One Of The Most Luxurious Resorts In Japan Is A Sustainable Slice Of Heaven In A Tree

Would you pay $800 or more to spend the night in a treehouse? What about a glamping-style treehouse that Luxury Travel Advisor voted one of the most Instagrammable hotels in Asia for 2023? That's the experience offered at Treeful Treehouse, an upscale, sustainable resort in the forests of Okinawa, Japan. It's a place where you could find yourself ascending a shaky spiral staircase that wraps around a tree trunk, then climbing a ladder to a rooftop with comfy hammocks. For those who enjoy Japan's one-of-a-kind toilets, the resort's original Spiral Treehouse also comes equipped with a compost toilet, where your waste will feed the dirt to cultivate plants.

The Treeful Treehouse welcomed its first guests in August 2021 as the Summer Olympics (delayed a year due to the pandemic) were underway in Tokyo. One year later, in August 2022, the resort's sauna took the Guinness World Record for "lowest treehouse." The sauna (which is temporarily closed as of this writing) hangs almost 12 feet below the tree's base at a forest site overlooking the Genka River in the city of Nago.

A trip to the sauna alone would normally cost you 22,000 yen (almost $150), whereas "room sets" at Treeful (consisting of one of three treehouses and an accompanying AeroHouse) start at 120,000 yen ($800). The riverside resort is just over an hour by car from one of Okinawa's most popular attractions, Churaumi Aquarium, where you can see whale sharks and manta rays swimming in a massive, 115-foot-wide fish tank. According to the resort's website, each treehouse is also built "so that animals, insects, plants, and microorganisms can live under the building or pass through it while being exposed to sunlight and rain."

At the Treeful Treehouse, you can minimize your carbon footprint when traveling since the resort has no reliance on fossil fuels. It prides itself on using solar panels and renewable energy sources like wind power so that it emits less CO2 than its trees absorb. Even its water undergoes sterilization with UV rays rather than chlorine, while the hot water tank (which utilizes surplus electricity for overnight boiling) only holds enough for four showers a day.

One reason why the room sets at Treeful may be so expensive is that they cater to groups of up to six people. The Halcyon Treehouse and Golden Trophy Treehouse both sleep two, while their respective AeroHouses — which resemble portable buildings on stilts — can each accommodate an additional four guests on a futon, L-shaped couch, and king-size bed. In addition to standard appliances like microwaves or mini-fridges, some rooms will outfit you with less traditional amenities like an "adventure bag" and bug spray.

If bugs aren't your thing, the resort recommends booking a stay in winter, when there are fewer insects and Okinawa — Japan's southernmost prefecture — is the warmest place in the country. Complimentary eye masks could help you sleep when the sun starts shining in, but the resort notes that "there may be some rain leakage during heavy rain." Depending on which room you're in, you could also have a yoga mat, wine cellar, tea and coffee set, and a flushable toilet at your disposal. The ultimate goal, per the resort, is to put you in a place where "there is no boundary between nature and humans, and you can feel coexistence with nature."

The Treeful Treehouse is about a two-hour drive from the international airport in Okinawa's capital, Naha, where there used to be a treehouse diner called Gajumaru ("Banyan"). The year before the novelty diner was demolished, the first treehouse at Treeful sprang up, though it had already taken root for Gala Inc. chairman Satoru Kikugawa long before that. Kikugawa grew up in the densely populated Tokyo, where big backyards, much less treehouses, are far less common than they are in suburban parts of the United States. As a kid, he had always dreamed of having a treehouse, but it was the sight of a forest being cut down in Borneo that inspired him to finally make good on his dream in Okinawa.

A self-taught carpenter, Kikugawa told CNN, "I didn't get much support initially when I had this [treehouse] idea. Many saw me as just a rich man looking to find a hobby." Fortunately, he has a daughter, Maha, who earned a B.A. in Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami. She admired "his passion for making the world a better place though treehouses," and together, they scouted existing treehouse projects in places like Costa Rica for further inspiration.

Uniq Hotels has likened the Treeful Treehouse to "a Jurassic Park setting, without the dinosaurs roaming around." Perhaps not so coincidentally, Maha described that as her "favorite film" on Instagram, where she shared a video of herself exploring the real Jurassic Park in Hawaii. If you're looking for a different kind of island adventure where you can still sleep in a tree, head to the Treeful Treehouse in Okinawa.