Hokkaido, Japan · Mountain, Town / small city
Hokkaido's most famous hot-spring town, set beside the volcanic Jigokudani valley, with sulfur fumaroles and up to nine distinct types of hot-spring water.
Train + bus — JR train to Noboribetsu Station (about 1h-1h30 from Sapporo by limited express) then a roughly 15-minute bus ride to the onsen town; direct buses from Sapporo also run (about 1h45).
♨️ Onsen / Ryokan🛌 Pure relaxation
An 11-hectare volcanic crater with steaming sulfur vents and boiling pools that supply hot-spring water to the whole town.
Noboribetsu is the only spa town in Japan with nine distinct water types in one village, sulphurous, ferrous, saline, alum, acidic, fed by the Jigokudani at some ten thousand tonnes a day. They call it the department store of onsen, and several hotels allow day bathing, so you can compare them in an afternoon.
It is in Shiraoi, not Noboribetsu, twenty-five minutes by local train. It is Japan's main centre for learning about the Ainu people: a national museum, a reconstructed village by Lake Poroto, live music and dance, and craft and cookery workshops. Closed Mondays.
The town's ryokan draw water directly from Jigokudani; many, like Dai-ichi Takimotokan, let day visitors pay to use their baths without staying overnight.
The village's great historic bath, fed by five different springs across a huge hall of pools with windows over the Jigokudani. It is one of the best modern indoor baths in Japan, and the price drops from four in the afternoon.
An almost perfectly circular crater lake seven kilometres from the village, with some of the clearest water in Japan and no natural outlet and not a single building on its shore. The road closes in winter.
On the last weekend of August, a parade of the Great King Enma along the main street with demon dances, a diabolical mikoshi and taiko. It is the village's big annual event and it makes full use of its infernal iconography.
A ropeway to the top of Mt. Kuma, with a park of semi-wild Hokkaido brown bears and a small museum on Ainu culture.
It is in Muroran, a different municipality, about twenty minutes by car: 100-meter cliffs with a lighthouse over the Pacific. The name, Cape of the Earth, comes from the fact that on clear days you can make out the curvature of the horizon.
Local ramen with graded levels of spiciness, playing on King Enma and the Jigokudani. It is the village's own specialty beyond ryokan kaiseki.
An active volcanic cone 377 metres high above Oyunuma, with views of the thermal lake, the Jigokudani and, on clear days, the Pacific.
It does belong to the municipality, about eight kilometres inland. Its water is simple, very soft and low in minerals, the opposite of the sulfur of the Jigokudani, with a tradition of prolonged therapeutic bathing and a rural, quiet atmosphere.
The surrounding area supplies what the spa town lacks: the port of Muroran, with seafood from Uchiura Bay, and Shiraoi wagyu, one of Hokkaido's historic beef brands.
A protected forest fifteen minutes on foot from the village, designated a natural monument, with beeches and oaks and a quiet trail. It is the part of Noboribetsu almost nobody visits.
A stretch of the stream flowing down from Lake Oyunuma cools just enough for a foot soak, along a wooden walkway through the forest.
The only public sento in Noboribetsu, with two kinds of water for 500 yen. This is where residents bathe, not hotel guests.
A small park in the middle of the village whose geyser erupts roughly every three hours, throwing up steam and hot water. It is free and right on the street: a good pause between baths.
A recreated Edo-period village with actors playing samurai and ninja, shows, and streets styled after feudal Japan.
The spa town's only shopping street: onsen pudding, steamed sweets, demon souvenirs and statues of protective oni dotted around the village.
Part of the Jigokudani trail is lit up at night in season, giving the valley a different mood than the daytime visit.
A grayish, sulfurous lake near boiling point, the source of much of the town's hot-spring water.
In front of the Enma-dō shrine, a large animatronic statue of the Buddhist king of hell comes to life several times each night with lights and sound.
A Danish-castle-shaped aquarium near Noboribetsu Station, with penguins, seals and cold-water fish from Hokkaido.
Tell us how many days you have and what you are interested in, and the planner builds a realistic itinerary with real train times.
Open the planner