Hida no Sato vs Shiragawa-go

Hi

Hida no Sato & Shiragawa look similar to me from photo, so am wondering if I plan to visit Shiragawa (bus from Takayama) do I visit Hida no Sato?

HIda no Sato (special discount ticket - bus round trip from Takayama station with admission 930 yen)

If I just want to visit the surrounding of Hida no sato & take some nice photo with autumn leave & not going into the house to see, do I need to pay admission fee?

Thanks!

There is no need to visit both, unless you are really into Hida cultures.

Shirakawago is a real village, whereas Hidanosato is an outdoor museum with all of its buildings, including the iconic gassho-zukuri farmhouses, relocated from nearby villages. All the buildings are arranged around a pond to recreate the feel of a Hida village. I enjoyed visiting Hidanosato and being able to inspect all buildings very closely, including the attic area of a gassho-zukuri farmhouse with all its roof beams and how the straw thatchings were tied together. But I am an engineer and learning how things are made interest me a lot.
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5901.html

Every month, there is a special exhibit at the Hidanosato. I visited in May and the exhibit was an ancient koinobori (Japanese wind streamers that is shaped like a koi), which I wrote about in my blog.
http://michikusa-and-aikalima.blogspot.com/2017/06/blog-post.html

In order to see Hida no sato, you need to pay the entrance fee.

As the previous poster said Shirakawago is the "real" thing, but quite touristic. While Joda no Sato is conveniently located in Takayama but it is not a real village, but a lot of houses moved there. Including but not only Gassho villages.

If you have time i would go to Ainokura. But that village is harder to reach but probably the nicest of the Gassho villages.

Enjoy your trip to Japan !

We stayed at Shirakawa-go overnight about two years ago during autumn (early Nov). It was pretty chilly and it rained on the first day. But the mist and atmosphere was quaint and truly special. There were a few tourist buses, but the village was big enough that we didn't feel it was overcrowded.

I had one of the best Hiida beef dish for lunch at one of the inns, and explored the length and width of the village from edge to edge. Along the way I visited about three gassho-zukuri houses, which had been converted into public museums. However, one of them was still lived in by the farming family, and another one offered accommodation.

We stayed at one of the gassho-zukuri style ryokans ourselves and chatted with the owner about life in the village. That night we had the option to try an onsen near the edge of the village. But overall, the experience of staying, exploring and interacting with the villagers made our visit to Shirakawa-go once in a lifetime experience.

I guess I would say it depends on how much time you are allocating for seeing gassho zukuri and where you are going when you finish in Takayama. If you want to head north to Kanazawa or Toyama you might be better off visiting Shirakawa Go and then paying out of pocket for the bus to Kanazawa from Shirakawa Go. If you're planning to go to Nagoya or pay for a bus to Matsumoto it might make more sense to visit Hida no Sato.

I've been to both, I did ShirakawaGo in a paid tour out of Takayama along with Gokayama because I didn't want to have to worry about coordinating buses and I was on my own in February 2010. I went to Hida no Sato this past Summer. Hida no Sato is a lot more compact and while it is touristy it also felt like there were more activities you could participate in and better English signage (though I suspect ShirakawaGo has more English signage now too, since the tour I did was Japanese only and is now offered in Japanese/English.) I honestly was pretty impressed with Hida no Sato. You're not going to see much there without an admission ticket and the 930 yen is pretty fair since from what I remember it included round trip bus fare and admission.