Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (2025)

Fifteen years after a previous visit, the country seemed much busier in places, but noticeably cheaper than the UK

“Did you know you can buy an old Japanese farmhouse for $10,000 [£7,500]?”

My partner was looking at houses again. Like so many millennials, we have an unhealthy habit of browsing property we can’t afford. But this was different.

Fifteen years ago, we’d spent two months in Japan freewheeling along the now overcrowded Golden Route that connects Tokyo with Osaka and Kyoto. Back then we barely noticed other tourists.

We had prepared for the trip by taking Japanese lessons, but it came as a surprise that neither of us wanted to leave. We loved the people we met, the culture, the food and the weather. We started lining up jobs and a friend we made in Kyoto offered to help us look for a place to live.

Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (1)

We came back to the UK first, but a month later the Fukushima nuclear disaster struck, so we didn’t return.

Now, we are tired, broke parents with a home-educated seven-year-old. But the desire to live in Japan has never left us.

Back then, Japan was an expensive country to visit, let alone to live in. But it was a shock to learn of these incredibly cheap and beautiful farmhouses for sale in remote rural villages.

Landing in Tokyo after a 14-hour Finnair flight via Helsinki, the capital had the same exciting buzz, but also felt different. We’d heard about overtourism in pockets of the country, but nothing could have prepared us for the reality – a perception echoed by many locals we spoke to during our stay.

Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (3)

We took our son to see the main tourist attractions in Toyko and Kyoto, but crowds made it impossible to appreciate many of them. Even at sunrise and after dark, the impressive temples and shrines such as Senso-ji – Tokyo’s oldest temple – and Fushimi Inari in Kyoto were overwhelmed with visitors, souvenir stalls and capsule machines full of plastic toys. It almost felt like a theme park.

Our dream of living in Japan once again started to feel like it was slipping through our fingers, so we went in search of the traditional culture we’d been drawn to previously.

After a week in the bright lights and busy streets of Tokyo, we took up residence in a small house in a quiet neighbourhood in Kyoto. We’d booked a rental with The Japan Experience, a travel agency that offers traditional accommodation along with an appointed “house angel” – a local who can help you get to know the area off the tourist trail.

The compact rooms, steep stairs, tatami flooring and futon beds of our back alley flat wasn’t as grand as some of the high-rise hotels we’d been staying in, but it was more authentic, showing us what life might be like if we did make the move.

Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (4)

Our house angel Charlie was an expat who had also fallen in love with Japan years ago. He agreed that the country has changed a lot in the last decade and gave us tips for lesser-known temples, shrines, restaurants and regions to visit, away from the crowds.

We’d previously found Japan to be expensive, but this time we were shocked by how much money we saved every day, compared to our lives back home in Fife.

Train travel is more affordable – a 72-hour unlimited subway ticket is Y1,500 (£8) in Tokyo, while the two-and-a-quarter-hour bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, a journey of 500km, is £74. The rapid JR Kyoto Line train from Osaka to Kyoto – 55km in 30 minutes – can cost as little as Y560 (£3).

Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (5)

We also found loads of fantastic restaurants for our favourite family dinner of gyoza (dumplings), yaki soba noodles, ramen, miso soup and karaage fried chicken. Portions were easily enough for the four of us and even with a couple of beers thrown in, the bill never came to more than £25 – the same amount I paid for sandwiches and crisps for the train journey home when we arrived back in the UK.

Picking up essentials in the 7/11 minimarts was noticeably cheaper than popping to the shops back home, too, although fruit tended to be on the expensive side.

We decided to stop trying to relive our last trip and instead to focus on experiencing the country with fresh eyes, from a world-schooling point of view for our son. After all, raising him in a new culture is a motivating factor for our move to Japan.

We were told that many schools focus on mindfulness from a young age, through activities such as origami and subjects such as architecture. Education is also free of charge, and parents of children aged up to 12 receive a monthly allowance of around £53.

Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (6)

On our way to Kyoto, we stayed at the Risonaire hotel in Osaka which provided an educational play floor for children. We left our son there for a morning to be taught alongside Japanese children, where he learned about shapes, boundaries and the concept of the self through art and photography, all of which he enjoyed.

In our suburban Kyoto neighbourhood, we found enchanting woodland shrines, old book shops with trees growing out of crooked walls, and towering roadside temples. We took part in craft workshops, including a knife-making workshop with a legendary knife craftsman in Sakai near Osaka, who shared generations of wisdom with us and taught us that every movement is a meditation. Outside Tokyo in Yotsuya, we joined a calligraphy class, which our son seemed to enjoy as much as we did.

Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (7)

And finally, we stepped away from cities altogether, travelling hours away from Kyoto to Japan’s “spiritual heartland”, the Kii Peninsula, to stay in a historic Ryokan, visit Japan’s oldest village, Asuka, and brew our own soy sauce with a fourth-generation soy sauce maker.

Just outside Kyoto we headed into the mountains on a Nara Yamato Spirit Tour. Our guide Akiko and master healer Aya took us up to the summit of Mount Kurama, the birthplace of reiki, and gave the whole family reiki healing.

We all felt that we could call this home – at least for now. We felt the deep connection to nature and spirituality, where community is everything, where kindness, courtesy and mindfulness are grounded into every aspect of life.

Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (8)

The language barrier was tricky but by the end of our stay, we were managing basic communication, with our son outdoing both of us. It’s something we’ll need to continue working on, but we no longer find it so daunting. Even with our limited skills we all made new friends who have offered to help us find a house in the outskirts of Kyoto – something that can be difficult if you’re not already living in the country.

Life in the UK is too expensive, so we're moving to Japan with our seven-year-old (2025)

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