Curious to see how many of you have gone home during the pandemic. For those who did, how did you feel after when you had to come back to Japan? For those who didn’t, are you planning on visiting your home country soon, or will wait for the border to fully open?
37 comments
Japan is my home, so, yes I’m home.
Went back once. It was weird traveling and a big hassle. Good to get away from everything here though
Have not been home in nearly 4 years. Looking to make it happen in the next month or two.
I haven’t been back in 4 years but I’m planning to go back for a visit in October. Hopefully it’s calmed down a bit by then.
No, but hopefully in August or September, my mom ain’t getting any younger.
Haven’t been home in the last 4 years. With a toddler the dynamics and risks are way different. Flights are costlier, and hopping flights increase risk of exposure during transit and at hop-over airports.
Almost everybody in my family, back at home, has had covid and they have recovered. Me, my wife and our kid are the only ones far and wide in our family who have managed to be avoid contracting it. We have gone the extra mile to keep ourselves safe, just for our kid, and now after all these years of avoiding the pandemic, if we loose our guards and end up getting covid, all the effort would go waste.
We have been planning and canceling the trip back home just because of this. “Let’s wait, let the situation become a bit more safe and then we will travel, and then we will travel…..” and the plan keeps coming up in discussions and we keep pushing it forward every time, thinking (hoping) we are doing the right thing.
I have (back to America). When coming back to Japan after the first time visiting home, I felt relieved, since I had a somewhat conservative stance to the pandemic and appreciated Japan’s high mask usage.
After visiting and coming back again later, I felt I can appreciate both countries’ approaches to the pandemic. The normalcy back in America certainly feels liberating, and I think each country should open up at their own pace. So while I’m not super supportive of all the COVID measures in Japan anymore, I’m also not against them. I say this because I see a lot of foreigners online demanding that Japan opens up, but I think each country has a different comfort level with the pandemic that should be respected.
The Japanese consulate where my parents live accepts visa applications for relatives to visit. I’ve heard many other consulates are allowing the same. So my relatives will visit me now instead of the other way around. 🙂
I haven’t been back in 4 years. Both parents passed away, mom last year, father this year. My few friends were stuck in Europe because they got covid, and PCR tests were positive. Many of them have already extended their stay for more than two weeks. I want to go, but I’m worried that I will be stuck as well.
Haven’t been back in years. I hope on being able to go soon. I miss my family and my mom is having some health issues, but with having a baby and seeing those prices for the flights, it’s looking not so good.
Came back last week from a trip to my country after 2.5 years.
Haven’t been home for near 4 years. Daughter was born right at the start of the pandemic, so it threw a spanner in the works. My parents still haven’t met my daughter, their first grandchild, in person yet. My sister is getting married next year and I would love to be able to make it home without having to worry about all the extra paperwork, PCR tests etc. The prices of flights have also increased a lot. Unfortunately, my mum also refuses to fly, so it’s completely 100% down to us if we want to see my parents.
No , planning to go in august but looks like covid will put spanner in the works again.
Haven’t been back since 2018 sadly. Wanted to go back home for a while this October/November but the prices are prohibitive and the flight times are over 22h
no, but I will in September for the first time in three years. Even when I technically could have, I didn’t want to risk complications since I have pets and if I were delayed or prevented from returning it could mean anything from scrambling to find someone to take care of them, to thousands of dollars of pet-sitting fees.
I have not. I went back in 2018 and I said I’d be back for Christmas 2020 hahaha.
Yeahhhh that obviously didn’t happen.
I’d like to go this year as I just had a baby, but need to work on getting babies cisitzenship and passport first.
I last visited in the US in December 2019-January 2020, so I was technically there during the pandemic, but I didn’t even know hear about COVID until I got back to Japan. I’d like to visit again, but it’s just too expensive.
Edit: It looks like the people saying they aren’t visiting because of the price are getting downvoted. You guys know a round trip flight to North America is around 400,000 yen at the moment, right?
Nope and now it’s hella expensive to fly back to Canada for a visit
“when you had to come back to Japan”
I’d look forward to coming back to Japan. The Japanese government is ridiculous, but people here are more conscious of other people and methods to reduce the risk of spread than they are “back home.”
That being said, I don’t get enough time off to properly enjoy time back home, since it’s on the other side of the world and all. Plus I’d need to think about my youngest dealing with a 24-hour trip from end-to-end, which is also frightening.
Not til they get rid of outbound/inbound testing requirements. It’s too much of a risk to book a 600-1000$ flight home only to test positive the day before you go to the airport and can’t get any of that money and booked time off returned -__-
I think they’ll remove it in August or just after the summer holidays, but they better hurry tf up.
No, and everytime I think about it the amount of things and paperwork I might have to do to travel just seems like a burden. But I miss home.
I’m back in the US now visiting family briefly as it’s been about 2 1/2 years since I last set foot here.
Although the plane ticket prices were appalling to say the least.
Thankfully ZipAir is under cutting every other airline by a solid 30% or more.
I missed one funeral because of the lockdowns and managed to make it back for the second.
In general other than nobody in the US taking any precautions it wasn’t “home” anymore and I was glad to get back.
Little brother and his family are looking forward to visiting though.
Coming up on 3 years without a flight back to the US. Been thinking about it for a long time but with the expensive tickets and the heinous ¥/$ exchange rate, it is easy to talk myself out of it. Be awesome if my company sent me on a business trip to our US HQs but I’m not holding my breath.
No. Regulations are seemingly more straightforward these days without long quarantines but it’s too expensive now. USD $4000 roundtrip to my home country when it used to be around $1200.
Yes. Cost a lot but was worth it. Great to see family and friends. The trip went smoothly and coming back was no problem. Took two big suitcases… stocked up massively on all the things I needed and had been missing.
No..
I’ve recounted this many times, but I think it’s going to stay with me for a long time.
I was in Wuhan as the outbreak began. Spring Festival / Chinese New Year and my vacation began days before the lockdown. Thankfully I managed to get out and after flying to the U.K. via Tokyo, I read the writing on the wall and managed to cancel the return flight and set up interviews back in Japan. I returned in February and managed to find a job before long.
I’m aiming to make it back for Christmas, but we’ll have to see as I might have to change job and that could put everything on hold.
No, I want to but I don’t want to get stuck at my home country for weeks in case I catch covid. I’m thinking of flying home as soon as Japan waives their PCR requirements.
I went home 3 times since the start of the pandemic: trip 1 in the early days when Japan was still deciding if closing borders, trip 2 on Christmas 2020 and trip 3 in spring 2022. My grandparents and my dogs are not getting any younger and I will happily visit them as much as possible while they’re alive.
I work remotely so I just take my laptop with me and assume the possibility of testing positive and losing the money of the flight. It’s more expensive overall now and the PCR tests are an inconvenience, but travelling during a pandemic is a privilege – hence the costs. You always recover the money, but you cannot recover time.
Just came back from Europe 2 weeks ago. Because of the war and covid, travel time doubled as did the prices. But besides of that it went all well. I did wear my mask all the time, where as in Europe 99% are not wearing anything anymore.
Nope, first I couldn’t for fear of not getting back in, now it’s too expensive
Nope. Plane tickets being really high, and quarantine periods being constantly updated have been in my way since the start
Nope. I haven’t been home since 2018, when my grandpa was very sick (he passed a few months later, so I’m grateful I got to go when I did). That was the only time I’ve ever gone back home since coming to Japan in 2014.
I’d like to go home and see my family but I don’t have any concrete plans on when and the flight is long and uncomfortable so I’m not in any rush. Probably won’t go until the borders fully open up.
I just got back after going home for the first time since December 2019. It was really really nice to see my family, and honestly the sort of masklessness in the US was a little nice. Of course coming back, I was grateful for everyone wearing masks and social distancing. But I did feel a little lonely with the lack of harmless small talk at like grocery stores and with passing strangers.
It feels so incredibly good to be visiting home. Old places where I grew up, familiar foods, vast convenience, driving- these are just the tip of the iceberg. I am not oblivious to all the problems we have in my home area, but it just feels good to be here.
I haven’t returned in the other direction yet, but I will say it’s getting to become a little bit complicated, or well it just has been as you know. I’m active in this thread about Covid: https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/comments/vtz2is/weekly_covid_thread_09_july_2022/
It’s complicated. Oh yeah, and travel is expensive but I felt it was worth it.
Haven’t seen my (abducted) daughter in Japan since mid-2019. Next week I’ll be seeing her for the first time since the pandemic hit.
Used to go every year. It’s amazing what going back does for my mental health. That being said, haven’t been back since late 2019. I was planning on going back this year, but we’ve got a newer member in the family, which means an additional seat. And as tickets are nearly double what they were before and with the yen being so weak, it’s seeming less and less feasible. On top of this, I just moved to a new place and you know how much that costs.
I’m hoping at least my parents can just come visit me. Have more family but I can’t expect them all to come on over. It’s really unfortunate… trying my best to get a decent salary so I can just see my family.
I’m going home in 6 hours for the first time in 2.5 years and I’m ecstatic!