If all you knew about Japan was what you saw on Japanese TV, you might think the Japanese are the most well-traveled citizens in the world. No other broadcast culture offers as many travel programs in which happy-go-lucky celebrity guides see the sights, interact freely with the natives and, most importantly, sample the local cuisine.

Though travel programs have been a TV fixture for decades, the kind described above developed during the late '80s, when the Japanese economy seemed unstoppable and the future glorious. Everyone knew that the average Japanese worked too much, but that was going to change. American and European gaiatsu and domestic white papers advocated two-day weekends and, more importantly, long individual vacations that could be taken at the worker's discretion rather than the employer's. It never happened.

You'd get a much truer idea of the way Japanese people travel if you watched TV during the Bon vacation period, which is currently underway. TV news reports invariably start off with how many more people are stuffing Narita Airport compared to last year (a 6.1 percent increase) and how long the traffic jam is on the Tohoku Expressway (56 km, at peak).