This is probably more a question for those of us who do have a choice and aren’t stuck to needing to chase jobs in the big cities or being forced to stay in a certain inaka town because JET sent you there but I’m happy for ideas all the same.
So here’s the situation, been living in Japan for about 4 years right next to Tokyo in a bedroom community and lived most of my life in a big city except for a few years stint in Suburban Hell.
The more I age, the more I am attracted to the quiet and boring, calm life of the Countryside and its natural beauty. Cheaper cost of life, a bigger place to stay, bigger land to do things on, having my own small garden and my own parking space that won’t take up 20% of the land area, etc. I work a remote job so location is not an issue.
I just wondered, for those of us that do have the choice, how did you pick which town to live in? It just feels like there’s so many of those small places across Japan that fits the bill.
I’m just curious, did you just move on a whim to some Inaka town? Did you take a road-trip through the entire prefecture to find a place that calls to you? Did you pick a specific prefecture in the first place? Did you research in another way?
In the interest of keeping my wife close to her family and friends, I was thinking about small towns in nature around Tokyo such as Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba but that hardly narrows down the search.
Just really curious about the thought process that may have taken place to those that made the move.
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Not 100% applicable but, my wife had family here. We were living in australia and weren’t enjoying it too much so decided to try Japan together. She had some cousins who lived here, I looked on Google maps and saw it was surrounded by mountains and lakes and said sweet.
Otherwise, convenience would be a key part. Can you still get trains, planes, hospitals, schools if you have kids. Then what kinda weather you’re after. Cold up north, warmer down south. East side seems warmer compared to the west as well. But if I truly had a choice, it’s be in Gifu somewhere, stayed there for a month and explored on a scooter and loved the mountains and rivers. So long crappy story short, drive around and explore. Then find out details, do they have good internet would be my main concern
I spent a lot of time looking into researching this topic before. There are a lot of population stats you can look at to find out the current age balance of cities, the inflows, and from where people are coming from.
For example Karuizawa’s inbound population is like 90% from Tokyo, whereas other places in Nagano have much more internal movement and younger people.
Ultimately the idea is probably to make a list of things you want. Dumb things like “I like Seijo Ishii” can help to narrow stuff down a lot. Or of course the weather. Even within a prefecture there’s a lot of variation.
For Tokyo-based people, my research came to the conclusion that Nagano prefecture is very good (good access to go to Tokyo, great food, good rent). Biggest challenge is Nagano is the coldest prefecture in Japan, so a big change. And car life of course. But even within Nagano you have a billion different options.
But yeah, the best thing is to look at the prices in practice in certain areas, maybe stay a week in an airbnb or something to see what it’s like to live there, and think based on that. Ultimately there are a lot of things to be annoyed about in countryside life so you need to try it out at least a bit, but if you find a place you like you’ll know. And a week is ample time to know lots about what you don’t like
I was in the same situation last year, I wanted a quieter area and enough space for a 9ft pool table. I didn’t really care which prefecture, so I searched for months for a house I liked, and finally found it in Niigata. I liked the house so much that I bought it immediately and moved in 1 month later. Now 1.5 years later my conclusion is that it was exactly the right decision, I have a beautiful 350m2 house with a beautiful garden where I can relax, billiard room, cinema room, gym, etc.
[pics](https://ibb.co/album/HNdvg1)
Do not choose a place because it looks good or fits your criteria. Buy a house in a place and work to make that place better with your presence.
Every prefecture has something worthwhile to see and eat, and the local government will be working like crazy to create events and promote historical sites. All they need is for your family to show up and contribute to their community.
If I were to find it right now a touristish popular inaka town would be optimal for transportation access, raising family won’t have much trouble compared to a random town tho would definitely look for the hazard landscape history. Shopping would also become much easierm
having relations in the area you are moving in helps as even the locals are supposed to have a hard time socializing with their neighbors in the inaka where they have moved to.