Hundreds of thousands of people celebrated the New Year holidays abroad despite the weaker yen. The annual scenes of family travelers crowding major international airports are an incredible contrast with the heavy restrictions on overseas travel only 50 years ago. It is time to consider anew the value of travel abroad.
Before World War II, it was not so uncommon for Japanese to travel abroad. There were not only luxury trips for the wealthy, but also those ostensibly meant to enable people to observe and learn the ways of other countries but in fact were focused on sightseeing. Overseas travel was particularly popular in the early part of the Showa Era (1926-1989), and people from different professions and backgrounds wrote a variety of records of their experiences traveling in foreign lands.
People-level exchanges ground to a halt during the war years, and even after the war ended, overseas travel was restricted to only those deemed necessary by the government. It was considered unthinkable to waste precious, hard-earned foreign currencies on tourism overseas.