We have another upcoming trip to Japan this winter, so we have started planning as early as June of this year. We wanted to try something different from our usual hotels and hostels (and maybe save a little money on the side), and the opportunity presented itself when we ran across an online promo for #MyAirbnbBucketList.

Many of these Airbnb rooms listed offered amenities that not even the best hotels in Japan had — a taste of the ordinary Japanese life, with daily shopping trips to the neighborhood market, meals at the local ramen shop or izakaya, or even a chance to try out a local activity or pasttime.

Airbnb’s extensive property listings and flexible search capability allows you to not just customize the location and number of nights you will be spending at the property, you can also customize it to suit your spending limit (and maybe a smidge over — you never know what else you can get with just a few dollars more!).

Using both the Airbnb site and the Airbnb mobile app, we were able to put together a wishlist of all the properties we were keen on — most of them were affordable places for two that looked like the owners were interesting people (with one or two tips that even we didn’t know).

Included in our wishlist was a design studio, an art commune, and a room in the home of a professional tourist guide. There is even a room at a local Love Hotel — which is pretty hilarious, given what normally goes on in there (the owner was very upfront about the property being in a love hotel, and even touted its many features without a hint of sleaze) 😀

You too can start planning your Japan holiday with Airbnb — you can even earn additional credit with your first booking! Airbnb connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in more than 34,000 cities and 192 countries! Give it a try 🙂

This is an entry to Nuffnang’s My Airbnb Travel Bucketlist competition.