Traveling the Routes of Japan: Different Traveler Experiences from the 17th to the Early 20th Century

Abstract

Various travel experiences are collected in this article to illustrate the type of traveler who traveled through Japan from the 17th century to the early 20th century. The Tokaido route was the most popular due to the services it offered to meet travelers' needs, followed by the Nakasendo. Both connected Tokyo to Kyoto on the central island of Honshu. However, Japanese territory had other, less-used routes, more complicated and difficult to access. These routes were sites of pilgrimage and encounters with breathtaking landscapes, mentioned in mythology and for their beauty in Japanese poetry. A world closed to Western travelers for more than two and a half centuries was shattered by rampant imperialism in search of new markets to sell its products. This led to the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the reinstatement of the Meiji Mikado, rapidly opening Japan to modernity and the Industrial Revolution, with the introduction of steamships and railways that streamlined centuries-old sea and land routes. However, the most popular tourist routes in Japan today continue to be those connecting the cities of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, just as the Tokaido and Nakasendo routes once did.