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The Night We Never Wanted to Leave: A Real Stay at SolaVilla, Awaji Island
For the longest time, my honest feeling was this: I had never once spent money on a place to stay and not regretted it.
Even in a beautiful room, it always ended the same way. Check in, glance at the view, sleep, eat breakfast, go home. For the price, surprisingly little stayed in memory. That was what I believed.
This one night turned that belief on its head. It happened at the very place that made me want to start TOMARIBI in the first place: SolaVilla Umi-Terrace Minami-Awaji, a whole-house villa on the western coast of Awaji Island. We went back, this time as the editorial team, and here is that day exactly as it was, with the photographs we took.
From the moment they handed us the key
It was October 2025. My partner and I, the two of us who live together, drove down the western coast in a rental car. Our villa was a second-floor unit with its own open-air bath.
I opened the door, stepped outside, and a sound escaped me before I could stop it. On the terrace, open to the sea, were an open-air bath, a sofa, and a BBQ grill. All of it, outside. Beyond the railing there was nothing but the Harima Sea, with nothing in the way.
From check-in to check-out, this house was entirely ours. The moment that sank in, the shape of the trip changed. Not “where shall we go,” but “what shall we not do here.” A trip not of making plans, but of erasing them.
The sea changes its face four times a day
The greatest luxury of this stay was the open-air bath.
What surprised me was that the same water showed a completely different sea at noon, at dusk, at night, and in the morning. Noon was a blue that scattered the light. Dusk was a surface melting into gold. Night was only the sound of waves in the dark. Morning was a cool, clear indigo.
Listening to the waves, we got in, got out, and got in again. I have lost count of how many times. Perhaps the truer thing to say is that we stopped measuring the hours. Because a private house means answering to no one, you can slip back into the water before your hair has even dried. That “as many times as you like” changed the density of a single night entirely.
On the terrace at dusk, waiting for the sun to fall
We had stocked up on drinks at the nearest supermarket on the way in. DAIYAME, a jar-aged sweet-potato shochu from Hamada Shuzo, topped with soda, and a can of Horoyoi. Nothing special. And yet, drunk in this place, it became the finest thing on the table.
The sky changed color slowly. From orange to pink, and then to indigo. In the few minutes when the edges of the clouds burned reddest, we both fell quiet.
The first time I thought a villa’s food was truly delicious
For dinner, we had requested the villa’s meal plan.
Honestly, I had never once been moved by food at a hotel or a ryokan. It was always that feeling where only the price stays with you. This night was different. We opened the tiered wooden box carried to the table, and with every dish we lifted to our mouths, we could tell: this is the real thing.
Tucked in with it was a single sheet introducing the chef. The cooking lived up to that confidence. And the ingredients, meat and vegetables alike, were all from Awaji. Not one of the appetizers cut a corner. And the star of it all: beautifully marbled Awaji beef.
Grilling at our own pace on the terrace, eating as we cooked. No one to hurry us. How well the meat was done, what we drank, how fast we talked, all of it was ours. That the food was delicious goes without saying, but waiting for a sweet Awaji onion to turn tender and golden, then reaching for a piece of meat at just the right moment, the very act of cooking it ourselves and eating on our own time multiplied the flavor many times over.
Looking up at the stars, we talked about the future
Once the sun had fully set, stars began to appear.
Away from the lights of any town, the night here is properly dark, so the stars show themselves well. For a long while, we gazed up at them, drink in hand, and talked, deeply and happily, about our future together.
It is a strange thing: these conversations rarely surface on a trip crammed with plans. Time with nothing you have to do, a place where no one can interrupt. Only when those two things come together does the important talk quietly begin. The greatest gift this villa gave us was probably that time.
Morning, too, before the sea
Breakfast, too, had been prepared for us. Thick sandwiches, Awaji Island yogurt, and freshly brewed coffee.
A little of the meat we couldn’t finish the night before was still left, so we grilled it again in the morning, too. A plate on the terrace with the morning sun coming in, before a sea that was blue in a different way from the day before. Perhaps luxury is exactly this kind of nothing-much time, a little “yesterday, once more, today.”
Take my word for it: make the villa the point of the trip
Until check-out, we never once stepped outside. We did no sightseeing. And still, it was fuller than any trip we had taken before.
If, like the old me, you believe that spending money on a place to stay leaves you with little to remember, then take my word for it and try, just once, a trip where the villa itself is the point. The destination is the villa. The plan is none. You never have to leave.
Soak again and again in a bath open to the sea, watch the sun go down, eat meat you grilled yourselves, and talk about tomorrow under the stars. That alone is more than enough to make a trip rich. TOMARIBI began with this one night.
The house where we spent this night｜SolaVilla Umi-Terrace Minami-Awaji
A whole-house resort villa lined up along the oceanfront on the western coast of Minami-Awaji. Every building has its own open-air bath, and some welcome dogs. For rates, availability, and meal plans, please check the official site.