The aim of the paper is to make an initial reconstruction and preliminary analysis of the profound expedition of Japanese statesmen to the West (so called The Iwakura Mission) undertaken in the second half of the nineteenth century. The basic purpose of The Iwakura Mission was to search for informations and data (especially related to the shape of the legal and political system which would strengthen the Japanese state and society). The Iwakura Mission was a paradigmatic example not only for the next Japanese overseas expeditions, but also for the very similar embassies undertaken in the Middle Kingdom. I would like to work out some preliminary findings necessary to propose in the future more sophisticated set of hypotheses related to the processes of traveling as a source of knowledge on legal and political issues. In this sense, the study of The Iwakura Mission is also a small contribution both to developing a socio-legal theory of inter-cultural transmission of legal knowledge and general theory of copying foreign laws.