Where is Lotte Arai Resort?

The Lotte Arai Ski Resort is situated on Mt Okenashi in the Niigata Prefecture of Honshu Japan, only 21km north of Myoko Kogen. It is not far from the coast and 22km south of the city of Joetsu. Lotte Arai is 50km from Nagano City in the Nagano Prefecture.

Driving to Lotte Arai

Having a rental car is ideal if you're staying at one of the economical hotels in the town of Arai, want to explore the Myoko Kogen area, or do a road trip of other Niigata ski resorts.

With advances in GPS technology, it's really easy to drive to Arai. It's not far off the Joshin-etsu Expressway, and with the base area at an elevation of only 329 metres, there are no hilly climbs or windy roads to get there. The drive from Tokyo to Lotte Arai Resort takes just over 3 hours, depending on road conditions.

Train to JoetsuMyoko Then Shuttle to Lotte Arai

To get there from Tokyo, Narita Airport, Haneda Airport, or Shin-Osaka (or other parts of Honshu) you first need to catch the train/s to Joetsu Myoko. Use Japan Travel Navitime (insert "JOETSUMYOKO" ie no spaces) to look at routes and fares.

From Tokyo, the bullet train to Joetsumyoko train station takes about 110 minutes. From Narita Airport the train trip via Ueno takes about 180-200 minutes.

Lotte Arai Resort is 15km southeast of the Joetsumyoko train station, and from there you can get one of the free shuttles that takes 30 minutes (there are about 8 shuttles per day). You have to pre-book the shuttle bus.

Alternatively from the train station you could catch a taxi if the schedules don't quite align with your arrival/departure time. Or you could catch a local train to Arai (Arai Niigata in Japan Travel Navitime) which is 9km from the resort if you wanted to cut down on taxi costs.

Tokyo Airport to Lotte Arai Bus

You can book a Lotte Arai bus with Nagano Snow Shuttle that travels twice a day from either Haneda or Narita Airport. It goes via Myoko Kogen so it takes 5.5 to 6 hours and the evening shuttle arrives at Lotte Arai in the very early hours of the morning.

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Travel to Lotte Arai from Myoko Kogen

Arai Resort is 21km north of Akakura Onsen (self-drive takes about 30 minutes). See the Myokokogen travel page for information on locations of other Myoko ski resorts relative to Akakura Onsen.

If you don't have a rental car, you can get to Arai from Myoko Kogen as part of a guided tour or there's a Myoko shuttle that does a couple of trips a day between Akakura Onsen (via Akakura Kanko) and Arai Resort (it takes about 50 minutes).

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Getting Around the Ski Resort

The base area of Lotte Arai Resort is very compact, so you can just walk between the buildings. No intra-resort shuttles required here!

Other Ski Resorts Nearby

Arai Ski Resort is in the same vicinity as the Charmant Hiuchi Ski Resort, which is just to the west, although the two resorts are not particularly close by road (one hour drive).

Cupid Valley is also nearby as the crow flies (a little to the northeast), but it's about an hour drive between Arai and Cupid Valley.

Madarao Kogen (in Nagano Prefecture) is 36km by road to the southeast of Arai. The interconnected Tangram Ski Resort is about 30km from Arai.

Nozawa Onsen is 45km southeast of Lotte Arai (about an hour drive).

It’s reasonably easy to get from Lotte Arai to Madarao or Nozawa Onsen (near Iiyama) because it’s only a 5 minute train trip between Joetsu Myoko and the Iiyama train station.