Skiing Japan...Need help

hype

hype

Active member
I am on this thing for college called a semester at sea...which by the way you should all check out if your still in school. You get school credit and you get on a cruise ship for a semester with 700 other kids and sail around the world. Anyways we are stopping in southern japan at the end of april and i was wondering if there was good skiing down there, or about how much it would cost to fly north for a few days? Thanks for all of your help!
 
Hey there, I used to live in Japan, so maybe I can help. How far south will you be? South of Tokyo there is no snow that I can think of. North of it not too far there are mountains and some great places to ski. Hokkaido of course has loads of snow, but it is the furthest north. Flying within Japan is really expensive because there are only two airlines and they are both government subsidised so they collude. Expect to pay a lot for even a small flight. However, you can get around easily on the train which is really fast and efficient. The way to to this is to get a JR Rail Pass BEFORE you go to Japan. It works like the Eurail Pass in Europe where you buy it before you go, and then you can activate it and go on any trains in the country for a week (I think 2 week passes are available). I think each week is about $500 (less now with the exchange rate), which is substantially cheaper than the regular rates (My girlfriend got her money's worth in 1 day, taking the train from Sapporo to Tokyo). I went skiing in Hokkaido near Sapporo, Furano, and Obihiro. These were some of the biggest resorts in the country and they did not have terrain parks (a couple rails and maybe 2 jumps, but nothing we would call a park). PM me if you got any questions.
 
Damn,

I wanna go to Japan so bad. When is the best time of year to go. I would like to do more then just ski, that way I could make it a family vacation.
 
Their winter is the same as ours. So February and March are usually the best. Just make sure that your vacation doesn't overlap with their "Golden Week," when everybody takes their vacation and the resorts get real crowded.

Also, while the cultural experience is awesome, the skiing in Japan isn't really. Don't expect big mountain skiing or well-developed parks (although the latter may be changing).
 
What is the best central location to stay? Where you can get the most out of your trip. Or what are the spots to stay if you were limited to 2 weeks and wanted to stay at least 3-4 days in each spot.
 
Golden week is in May, so it doesn't overlap with ski season. He's right about the skiing though, no real parks to speak of, although there is a good deal of out of bounds fun to be had.
 
Depends on the season, but Kyoto is a great location to see the old culture and has access to a lot of other less crowded sites. If you want to see new, space-age Japan, I liked Tokyo a lot. Sapporo is my favorite, but it is not convinient unless you are specifically going to Hokkaido. What do you want to see?
 
Yeah, I knew it was sometime in the spring. I have skiied in Japan in May though. (Zao in Iwate-ken often has a decent park set up at that time.)
 
I'd agree with that. Hokkaido probably has the best skiing (Niseko, etc.), but it's also very far away and isolated from the rest of Japan. So I'd probably recommend the Japanese Alps area--Hakuba and what not. The skiing there is still good and it's really convenient. Its only a couple hours via bullet train away from Tokyo.

For non-skiing purposes, I like the Kansai area (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto) best. Kyoto is beautiful and Osaka, in my opinion, is a lot more fun and personable than Tokyo.
 
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