To anyone going to Japan who is reluctant to use AirBnB but still does not want to stay in an "ordinary" hotel, I can recommend going to a Ryokan:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryokan_%28inn%29" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryokan_%28inn%29</a><p>Ryokans are Japenese guest houses and can be found in many cities around the country. I once stayed in one close to the Hongo campus of the University and had a fantastic experience. Sleeping in a traditional Japenese room and waking up to a traditional Japanese breakfast before going to the bathhouse or having a walk in the garden is just awesome, even more so because you can do this while being in the center of a city with 11 million inhabitants :D<p><a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g1066442-d320548-Reviews-Homeikan-Bunkyo_Tokyo_Tokyo_Prefecture_Kanto.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g1066442-d320548-Rev...</a>
Marvelous piece of writing.<p>I've been to Tokyo in past December and was renting an apartment in Shibuya via Aribnb. While searching for a good place to stay I noticed that a lot were listed either by foreigners living in Japan or by people who have close ties with the west (work with western companies or travel a lot).<p>I've also met new friend from the US there (via reddit) and unlike me, he did stay with the Japanese family in a guest room. But it seems like they too were more open in the matter of sharing living space because they also had another guest staying with them and she was from Australia (can't remember now, but I think she's a relative of said family - so that too could be attributed to closer ties with the "west").
"Like a lot of Airbnb listings, it was rented as “entire place” rather than “private room,” which meant no host was in residence. But in this case, I’m not sure any host was ever in residence. The listing was run by some sort of conglomerate or management company, and checking in involved no human interaction whatsoever. To get there, I carried my luggage up a neon-lit hill — past something called Hotel Fifteen Love, past places called Pub Slow Jam, Adult Shop Joyful and Baby Doll and a pet store that sold fluffed-up puppies and kittens and still somehow managed to look seedy — to the concrete apartment building where it was located. The door was unlocked. A key had been left inside. I had no idea where I’d landed."<p>That's wild, is there really such a low expectation of crime over there?
If you are into meeting people while travelling, I highly recommend you Servas[0]. It is a more than 70 year old peace association with chapters in every country. You can be traveller or host.
I travelled all over the world with Servas, from Norway to Japan and we are now a "host family". Happily getting visitors from everywhere.<p>[0]: <a href="http://servas.org/" rel="nofollow">http://servas.org/</a>
This article was fascinating to me. They found unified characteristics amongst power users, but because of how Japan works, it may be far more difficult to find potential hosts like the ones they have using anything other than word of mouth or traditional advertising.<p>What a cool problem to solve.<p>Does anyone know if retirees are major Airbnb hosts elsewhere in the world, particularly retired widows?
I can't decide if this would have been better or worse if they'd chosen someone to write it who knew more about Japan, but it was interesting. Japanese people have done homestays for some time, though, which is arguably a similar phenomenon, except you're stuck with a foreigner for way longer. That might be something to think about.