffer at the hands of the tourists. Van believes in grassroots cultural exchange over transactional tourism, and this was reflected in his answer. Most of the large corporate models of tourism don’t allow for a smaller-scale, deeper exploration of Japan, which would help to alleviate the load on crowded cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. Yet, Van also said that Japan’s messaging around tourism can confuse the issue. The tourism sector consistently promotes places like Kyoto to tourists, yet struggles under the burden of, and complains about, over-tourism when people actually come. As Van remarked, if there are posters of geisha promoting travel to Kyoto, one can’t then be upset that people go to Kyoto to see the geisha.
For Van, the solution lies in promoting lesser-known places, advancing multilingual support for rural areas, and utilizing technology to help with the culture and language barriers. Van’s outdoor adventure style tours naturally promote lesser-known places and bring the visitors to some of the hidden gems of Japan, not only the tourist laden cities. Over-tourism is a problem that does need solving, and Van is actively working to be part of the solution.
Van with some of his students.
We talked for a long while after the actual interview was over—about the path of JET and how so many JET participants find themselves in places they’d never thought they’d end up. As Van mentioned, being a JET means being a lifelong learner. The road to where he is now was not always clear. He told me that oftentimes in life, you may come to a fork in the road. There’s a left path and a right path, but all you want to do is go straight. We may think we have the answer, but life thinks otherwise. In times like these, we can’t know that either the left or right path is the correct one, but all we can do is continue along the journey and recognize it as such.
For both Matsuo Basho and Van Milton, the journey is home. The finding, the seeking, the exploration. Destinations are merely stops along the path, places where we may rest, but we continue on. In times when we think we have the answer, when we wish to travel straight despite the fork in the road, it is important to recognize that the journey might be guiding us elsewhere, to places unexpected and beautiful. And so we journey on, just as Van does, and recognize that we, like Basho’s days and months, are travelers of eternity.
About Van Milton (Okayama, 2008-2013)
Van Milton first came to Japan on the JET Program, teaching English in rural Okayama for five years. Now based in Kyoto since 2019, he works as a guide, leading cultural and outdoor adventure tours across Japan. Originally from Washington, D.C. and raised in Denver, Colorado, Van’s passion for the outdoors and Japanese craftsmanship, especially ceramics and sake, shines through in everything he does. A certified sake sommelier and aspiring potter, he loves helping others discover the art, history, and nature of Japan, particularly its lesser-known regions like Tohoku, Kyushu, and Shikoku.
The Senpai Spotlight series features JET alumni from the US who have made successful careers for themselves in various fields—with the goal of inspiring JETs and JET alumni to pursue their own dreams while also offering some words of advice only a senpai could know.
If you, or someone you know, would like to be featured as a Senpai Spotlight, please reach out to us at contact@usjetaa.org.
This edition of Senpai Spotlight was written by Marco Blasco, a writer and editor based in snowy northern Japan. Originally from America, his interest in Japanese culture and religion brought him to Japan through the JET Program in 2021, where he has made a second home for himself.
