♨️ Onsen / Ryokan · 99 destinations · 238 activities
Japan has thousands of onsen, but there is a wide gap between a decent municipal bathhouse and a hot spring town that justifies two nights. These destinations are ranked by how much bathing culture actually weighs in them, not by fame. Two warnings that keep coming up: most of them only make sense if you sleep there, and tattoo policy changes from one bathhouse to the next, so check before booking.
A tour of hot springs in impossible colours, not suitable for bathing.
Founded in 1276 by the monk Ippen. You lie for eight or ten minutes on a bed of sekisho, a medicinal herb, inside a stone chamber full of natural steam, then rinse off in hot-spring water. It is the only place in Japan preserving this form, and it accepts tattoos.
You're buried in hot volcanic sand on the beach — a uniquely Beppu experience.
Bayfront complex opened in the summer of 2025 on the former Kamegawa beach. You lie for about fifteen minutes under sand heated by thermal water; the sand is reheated nine times a day and rotated rather than reused.
Opened in 1929, the oldest amusement park in Kyushu and a gem of retro styling. You reach it on a 260-meter funicular at a 30-degree gradient, in dog- and cat-shaped cars running since the park was founded; it has Japan's only double ferris wheel, duck races and a hot spring bath with views included in the ticket.
Three stars in the Michelin guide and open until one in the morning: hot-water cascades for neck massage, a sand bath, steam baths and private family baths, plus steam cooking and a famous pudding.
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.
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.
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.
A stretch of the stream flowing down from Lake Oyunuma cools just enough for a foot soak, along a wooden walkway through the forest.
Traditional ryokan perched directly over the Kinugawa River canyon, many with open-air baths (rotenburo) overlooking the gorge.
Several ryokan open their baths above the river to visitors who are not staying, a convenient option if the town is done as a day trip.
Free foot baths right as you step off the train, the quickest way to try the town's waters.
A neighbouring hot spring town with much softer water and a quiet atmosphere, a good counterpoint to the bustle of Kinugawa's big hotels.
Four thermal inns upstream reachable only on foot or by shuttle, with no direct road access: the real disconnection in this area.
Further up the valley, an even more remote and quiet hot spring village, traditionally linked to defeated Heike clan survivors; reachable by bus from Kinugawa Onsen.
Three establishments open their bath to non-guests, in narrow midday and early-afternoon windows, with large panoramic rotenburo. Confirm the hours on the day itself: they change often and are suspended when the hotel is full.
Open-air hot spring baths with views of Yufuin's sacred mountain.
Yufuin keeps seven neighbourhood-run baths, nearly all unstaffed and with an honesty box, between 100 and 500 yen: Yunotsubo, Edo in origin; Kase-no-yu, founded in 1876; Kawanishi, with iron-rich water; and several more. Bring your own soap and towel. Warning: Shitanyu, the one by the lake, is a mixed bath.
About fifteen kilometres from the centre, an Edo-era spa climbing a 300-year-old cobbled slope, with wooden inns and four communal baths at 100 or 200 yen. It is what Yufuin was before tourism: quiet, aged and without a single soft-toy shop.
A thatched-roof public bath built on the shores of Lake Kinrin, one of Yufuin's most photographed onsen.
On the slope of Mount Garan, at 700 metres: strongly acidic, iron-rich water, among the most acidic in Japan, translucent green, and a short trail up to a steaming volcanic crater. The access road is narrow and it is awkward without a car.
Gas lamps lit at dusk over the wooden inns.
A free hot-spring foot bath right in the centre of the village.
A modern public bath beside the river, open to any daytime visitor: the only way to soak in the hot spring water without staying at one of the village's ryokan.
Facade of one of the town's oldest ryokan, renovated by architect Kengo Kuma, blending traditional wood with contemporary design.
Kusatsu's steaming heart: a wooden channel in the centre of town carrying much of the more than 4,000 liters per minute of hot-spring water that make this Japan's largest natural spring source, lit up at night.
A bathhouse with five wooden tubs from 38 to 46 degrees that you work through in order, raising the temperature little by little: the traditional method for handling Kusatsu's water.
A bath rebuilt in Edo style next to the Yubatake, with two waters from different sources and new timber that smells of cypress.
An Edo-period tradition still practiced: exactly three minutes submerged in water above 45 degrees, everyone at once and on a leader's call.
Kusatsu has some eighteen free communal baths scattered through its streets, but only three (Shirahata, Jizo and Chiyo) are open to visitors: the rest are for residents only, and that should be respected.
A traditional hot-spring bath, the central experience of a stay in Hakone.
A hot-spring complex in the toji style, the long cure, beside the Sukumo river, with outdoor rock baths and rest rooms. Cash only, discourages groups over six and refuses organised tours: it is a place of cure, not leisure.
A deliberately empty block: bath, yukata, kaiseki dinner in the room and nothing else. This is how Japanese travellers use Hakone and what foreign itineraries miss most.
19 private outdoor baths spread through a forest, three minutes by free shuttle from Hakone-Yumoto. With the Hakone Free Pass the hut rental drops to around 600 yen for two hours.
The Hakone Nanayu, the seven springs that already existed in the Edo period, each with different chemistry and temperature. They make clear that Hakone is not one onsen but an archipelago of waters.
Broad collection of classical Asian art (Japanese, Chinese, Korean) in a building with a huge exterior mural and a thermal footbath facing the artwork. It is the most expensive museum in Hakone at 2,800 yen, with 200 yen off with the Hakone Free Pass. The footbath under the giant mural costs 500 yen on its own or is included with admission.
Inn from 1758 with four wooden storeys and registered cultural property status; its facade lit up at night is the one many people associate with 'Spirited Away', though the studio has never confirmed it.
A 1,300-year-old hot spring town with nine traditional wooden public baths scattered through its lanes; ryokan guests get a key to visit them all in yukata and geta.
The only inn inside the valley itself, open since 1864; it was its open-air baths that gave rise to the monkeys' habit of getting into the water.
The neighbouring hot spring town, larger and with the train station; there is a free foot bath on the platform itself.
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