"Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" documents the journeys of Isabella Bird, an extraordinary woman for her time, who at various stages of her life visited America, Hawaii, Japan, Malay, Tibet, Korea, China, Turkey and Morocco. In 1878, at the age of 47, she set out from her native England to explore Japan -- a country only recently opened up to the outside world -- and did so with apparent confidence and ease. Moreover, she did not set out to visit just the well-known cities of Japan or other easily accessible areas; she deliberately embarked, as the title of her book suggests, off the beaten track -- to the northeastern district and Hokkaido.
By the time Bird arrived in Japan, she was already well known as an adventurous woman and a seasoned traveler. It is nevertheless remarkable that she chose to travel independently of other Europeans (with only one Japanese companion to translate and assist) to places previously unexplored by even the most adventurous of Western men.
The book takes the form of a series of letters that Bird wrote to her sister, Henrietta, in the course of her travels. It is therefore not, and was not intended to be, an academically rigorous historical study of late 19th-century Japan. However, because of the confidences Bird shares with her sister, the resulting travelogue contains apparently unconstrained observations of the landscape and people of Japan, and herein lies much of its value as a historical document.