Yusuf Vaughan
CURRENTLY · KYOTO, JAPAN · UNTIL APR 18
Kyoto temple landscape at dawn
35.0116° N · 135.7681° E · APR 9 2026 · 5:22 AM

DISPATCH No. 84 · KYOTO · 12 MIN READ

On the long walk from Daitoku-ji to Hōnen-in

A morning in two temples and a noodle shop in between. Notes on what cherry-blossom tourism actually looks like at five in the morning, and on the small dignity of monks who have to sweep around photographers.

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AT THE MOMENTKyoto, Japan · Ryokan Yachiyo
FROM TOKYO · TO OSAKA
Next: Naoshima · April 19

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ABOUT

Yusuf Vaughan is a travel writer and photographer. He writes the dispatch newsletter A Long Way Around — a fortnightly letter from somewhere far from his desk in Brooklyn — and his work has appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Afar, The New Yorker, and Cereal magazine. His first book, a collection of dispatches from the eight Marches he spent in different countries, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2027.

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