While the crowds continue to gather in Tokyo and Kyoto, now is the right time to venture off the beaten path to rural hot spring towns that look like a fairy tale—and happen to have some of the best sake and ramen in Japan.

Read Mark Jenkins’s previous “Navigations” essays. “They escaped into the jungle,” says Marvin, lifting his paddle from the hazel water and pointing toward the tangle of verdure. “Just running and running. Not knowing where to go. Not knowing what to eat. Lost and day by day starving and cut all over from the thorns, and…

Forget running with scissors; this competitive Quechua dance takes danger to the next level. (Don’t try this at home.)