With more than 500 powder-topped ski resorts to choose from in Japan, deciding what snow field is best for you can be trickier than learning the snowplough turn.
Here we break it down with the help of Marcus Williams, General Manager of SkiJapan.com
Where to go if you’re a family
Transportation in Rusutsu
Ski field: Rusutsu
Location
Two hour bus ride from Chitose Airport in Hokkaido
Why families love it
The large theme-park-style hotel has some particularly family-friendly facilities including an indoor wave pool, merry-go-round and games room, which is always a hit for kids.
Meanwhile parents love the ski in/ski out convenience of the resort hotel, as well as the one- and two-bedroom apartment layout in the Rusutsu Tower Hotel.
Out on the slopes are wide open runs that are immaculately groomed, along with some incredible tree runs perfect for getting deep powder runs.
In essence, Rusutsu is quite the people pleaser, suitable for true beginners to advanced skiers and snowboarders alike.
Hot tip
There are lots of activities to take part in around the resort other than skiing.
At the more subdued end of the spectrum are idyllic horse rides through the snow, or speed things up with a snow mobile ride on the resort’s powder-covered golf course.
Where to go if you’re a snowboarder
Snowboarders love Cortina
Snow field: Cortina
Location
40 minute-drive from Hakuba Ski Resort in the Nagano Prefecture, Honshu
Why snowboarders love it
Being a good sized resort with plenty of varied terrain, Hakuba Cortina is home to only one main hotel meaning crowds are minimal.
Expect lots of good tree runs with steeper pitch – ideal for those deep powder days.
Or for those feeling adventurous, there’s some very good side country easily accessible from the lifts.
Hot tip
If you fancy doing a day trip from Hakuba, buy the lift pass-onsen-lunch deal that allows you to ride hard all day, feast on a hearty lunch then wrap up the day by relaxing in the Hotel Green Plaza onsen. It’s worth it!
Where to go if you’re an advanced skier
Hakuba advanced terrain
Ski field: Hakuba
Location
Situated on Honshu, it’s best accessed via a bullet train from Tokyo, followed by a one-hour drive to the resort
Why advanced skiers love it
Hakuba spoils you for choice. There are 11 resorts that call Hakuba Valley home, but you only need one lift pass to cover it all.
Offering steep terrain and incredible back country touring options, Hakuba offers a vast 960 hectares of skiable terrain to explore.
Hot tip
Hakuba have a strict approach to off-piste skiing with it being heavily policed in some resorts. Sign up for a backcountry tour where a guide will take you to some of the best backcountry terrain in the area.
Where to go if you’re a luxury lover
Niseko at night
Ski field: Niseko
Location
Two-and-a-half hour bus ride from Chitose Airport in Hokkaido
Why luxury lovers love it
Rated Japan’s best ski resort in both the 2014 and 2015 World Ski Awards, Niseko boasts an impressive array of accommodation including luxury chalets, apartments and resort homes, including a number of convenient ski in/ski out options.
Throughout the cosy village are restaurants catering to all tastes, as well as fine dining and degustation experiences. There’s also no shortage of in-resort services and support.
Hot tip
Hire deluxe gear from Niseko Base Snowsports and have the ability to change your equipment every day to suit the conditions.
You’ll also enjoy free locker use, saving you the hassle of carting your ski’s to and from the lifts.
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Where to go if you’re a party animal
Niseko ski resort in Hokkaido, Japan.
Ski field: Niseko
Location
Two-and-a-half hour bus ride from Chitose Airport in Hokkaido
Why party animals love it
Don’t expect Las Vegas, most Japanese ski resorts are quiet with the favourite ritual after skiing being an onsen before drinks and dinner at a local Izakaya. Niseko and Hakuba have the most options when it comes to letting your hair down. You can have a quiet drink or party till the early hours of the morning.
Hot tip
Izakaya’s are casual Japanese restaurants that serve food to accompany a large array of drinks. They are great places to enjoy small dishes of local produce with ice cold beer, wine, spirits and of course, sake.
Where to go if you’re a regular
Shiga-Kogen at Myoko Kogen, Honshu
Ski field: Myoko Kogen, Honshu
Location
In the Niigata prefecture on Honshu, expect a four-hour train ride from Tokyo
Why regulars love it
Myoko Kogen is one of Japan’s oldest ski areas made up of three separate resorts Akakura, Myoko Suginohara and Ikenotaira Onsen.
Akakura is renowned for some of the best vertical and longest runs Japan has to offer. The resort averages 14 metres of snow every season and is rich in history, culture and traditional onsen.
Better yet for families, it has a great ski school offering English speaking lessons, as well as a kids club program for kids three years and older.
Hot tip
Visit Jigokudani Monkey Park to see the snow monkeys relaxing in a hot spring onsen. There are a number of operators offering day tours from Myoko Kogen and surrounding resorts.
SkiJapan.com is a fully licensed travel agent, specialised in planning and booking Japanese ski holidays for Australians.
All experienced consultants can organise your entire Japan snow escape with special packages, including airfares, accommodation, lift passes, transfers, stopovers, travel insurance, guided tours, ski/snowboard lessons and rental.
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After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
