Making it work05:47 in the full recording
“I need to find a better way and a cheaper way”
The frustration that started the whole search.
Listen to this chapter
Transcript
- MichelleBut we loved Hokkaido from the start. We loved the rural areas.
- JapanoMaWonderful to hear.
- MichelleBut the mountains and the snow backdrop was just beautiful. And then after our third
- trip this time, so we came back, we went in January and we came back on like the fourth of
- February. And I had said to my family, look, we can't go every year. Like, we haven't won Lotto.
- We just can't go every single year for two weeks. And I said to myself,
- look, I need to find a better way and a cheaper way of doing it. And that's how I really got started.
- So rather than staying in very expensive hotels on the mountain, because of course we like
- ski-in, ski-out. So we paid for it. I started looking around Sahoro for houses to rent for
- like a month or something like that. And I had not even heard of akiyas, or vacant homes, or anything
- like that by that stage. And then I kind of went down the wormhole.
Transcribed from the recording. Lightly punctuated for reading.
After three annual trips to Hokkaido, the cost of ski-in, ski-out accommodation was becoming difficult for Michelle's family to justify. She initially searched for a longer-term rental around Sahoro, the resort they had returned to three winters running.
That search eventually led her to Japan's vacant-home listings and a new possibility: a more sustainable way for the family to keep returning. She had not heard the word akiya until then.
We can't go every year. Like, we haven't won Lotto.
What this may mean for you
Start with your repeated travel pattern, not the property listings. How often would you genuinely return, and what are you already spending? Buying is not automatically cheaper for everyone.
Accommodation or ownership?Michelle’s experience, told in her words. Not a cost promise, legal advice or a general claim about risk.