 It was for these reasons that women often chose to travel these routes, giving rise to the routes being called "hime kaidō" or "onna kaidō" ("women's route").There were different definitions of what made a "hime kaidō", as some detours just went around one difficult area, while others were much longer and avoided most of the dangerous routes.Because of the various definitions, the Nakasendō was sometimes referred to as a "hime kaidō", because the distance was much greater and the danger was much less than that of the Tōkaidō, which started and ended at the same location.