Why Japanese Women Traveling to Hawaii are Being Turned Away

An increasing number of Japanese women are finding it harder to enter the US and are getting turned back at the border.

Unseen Japan
6 min readNov 24, 2023

By Jay Allen

Turned back from America

With international travel once again A Thing, more people from Japan are traveling abroad. Unfortunately, some young Japanese women who try and take vacations to the United States — especially solo — are finding themselves turned back at the border.

Enticement to travel to Hawaii

Hawaii
Picture: tabiphoto / PIXTA(ピクスタ)

As we’ve written before, Japan has the world’s strongest passport, allowing visa-free travel to up to 190 countries. Sadly, only about 25% of Japanese citizens possess one. Many either don’t care to travel abroad or, if they do, feel they can’t afford it.

Still, before 2020, a lot of Japanese people traveled abroad. 2019 saw the most outbound tourism ever, at 20 million people.

Where does Japan go when it holidays abroad? The leader by far is the United States — which, for this purpose, includes territories such as nearby Guam, the Marianas…

--

--

Unseen Japan
Unseen Japan

Written by Unseen Japan

The Japan you don’t learn about in anime. Custom guided tours: https://unseen-japan.com/unseen-japan-tours

Responses (24)