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Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

cnn.com

61–70 of 136 posts

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#62
post #3

Anecdotally from friends, I'd say the top three reasons are: * Lack of money * Lack of time off from work * Lack of English skills, making travel abroad intimidating. In previous generations this was counteracted by bus tours with Japanese guides, but those are seen as lame by the younger generations.

Counterpoints on the last two: - South Korea - Thailand - Taiwan - Hawaii The CNN article does this too, but "traveling" doesn't just mean going to the US or EU. Japanese used to travel a lot to neighbour countries and that didn't cost that much, nor require much english skills. Now money is clearly a factor, but this would go deeper than travel and more into how many Japanese are giving up on many luxuries as they f…

What makes dating in Japan "feel like a money pit?"

While I understand it's neither the same country or culture, but for the sake of example, I live in one of the more expensive US cities and dating isn't expensive unless you insist on going to fancy restaurants (which is fine to want to do, but if neither of you feel you can afford it, who are you trying to fool by spending so much?). Coffee shops or similar seem to be the most popular cheap date choices and unless you judge people for not wanting to splurge on dates, I see no downside to them. When the weather is nice there's lots of outdoors stuff that is free / the only cost is transit to and from.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

id probably add to that: Lots of hostile neighbors. Korea/japan (both koreas) relations aren't great, netiher are russia nor china. Meaning you gotta fly a long long way to get anywhere. Similar to how there are many people from american midwest whove never been abroad. living in europe all my life, almost everyone has been abroad here, but much much fewer have ever left europe, which is essentially what japanese peo…

Taiwan and Japan have friendly relations, and supposed to be a popular destination for Japanese tourists (this I couldn't find real stats on this). There is also internal Japanese tourism - such as to Okinawa or Kyoto

Yes reasonably so, Guam and Hawaii are the go-to overseas destinations you hear people mention, but Taiwan is close and cheap. You can fly there LCC very cheap, and the Japanese view it as much more comfortable a visit than say visiting mainland China (because it is).

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#64
post #27

It's the expected inconvenience. TFA points this out rather indirectly, but I've been hearing from Japanese for years that they are dissuaded from travel by the expected hassles of going to countries that run less smoothly than Japan (which is nearly any place).

I don't know. Personal opinion follows, YMMV: I've been to Tokyo recently. The subway system is much less convenient than, let's say, NYC. There are multiple operators, you need to purchase tickets separately to each one, it's not obvious for a tourist to understand the reasoning, and you can't pay with credit card (in 2023...), You need to either purchase a special card from a desk, or pay cash. In 2023. I consider that a hassle (it actually surprised me, I envisioned Tokyo as the city of the future. It is indeed, only it seems to be the future of 1993, sadly not of 2023).

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have similar amounts of vacation than EU.

If "we" is Japan, no you don't.

Do you have any proof? I don't trust HN comments to talk about other countries vacation days, since I see too many people here say Americans get no vacation days, yet every company I've worked at in the USA offered 15-20 days.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#66
post #52
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mexico is culturally completely different than the US and definitely counts as another country lol. Canada mostly doesn’t except for a few regional chains and such but Mexico is very much not diet California in any way

You have to get pretty far into Mexico; Tijuana and LA are more similar than different. (This may be because LA is something like 50% Hispanic)

Some parts of Tijuana are similar to some parts of San Diego but for the most part no

A huge portion of socal is Hispanic but the culture overall is more American than Mexican IMO

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hawaii is far from Japan. Many many countries are closer to Japan than Hawaii

This is correct, but it has settled status regarding an acceptable holiday destination. I.e. while Russia is far closer, very few Japanese have had friends visit there on holiday. Hawaii on the otherhand is in "routine" holiday status, with an established Japanese-catering industry there.

Also while Russia is close, I don't think there is anything particularly interesting there, that is the Eastern Siberia.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#68
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

id probably add to that: Lots of hostile neighbors. Korea/japan (both koreas) relations aren't great, netiher are russia nor china. Meaning you gotta fly a long long way to get anywhere. Similar to how there are many people from american midwest whove never been abroad. living in europe all my life, almost everyone has been abroad here, but much much fewer have ever left europe, which is essentially what japanese peo…

The US is so huge that you literally cannot visit another country by land (save Canada, aka Diet US; or Mexico, aka California Sur) - and there are definitely regional variations but it’s all much more similar than even a couple hundred miles in Europe. A common school trip in the USA is visiting Washington, DC; for some that’s a six+ hour flight. The same flight in most places in Europe would put you in Asia or Afri…

http://emptypipes.org/2015/07/13/flight-times-map/ (centered on DC, you can not change location on mobile)

6 hours will get you to the US from EU.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#69

I had a job that had me traveling a lot . I got very used to international travel, alone. I thought I’d miss it, when I retired. That turns out not to be the case. The thought of getting onto a plane, turns my stomach. I like being other places, but the process of getting there , has become a nightmare. I’ve been traveling internationally, since I was a child. Things have changed.

I would even say that since the pandemic, traveling has become nightmarish. Airlines and car rental companies are outright pulling scams on their customers to get them to overpay. They create inconveniences that you can only pay your way out of. If you're lucky.

Hertz is so disorganized that they mistakenly report their own customers to law enforcement for Grand Theft Auto and then even double down in light of evidence they've fucked up.

Also quietly over the last few years, the credit card companies have been taking ownership stakes in most of these travel-oriented businesses and will now deny your chargebacks that they should be honoring.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#70
There is street view /YouTube video from travels.

Order some food or cook new dish.

want hike just run

With sun is a little problem because you can't make country hotter but you can go to swimming pool.30°C + temp isn't good for your electronics.

You can replace travel with computer. I just can't/won't overpriced everything

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