Our family: wife is Japanese, son is Dual (JP/USA) and I have PR. We have a place in Florida by the beach and in Tokyo. We’ve been sort of thinking of splitting our time b/t JP and the US once we retire. Then I had this thought that potentially we just sell the FL place and maybe the Tokyo place and move to Okinawa.
Wondering if anyone could share experiences and thoughts, especially if you’ve moved to (or lived in) Okinawa or split time b/t countries.
13 comments
Wow, rich people problems.
Why Okinawa? Sell the Florida place and buy a vacation home in Okinawa(or somewhere else?). Personally I can’t see living somewhere so remote and small unless there was some huge draw to it like family living there and even that would be a stretch. Seems more like the visit for a week kind of place to me.
Dude – that’s living the dream or what! 🙂 Well played.
What’s the end result? You end up living in perma hot weather / sunny?
Sell the place in Florida by the beach before it’s underwater (literally).
Why not retire in countryside Yamagata?
I’d double down on living in Tokyo and look to the American West Coast. Florida doesn’t do it for me and the commute would be much easier.
If it’s warm and beachy is there another South Asian country you would want to go to?
What about the main island of Kyushu. There is so much here and it’s very beautiful and affordable. Miyazaki is quite peaceful, with many surf loving foreigners.
Also, from what I saw my grandparents and parents go through, the idea of traveling between the two is great until it’s not. Old Age doesn’t like 14 hour flights.
Florida, gross.
Small Okinawa vacation home.
Live in Japan (not Tokyo).
If it was me, I’d live full time in Hokkaido. Good food. More space. Cleaner air. Better house quality. Good snow for winter sports, not hell on earth in the summer. Then pop down to Okinawa whenever I wanna chill on the beach and eat pineapples or something. Probably can AirBB out the property for some side cash (if the laws still allow it, not sure now).
I lived in Okinawa for 7 years. The cities in the south are pretty congested and I wouldn’t want to live there. If you want to live amongst *lots* of other Americans (military), then Okinawa city might be for you. Not for me. The further north you go, the more quiet and rural and Okinawan it becomes. But I imagine it might become rather boring after a while. And don’t expect constant sunshine. It rains a lot. And then there’s the typhoon season throughout the summer. Seven years was more than enough for me.
Japan vs America? Tough call. Anywhere vs Okinawa? Anywhere else.
I think it depends how much you want your son in your life. For a young person Tokyo has everything they would want – universities, jobs when they graduate, entertainment, etc etc. If you move to a place like Okinawa which lacks, or at least has much less of those you’ll probably be forcing him eventually to choose between being near mom and dad, or pursuing his own life far away from you. Probably the latter will win.
If it were me (and having kids myself I am also thinking about stuff like this), I’d be mainly framing the decision in those terms, mainly because I’d like to be at least somewhat close to my kids when they grow up and start fam8lies of their own.
Why limit your options by having a vacation house?
Keep only your place in Tokyo and then you can visit wherever you like during your vacations. Personally, I wouldn’t retire somewhere where I haven’t lived before (Okinawa).
I can’t offer much, but definitely read up on the tradeoffs of owning two homes, especially if one is expected to just be an occasional getaway. The costs, financial as well as in time and in other headaches, are significant compared to just giving yourself an ample budget to rent a nice place for a month or two every year.