Surprisingly, although it is a small town, there are plenty of good restaurants and lots of outdoor activities. We could have spent a day just walking at Yuzawa Kogen region. Lovely onsen feel to the whole place. And if you miss the city, Niigata is just 40min by train (Tokyo station is just about 1.5 hours by shinkansen). There are several good restaurants and izakayas along the main street, and even at Echigo Yuzawa station, including an exquisite Italian Muran Gozzo cafe with house-made smoked salmon, pork terrine, wagyu carpaccio, seasonal wild vegetable pickles etc. The train station also has a foot bath, local produce market and supermarket. Of course the highland air is fresh and cool.

It is a snow-season oriented location and in May there are not many people around. For us Yuzawa was the choice because of the car rental being available in the region were we wanted to explore. Nippon rent-a-car offers good deals.

Yuzawa is an excellent place for winter sports and onsen. It's very easy to get to by public transport and quite affordable. It can, however, get quite crowded on weekend and holidays during peak season so we were glad to have gone a little further to Naeba. During peak times, however, it could be challenging to find a place to eat so you might need to book restaurants in advance to avoid disappointment!

Liked the NASPA New Otani. Liked the Kiyosu Gorge. Found a great restaurant in Yuzawa which charged a ridiculously low price - Aus$30 - for a lovely meal. I suppose the town is a bit scruffy, but maybe that is because went in the off season. The surrounding mountains are superb, especially with the leaves turning!

It was difficult to find a restaurant in the area for dinner, but we finally found one in a neighboring town (Shiozawa). There is a well-stocked supermarket and many pharmacies for daily needs. We enjoyed spring skiing at Kagura and want to go back during the winter season when there is more snow. It's better to have your own car to get around the area.

A ski resort town just an hour away from Tokyo, the bus terminal side of the station got a good old Japanese vide to it, and the back is more tourist centric, the closest resorts, gala, and Kogen is smaller than expected with crowed narrow runs, but with a 20 mins bus ride you can get to kagura, which is a bit old but with wide and good runs of all difficulty, and you don’t need to wait for any lift