Best Place to Live in Japan

[RetireJapan]

First time I have ever seen London linked to a dream place to live because of the climate

As others have discussed, climate may play a major role, especially for retirement. I have thought about moving somewhere warm in Japan, but Okinawa is too hot, I think, for old-man-me. Nagano has some beautiful places, but as I get older I don't fancy dealing with the snow.
So perhaps Shikoku or Kyushu. I am a big fan of Miyazaki and also Kochi.

The other factor is convenience. Can you walk or cycle around rather than having to drive everywhere?
If you are too far into the deep countryside and your kids/family are in cities, will you be able to see them regularly? And if you still have relatives 'back home' to visit, how many hours does it take you before you get to Haneda, Narita or KIX?

I think Kyushu will be iffy due to climate change in the future (super storms).

On the plus side though, you can often get a flight to a foreign hub and fly from there (like Sendai-Seoul-anywhere), rather than going through NRT/HND.

[runmanTX]

Well, after the kids are out of the house (2-3 more years) I'd love to sell all my worldly possessions and travel when the wife and I retire. Keep things simple: a laptop, cellphone, clothes, and some cash. Possibly do some online work part time while enjoying the traveling sites. The wife wants to settle in England but I'd love to explore Europe also. As long as we"re healthy, got money, and I've got trails/roads to do my running on, we're good to go.

But, since this post is about living in Japan , I'll cast my vote for the outskirts of Yokohama. As I'm more of a country boy than a city boy, Yokohama is pretty convenient. Everything is basically "in reach". I don't think I could live in Tokyo although my wife is a Tokyo city girl.

[RetireJapan]

travel when the wife and I retire

This was very much our plan. Keep a base here, spend 2-3 months in various places a couple of times a year.

Not sure how viable that is going to be in the future though

Covid in the short-term, climate change in the medium- to long-term.

Might be good to do as much as you can once the pandemic abates.

[goodandbadjapan]

travel when the wife and I retire

Might be good to do as much as you can once the pandemic abates.

This is my plan. Been watching lot of Thailand YouTube videos lately and fancy a few months just hanging out there. It seems (aside from flights and even factoring in accommodation costs) that you could pretty much live there for as little as you could here for a few months. I fancy doing that in various countries.

[adamu]

Interesting that when this question is asked on other sites Fukuoka is usually near the top, if not the top answer. But it hasn’t been mentioned here at all. I wonder if Fukuoka is great when you first get here, but its luster wears off once you want to settle down.

Good point! Fukuoka kind of opens up all of kyushu, but is still a good sized city (with those benefits). It's also supposed to be relatively 'international', comparatively laid back, and so on. Good air connections, too.

On the other hand, this air connections meant that, precovid, there were a lot of foreign tourists in and out. Here (kanazawa), they started coming with the new shinkansen--there, it was by air from china and korea.

I've been in Fukuoka almost my entire time in Japan. I like it for the above reasons, but it's a bit of a concrete sprawl. You either need to live next to Oohori park (¥¥¥), or outside the city if you value seeing green every day. Definitely good access to the rest of Kyushu though. And Yamaguchi too. JR Kyushu's limited express trains are amazing. Cheap, tasty food everywhere. People have a smart dress sense (compared to Kansai, at least!). Then there's the Fukuoka bijin, but I suspect that's confirmation bias

Re tourists: Actually most of the tourists are Chinese/Korean by ferry. But that's not been the case since early 2020. Completely different crowd to say Kyoto, but with a similar population (there aren't really any tourist destinations in Fukuoka though). Yes, the international airport is less than 30 mins away if you live along the subway line.

If you need to handle any visa stuff, the regional immigration office is relatively quiet and pretty central. My friends lining up for hours at Shinagawa listen to my stories of walking 5 mins down the road and getting seen within 10 minutes with disbelief.

The city has some great initiatives for supporting startups and even an "Engineer Cafe" in an old Tatsuno Kingo red brick building to help people wanting to get into IT / use as a free co-working space. I work in IT, so that's a big plus And a "Startup Cafe" in an old primary school (not IT-specific) giving advice for people that want to start businesses. There are some decent IT jobs here too, but Tokyo is still the place if you want a high-flying career.

Wouldn't mind a summer residence in Hokkaido either...

[Tokyo]

While I like Hokkaido very much as a place to visit, global warming has changed it greatly. Since the Olympics started, I have been watching the weather reports up there. Today’s weather has been pretty typical with a Sapporo forecast of 25 to 33. Go north to Asahigawa and it’s even worse: 23~37.

Is this atypical or the new norm? It certainly is not my idea of a pleasant summer hideaway. Karuizawa at 20~25 today is much more like it.

[japanville jojo]

Yamaguchi ken. The cheapest all around place to live in Japan. But I heard Okinawa isn't too bad these days if you find cheap housing.

[SleighRide]

Many of the places that have been suggested to date sound good. A couple of years ago my wife and I decided to settle in Oita down in Kyushu, and we love it. Oita has warm people, a beautiful shore by the Inland Sea, mountains, lush countryside, a relatively low cost of living, and lots and lots of onsen! We live near the water but up on a hill more than 30m above sea level. That should shield us from even the largest tsunami. According to the government surveys, our home is not in a hazardous spot. It's important to consider this factor to ensure that you do not end up living in an area susceptible to landslides or flooding.

I have, by the way, written several articles for Japan Insider about our personal experience and various factors to consider when deciding where to live in Japan. Here are a few links which may be useful. Feel free to reach out directly with any questions. Good luck!

https://japaninsider.com/greater-tokyo- ... e-country/
https://japaninsider.com/retiring-japanese-countryside/
https://japaninsider.com/transform-japa ... ream-home/
https://japaninsider.com/get-paid-by-th ... untryside/

[teaandhobnobs]

I'm in Tokyo, Arakawa-ku, and while I very much enjoy the convenience, never having to drive a car and the shitamachi sense of community, my wife and I have spoken about moving out of Tokyo in future now remote work is so much more common. Also, if the Arakawa ever floods in a typhoon or whatnot, well, let's just say keeping a boat on the roof of our house may not be a bad idea.

So far I am very tempted by either Ehime or Okayama - could never get bored exploring the Seto Naikai, and they seem to get a lot of sunshine which would be great. I think that they are also reasonably well protected from tsunami and do not suffer so much from earthquakes. Once the pandemic subsides our plan is basically to take an annual holiday for as long as possible to places we think might be good to live, and "test them out". Even if we don't move, I'm looking forward to the holidays!

I did live in Toyama for two years, and while it was nice in many ways (excellent sushi being near the top of the list), the weather on the Sea of Japan side is just too gloomy! I remember it raining for a week solid soon after moving there and wondering what godforsaken place I had moved to!

About Sendai, is it fair to say it is the kind of place that is more for living than being a tourist in? I visited once and didn't think it was a great tourist town, but can quite imagine that it is a lovely place to live. I lived in Sheffield in the UK for a few years and that felt much the same - lovely place to live but not an essential stop on the tourist trail!

Really enjoying this thread and may check out some of the other places that have been suggested in future!

[captainspoke]

...

Hey there, I had a sis in oak park for a long time (now moved away), have another downtown (680 north mich, used to be up north), and one of our kids now in evanston (NW).

What part of town are you from?