Retracing notable footprints is a noble enterprise, and various are the pilgrimages, religious, literary or otherwise. In Japan, retaking known paths is something of an avocation and many a courtly romance finds a ramble dignified if it has the illustrious precedence of some prince or poet.
I do not know how many people have attempted to duplicate Basho's various poetic journeys, but I do know of several attempts by foreigners. Donald Keene once told me that he tried, but the melee of trucks and billowing exhaust that he met just getting out of Tokyo was enough to discourage him. Lesley Downer, on the other hand, actually completed the narrow road to the deep north and lived to write about it, but only by skipping the truck-filled first part.
Among other foreigners undertaking famous journeys was Alan Booth, who in the second of his books about walking Japan, traced the footsteps of Saigo Takamori through the mountains of deepest Kyushu. And now we have another Englishman, Patrick Carey, setting out to walk the Tokaido, taking the same course as Hiroshige did when he went to sketch the stages of that famous post road, a journey that turned into the best-known of all Japanese woodblock series.