I’ve lived in Japan for 3 years almost entirely in Kyushu, but I’m open to anywhere other than small islands.
I speak passable Japanese so don’t care if it is super inaka with no English. I don’t need shopping centers or movie theaters or metros.
I’m just looking for a non-shared apartment with my own bedroom/bathroom, with an internet connection. Yet when I search the whole country of Japan on booking.com or airbnb it seems the cheapest places that fulfill that requirement are like 170,000 JPY for the month (double what I’m paying for a modern 2bd apartment on the top floor in Kumamoto city).
Is this really as cheap as it gets? Am I missing something? I just want to hole up somewhere new for a month and do some writing on my laptop.
I know some will say “its because you’re looking on airbnb/booking”, in which case do you have an alternative? I’ve poked around on Google maps and gone to several tiny ryokan’s websites but the rates there are even worse or they don’t offer stays beyond like 5 days.
Thank you
10 comments
So you’re just looking for anywhere to live for a month??
“own bathroom” makes it a lot harder, since by far the easiest and cheapest places to live for short periods are sharehouses. if you’d ever be willing to share a bathroom with others, you’ll still get your own room, and it’ll save you a lot of cash and headaches.
Maybe try weekly mansion?
As others have suggested, a weekly/monthly mansion service seems like the best bet.
The problem with hotels (which is my preferred option) now is
a) They’re trying to make up for the border closure losses, so rates are 2-3x higher than normal for the foreseeable future
b) Any cheap ones are getting snapped up immediately
That said, I would have two non-mansion suggestions for hotels:
1) Try booking direct with Toyoko Inn. Their stay-10-nights-get-1-night-free promo (for members) means 3 free nights over the course of a month, and non-Tokyo/Osaka hotels are in the 4500-5000/night range (so ~135,000 with the discount)
An additional benefit though is that they have a free breakfast, which can also be a free lunch. (I’ve also found their rooms conducive to writing sprees)
2) Similar to #1 but the availability is hit-or-miss: Hotel Lumiere Nishikasai in Tokyo has low nightly rates, easy access to major stations in Tokyo, and also has a great free breakfast.
I’ve found Expedia has the best rates for booking with them.
In Sapporo I paid 35.000 monthly for 1 room , dinning kitchen and private bathroom. Included water / electricity and gas for cold days.
It was near the Maruyama Zoo. apartment in small building (3 floor , 2 apartments each floor). Very cheap and not small (a lot bigger than Leo palace) .
No internet. Also monthly base, but I did had to wait a little to get in.
Some share houses have your own bathroom in it, but I would keep checking airbnb. When I was doing a month I was able to find something for ¥120,000
Not much of a difference I know. Or you could try doing a week in one place a week in another, etc. it could possibly be cheaper that way
Please note that this is a quick search with Japan as a whole I’ve no idea where any of these are
https://abnb.me/giAxm3TqpAb
https://abnb.me/MflvGcfrpAb
https://abnb.me/oYqnx6hrpAb
Osaka, around Shin-Imamiya station. But you might not want to live there…
Maybe you can look into coworking places? The inaka ones have bedrooms you can stay in.
Check the Chiba coastline like kujukuri area. You can rent entire homes to yourself for less than 70000¥