What "All-Inclusive" Actually Includes

The hardest thing to compare when you are weighing up stays is what it will cost you later. A low nightly rate stops meaning much once the BBQ ingredients are extra, the drinks are extra, the sauna is extra and the equipment rental is extra. You arrive, and the conversation turns to money.

At the opposite end sit the places that call themselves all-inclusive. Few phrases, though, cover such a range of realities.

24 of 672, and all of them glamping

The number first. Of the 672 stays listed on Tomaribi, 24 advertise themselves as all-inclusive. That is 3.6%.

And here is the interesting part: all 24 are glamping sites, and not one is a whole-house villa. That is no accident. A villa rental hands you the key and leaves the rest to you: buy your own ingredients, cook them, clean up. There is not much to bundle in the first place. All-inclusive works as a proposition precisely because glamping keeps staff on site who serve the food and pour the drinks.

So searching for an “all-inclusive private villa” will not turn one up in our listings. Better to change where you look from the start.

Level one: the drinks

This is the most common form. Dinner still costs extra, but everything you drink during the stay is covered.

Granmare Ibaraki Oarai in Oarai, Ibaraki has a free bar with beer, sours and soft drinks. mökki STARDUST GLAMPING in Achi, Nagano pours beer and wine at its central BAR STARDUST from 3:00 to 8:30 pm. La Nature in Sano, Tochigi adds soft-serve ice cream made with local milk.

In money terms the difference is not large. But not having to weigh up whether to order one more drink matters more than you would expect, particularly for whoever is not driving.

Level two: the meals

From here you are into territory where the payment is essentially finished at booking.

AFUMI KITAKOMATSU in Otsu, Shiga stands ten steps from Lake Biwa at the foot of the Hira mountains, with dinner, breakfast and free drinks included across twelve units in four types, some with open-air baths, some with dog runs. Woodland Bothy in Akiruno, Tokyo lets you choose between an all-inclusive stay with a private chef and a room-only rate, from ¥13,200 per person. Only three of our listings are inside Tokyo; this is one of them.

Being able to choose is genuinely useful. The day you want to cook and the day you want to think about nothing are not the same day.

Level three: the experiences and the facilities

The most committed tier is a pleasure to read about.

GLAMP ELEMENT (Maibara, Shiga) has eighteen units in seven types beside a pond below Mt. Ibuki. Dinner, breakfast, the bar, the activities and a sauna-equipped public bathhouse are all in the rate. The bar pours from over 120 drinks, the days offer putting golf and mölkky, and every unit has its own canoe. From ¥19,400 per person, with a free shuttle bus from JR Maibara Station.

EAST WINDS VILLAGE (Izu, Shizuoka) is a winery glamping site looking out over Mt. Fuji and ten hectares of vines. A course-style BBQ dinner, breakfast, a full bottle of Izu wine in the room, free-flow drinks from the kitchen car, an evening fire and a guided tour of the winery are all included. Ten units sleeping four, from ¥59,000 a night, with free transfers to the free-flowing onsen at the sister hotel.

An Eland (Shirahama, Wakayama) takes nine groups a day onto an uninhabited island in Tanabe Bay. Charcoal-grilled Kumano beef, a night bar against a floodlit rock face, a barrel sauna at around 60°C and a tent sauna at around 80°C, a private beach for guests, unlimited Häagen-Dazs and a bath-salt bar: all in.

STAGEX Takashima (Takashima, Shiga) sits on Lake Biwa. Dinner, breakfast, sauna, rental bicycles and the dog run are in the rate, alongside a sauna floating at the water’s edge, an Omi “fermented BBQ” using funazushi rice and koji, and unlimited soft serve from a local dairy. Free pickup from JR Shin-Asahi Station.

All-inclusive clusters on Lake Biwa

This was the surprise in the tally. Six of the 24 are in Shiga Prefecture, and five of those are on Lake Biwa. One in four, concentrated in a single prefecture.

An hour or so from Osaka and Kyoto, on the shore of a lake, with the food and drink already paid for. You drive in and then you stop moving. That shape clearly took hold here: STAGEX Takashima, AFUMI KITAKOMATSU, Biwako Doggies Glamping Imazuhama, Glamping Village Shiga Imazuhama and Lakeside Terrace Biwako line the western shore with much the same thinking.

Three things to check before booking

Practicalities to close on. When you see the words all-inclusive, three checks are enough.

First, what exactly is “all”. Only the drinks, or the meals too, or the sauna and activities as well? This is where properties differ most.

Second, what children are charged. Where the rate is per person, how children are counted swings the total considerably.

Third, what is still payable on site. A private bath or sauna with its own fee, a pet surcharge, equipment rental. All-inclusive rarely means every line disappears.

Note too that Grandome Ise Kashikojima offers unlimited Häagen-Dazs and night-bar drinks at no extra charge without ever using the words all-inclusive. Searching the phrase alone will miss places like it. In the end, what is included has to be read from the contents, not the label.

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