SantaCruz 0 Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 Hello SnowJapan! Now that the USD:JPY is getting somewhat better, some friends and I from the States are thinking about doing a trip to Japan. We're thinking of doing a trip to the Niseko area with some day trips to other areas as well. My big question though is lodging. I've done a solo trip to Niseko before and so lodging was easy to arrange. I stayed at a pension in Hirafu and it worked out great. For a group of 5 - 10 people what would people recommend? Doing a hotel/pension with 2 people to each room? Rent a condo/apartment? A house? Some of the important facts: * None of us speak or read Japanese. * We all make decent money but are by no means wealthy. We're not looking for anything extravagant but are not looking at a hostel either. * Once we're in the Niseko area we would like to get around on foot, public transit or taxi. We do not want to have to rent a car. Consequently * Ideally the lodging would be within a 15 - 20 minute walk from the lifts or close to public transit which runs to the lifts. * Same thing goes to night life. * We're not restricting ourselves to just Hirafu. Some people in the group have never been to Japan in general, so it could be fun to check out or even stay in Kutchan. And actually I think we would prefer something like that compared to say staying in Niseko Village or Annapuri. It seems like it would be difficult to go out for night life in either of those locations. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken) As an example, this past winter we did a trip to Park City, Utah. There were 7 of us in the group and we used VRBO to rent a town house directly from the owner and it was located a little bit outside the downtown strip. Buses in Park City are free so we would walk to the bus stop and take that to the resorts for riding each day. At night we would walk to the downtown area for food, drinks, etc. I'll be using the great resources that SnowJapan has to research places but would also appreciate any recommendations or advice that you may have. Cheers. Link to post Share on other sites
Slippery Jim 65 Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 Look for pensions in the lower village at Hirafu on the Places to Stay section of the site. Link to post Share on other sites
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