We stayed two nights at the Stay Nikko Guesthouse, a small establishment owned by a lovely couple who look like they’re in their early 40s. I reckon most visitors to Central Nikko during winter won’t stay overnight unless they are visiting the other places of interest further along the area, e.g. the lake, mountains or onsens. The issue though is the travelling time: it’s easily two hours or more from Tokyo, and the journey to and back from Nikko would take almost half a day already. Visitors would have to make a hard decision whether to spend a night here since, well, you’ve already travelled this distance!
Our comments after two nights!
We’d reserved a Deluxe Garden View Villa, but what we actually got looked more like a loft unit that comfortably held the four of us. Space-wise, it could probably fit two more guests. The unit is about 4 minutes’ walk from the main road, and sits along side roads that are otherwise residential. The area is extremely quiet both during the day and at night. If you’re bringing along heavy luggage, keep in mind that the walk from either of the train stations poses some mild challenges, mostly because of the rough road surface that you’d be pulling your luggage cases on. So either forward the heaviest cases you might have to the guesthouse, or be mentally prepared for some physical effort.
The compound comprises several separate units of different sizes that are rented out to guests, and our hosts themselves stay in the compound too. They also alert guests if they’re out of the house and ask visitors to contact them through messaging or email as needed. Yes, they are pretty responsive on email.
There is no laundry facility for use inside our unit, but the property does have washer and dryer facilities somewhere. It costs 800 yen for a basket of clothes, including drying. If your laundry is done at odd hours, the host will make arrangements by bringing your laundry out to a laundromat, and they will only charge you what’s on the laundromat’s invoice. They can also make arrangements for luggage forwarding.
Housekeeping is contracted out to someone else, but our hosts personally welcomed us and gave a detailed introduction and explanation of the unit’s facilities and how to operate various devices, e.g. heaters in the shower stall, the air-conditioning cum heater unit, and also the kerosene heater in the room. The kerosene heater works well, but still took a fair bit of time to heat our entire loft unit — about 30 minutes.
The unit has a decent kitchen, including a mid-sized fridge, microwave oven, toaster oven, water kettle, a large sink, cookware and utensils. There is no stove though. So if you’re thinking of cooking up a storm, this isn’t the place for you.
Internet speeds were decent, and we had no difficulties connecting multiple devices. The in-unit TV is a little on the small side — about 35–36″ is my guess — and offers local channels only.
The loft level is accessed by a semi-steep flight of stairs. But there is a side railing and it is less steep than some of the temple stairs we’d gone up and down: those things are practically ladders! The flooring of the loft level is made of wood, so if you have kids who like to stomp around up there, it would create a huge din for those directly beneath the loft.
In all, we loved our stay at this guesthouse, with the high points being the warmth shown by our hosts, the unit’s amenities, and the peace and quiet we soaked in after seven nights of a very hectic Tokyo. The small downsides of the place would be the distances you’d need to walk. It’s manageable, but if you must stay nearer to the main road, then other properties directly along it might be better. Beyond that, Stay Nikko Guesthouse gets our highest recommendation: do consider it if you’re travelling with kids!