Quickest means of travel from USA to Far East?

[Naphtali]

During the period 1925-1928, what were the quickest commercial means of passenger travel from USA west coast to Tientsin-Peking or anywhere in Japan? For these means of travel, what were approximate travel times?

 

[Talbot]

Can't say about much earlier, but from 1935:

'On November 22, 1935, Pan Am began mail service across the Pacific, when the China Clipper took off with much fanfare from San Francisco Bay and flew to Hawaii, then on to Manila in the Philippines by way of Midway, Wake, and Guam. In October 1936, Pan American finally inaugurated its first passenger flights across the Pacific by carrying nine travelers across the largest ocean in the world. Each passenger paid more than $1,400 for the round-trip from San Francisco to Manila, an astronomical sum at that time.'

If its by air, and its likely too early for that, someone at the Calclasssic propliner board may be able to help. This is a flightsim board, but they compile and recreate flightplans for classic propliners as well.

http://calclassic.proboards55.com/index.cgi#general

 

[LaMedicine]

If you mean the most easily available commercial route, then it would have been by sea. The port of arrival/embarkment in Japan would have been either Yokohama or Kobe, and the ship probably would have made a stop in Hawai'i. From what I know, I belive it took a month to a month and half or so.
I made a quick check of the pre-war Japanese shipping compaines but haven't been able to dig deep enough. You should check American shipping companies of that period. Also, checking the history of immigration from China and Japan to the US during the given time frame probalby will bring some data up.

 

[Naphtali]

If you mean the most easily available commercial route, then it would have been by sea. The port of arrival/embarkment in Japan would have been either Yokohama or Kobe, and the ship probably would have made a stop in Hawai'i. From what I know, I belive it took a month to a month and half or so.
I made a quick check of the pre-war Japanese shipping compaines but haven't been able to dig deep enough. You should check American shipping companies of that period. Also, checking the history of immigration from China and Japan to the US during the given time frame probalby will bring some data up.

Forty-to-forty-five days? Was there nothing commercial that would have been more rapid?

Was there any such thing as charter transportation by sea or air during the time parameters?

 

[LaMedicine]

First, you will need to take into consideration that international travel around this time, could be afforded, if for pleasure, only by the very rich.

International air travel as we know, at least spanning the Pacific Ocean, came into being only in the '50s from what I know and it was very expensive in the beginning, the exception being US military personnel who were stationed in Japan, and had access to military transportation. Granted I haven't made any serious study of international travel, so please take that into consideration, but at the same time, my first experience of international flight was in 1955 from Tokyo to Turkey, and my first trip to the US was in 1961 and our plane made fuel stops at Wake Island and Guam before landing in Honolulu, where we had to change flights. In other words, there were no direct commercial flights to the US mainland then. The North Polar route--trans-Pacific flights stopping at Anchorage came at a much later date, and non-stop flights to the US later than that. The exact dates shouldn't be difficult to dig up, but right now, it's well past midnight here, so I refuse to do the digging

That said. Air travel in your set time span would have been made by airships--Zeppelins being the representative. Graf Zeppelin made a world tour in 1929, including Tokyo, but this was not a regular commercial flight, and as far as I know, this was the only time an airship made this kind of flight to Japan.
From Wikipedia.

In August 1929 LZ 127 departed for another daring enterprise: a circumnavigation of the globe. The growing popularity of the "giant of the air" made it easy for Eckener to find sponsors. One of these was the American press tycoon William Randolph Hearst, who requested the tour officially start in Lakehurst. As with the October 1928 flight to New York, Hearst had placed a reporter Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay on board who therefore became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air. From there, Graf Zeppelin flew to Friedrichshafen, then Tokyo, Los Angeles, and back to Lakehurst, in 21 days 5 hours and 31 minutes. Including the initial and final trips Friedrichshafen–Lakehurst and back, the dirigible traveled 49,618 kilometres (30,831 mi).

Charles Lindberg made his famous trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. I don't know when the first trans-Pacific flight succeeded, but common sense does say any viable trans-Pacific flight, whether experimental, or charter, would have been next to impossible until about the same time.

So, the possible fastest method in your time span would have been an airship, taking about the same time or a tad longer than the trans-Atlantic flights. Chartered ships, I don't know about, but would obviously have cost a fortune. However, as I first said, for the majority of the travelers, it would have been by ship. The post WWII Fulbirght scholarship students from Japan traveled to the US by freight ships that also carried passengers. This I know for a fact because my father knew some Fullbright scholars of these days.

There must be someone in the Lounge who knows much much better than I do, and I'm too sleepy to think straight right now, anyway.
Besides, my speciality is medicine and kimonos, not aviation or sea travel--except that one of my uncles was captain in the Japanese Merchant Marines, so I have heard some stories from him.