Japan Ski Tours: Tohoku Indy 8-Day Trip Review
I did an 8-day hosted snowboarding trip in Japan in January 2024 with Japan Ski Tours. It was an awesome experience! I hope to do another trip with the same tour operator in the future to a different part of Japan. Since I returned from my trip, they have added another trip option, this time to Hokkaido.
This was my first time going on any kind of hosted trip. To be very clear, this is not a guided snowboarding trip, in that there is no snowboard guide riding with you on the mountains, showing you the best runs. Instead, it’s a hosted trip, meaning you have a knowledgeable trip host who travels with you to each resort and each hotel each day to help you check in, plan you day, and solve any issues that come up. Our host was awesome. In addition to giving us a lot of good intel about the resorts and the hotels, she was also really fun to be around and helped the whole group gel together.
We planned our trip to include about 10 days of sightseeing on our own before the start of the 8-day Japan Ski Tours trip. After 10 days of figuring out all of our own logistics, it was a nice break to only have to figure out how to wake up, get dressed, and eat breakfast in time to catch a bus to the mountain each day. Also, it was fun to meet other skiers and snowboarders, many of whom had the Indy Pass (but not all, interestingly…). Because I was traveling with my wife and one of our friends, we didn’t spend much time on the mountain with the other people on the tour (people stuck to the groups they came with). But we enjoyed getting to know them during meals and during a couple of parties held on the last two nights of the tour.
The food and accomodations were all amazing. The first two resorts offered huge buffets with both western and Japanese food, which was great because you could sample all of the unfamiliar foods without committing to a whole serving. The third resort was a traditional Japanese inn or ryokan, and the breakfasts and dinners were about 10 courses each. They were also amazing. We were required to show up to those meals on time, but it was worth it!
All three resorts had onsens (hot springs), which were amazing for relaxing in after a long day of snowboarding. We weren’t sure beforehand if it would be a problem that some of us had tattoos. I have two tattoos and I had no problems using the women’s onsens. Some of the men in our group said they got some weird looks from Japanese guests when they used the onsen, but no one was ever asked to leave. There were also options to reserve a private onsen, if you had any qualms about getting naked in front of strangers. However, these private options were usually indoors and not as amazing as the outdoor ones where you could soak in the tub while watching snow fall.
Traveling with snowboards was not as difficult as it could be, thanks to great infrastructure in Japan. We used Yamato transport services to ship our boards directly from Haneda airport to the first resort on our tour, so that we didn’t have to drag them around during the sightseeing portion of our trip. This worked well for us because we arrived 10 days early for the tour. However, our flight home to the U.S. was about 36 hours after the end of our tour, and Yamato requires a minimum of 72 hours to ship your board back to the airport before your flight departs, so we had to transprot our snowboards ourselves on the return trip. This meant carrying them onto the Shinkansen, stashing them behind the last row of seats in the car we were sitting in, carrying them on the subway in Tokyo, stashing them in our hotel room for the one night, and carrying them on the subway and monorail to the airport. Our bags don’t have wheels, and we had brought two snowboards each, so they were very heavy! But all in all, it was totally doable. If I had a do-over, I would plan to have an extra sightseeing day or two at the end of the trip to get that 72-hour window — and if I do end up going on the Hokkaido tour, that’s what I’ll do!
The resorts were super fun and down-to-earth, with amazing and cheap food in the food courts. Seriously, the best ramen we had in our 20-day trip was at Lake Tazawako Resort! And it only cost 1000 yen, which was about 6.50 USD at the time. We only got two powder days during our trip, but we still had a blast. Each resort had some tree skiing options, although sometimes they were harder to find than others (Tazawako was particularly sneaky).
About the Reviewer
Name: Olivia Barrow
What is your gender? Woman
What is your height? 5'7"
What is your weight? 135 lbs
What's your level of experience as a snowboarder? 100+ days riding
Describe your skill level: Advanced - I ride confidently on any groomed run, as well as in trees and on bumps/moguls, and I am comfortable taking small jumps, whether they're in a park or off of a side hit. I can ride some boxes and rails.
