I am also thinking about this subject. I think it depends on several factors:

1. Do you have children who would visit your grave site? We don’t, so that is a factor.

2. Are you partial to the US or do you find Japan to be all that? Depending on which country you prefer or feel allegiance to overall that may help you decide.

Me with no children, I am leaning on cremation. For also the carbon footprint or environment reasons. I am thinking I may want my ashes spread in several of my favorite spots.

I want my ashes spread In Scotland, some in the North Sea by Lochinver or Isle of Skye.

I moved to Norway in 2013, and I plan to stay here. There is a small graveyard up North, where my wife’s family comes from, overlooking a bay and with a beautiful view of the mountains. That’s the place for me.

No children, no family, no worries: give my body to med students, the flames, or the worms, whatever is more convenient to the person having to take care of the corpse.

I want to be frozen, then fed through a woodchipper.

My wife and I have talked about it but we have not made a final decision. I really lean towards being buried in my family cemetery in the US next to my parents. My wife wants to be buried in Germany but I am not a fan of that idea since burial plots are leased at 25 year terms in Germany. My family cemetery however is 200+ years old and not going anywhere.

In Japan, 99.99% of the time, you must be cremated, unless you have religious reason, like the Muslim for example.

I’ve told my kids, cremate then disperse my ashes into the ocean, freedom for me, freedom for them, because they don’t have to tend a grave, be locked down into a place, and spend unnecessary money.

I’ve asked my husband this and told him what I want. I think it’s a conversation everyone should have with their loved ones. The grief of losing someone so close to you is bad wnough without having to make all these decisions without knowing what the person would want.

We both want to be buried, not cremated. I’d prefer to just be washed, wrapped in a cloth and buried in a nice burial forest, but we only have one of those in my country (I hope it will change by the time I die). He doesn’t know where he wants to be buried, but I think he doesn’t care as much as he’s like ‘it’ll just be a body at that point, doesn’t matter that much’.

My mother has made an accessible list of her passwords, important stuff etc. Also a list of songs she wants played at her funeral, which funeral home she wants, which people should be invited,… I’m really grateful to her for doing that, because that way I can make sure her end of life celebration is exactly the way she wants it.

My MIL wants to be buried with a ginko biloba on her grave and there’s a quote from a book she’d like read at her funeral.

I 'm Dutch. Unsurprisingly i want my ashes to be set free in the sea.

Discussed this with my partner. We’re pretty pragmatic people and agreed that it doesn’t matter to the dead person what happens with them… Once they’re dead. As such, we agreed that the surviving person can choose what they will do with the body… Bury, cremate, scatter ashes, turn ashes into a diamond.

Told my son to scatter my ashes on some beautiful beaches (we are big scuba divers)

Consider whether you want to be buried or cremated. If you are creamed it’s pretty easy to bring the ashes back to the US.

It’s a whole different, expensive, complicated process to bring a body back to the US. I assisted with this process, when I worked for the US Embassy. Your wife would need to go through the legal process in the country where you die, the US Embassy there to get the documents required to bring your body to the US, the consul must visit the mortuary and observe your body being sealed into the coffin then apply the US seal to the coffin, an airline would have to then fly your body to the US (expensive), and your wife would have to make arrangements with a funeral parlor/ mortuary services to accept your body upon arrival, and finally there are the normal burial arrangements. This is a lot of work and expense for the grieving spouse during an already emotionally difficult time. If being buried in the US is what you want to do, I would seriously consider buying a supplemental life insurance policy that would cover the expenses and possibly hire a lawyer or specialist to handle the paperwork.

If you’re from a tradition that values the prayers of your faith community after your death, then your priest or clergyperson can advise you on how your tradition respectfully treats the bodies of members.

Chances are, though, that in Japan the default is cremation. Unless you have a preference, your wife or survivors will figure out what seems a respectful place to keep your ashes.

A suggestion: If you’re not a person of faith, or if you don’t expect a memorial service, then don’t make fanciful requests like “Scatter my ashes in the ocean” or whatever. If you’ve ever taken a charter boat out past the three-mile limit, to anticlimactically drop Dad’s urn in the ocean (Blork! done.) then it’s hard to communicate what a waste of time it is.

Simple. Next to wherever she wants to be buried

you could get cremated and split between countries. I am fairly sure I don’t want a grave at all, memories are made now not later and there are better ways to remember people than a gravestone.