Zazen, forest bathing and temples you can sleep in

🧘 Wellness & unplugging · 121 destinations · 253 activities

Meditating in a temple or sleeping in one is possible as a foreign visitor, but not everywhere: most temples that take guests are on a few mountains and require booking. Forest bathing has waymarked trails and certified guides in several prefectures. Almost all of it starts very early, sometimes before dawn.

The destinations, by real weight

What to do exactly

Naoshima — 6 activities

• Hiroshi Sugimoto Gallery: Time Corridors 1 h booking

  Sugimoto's gallery next to Benesse House Park, open daily with no weekly closing day and requiring a date-and-time reservation. Admission includes tea and a sweet in a room looking out on his glass 'Mondrian' tea house: it is the most contemplative stretch of time on the island and very few people take advantage of it.

• Minamidera, Turrell's 'Backside of the Moon' 0.5 h booking

  Although it is part of the Art House Project, it is not covered by the five-house pass: it is paid separately and a time slot must be booked. You enter in a group into a room in total darkness and it takes several minutes for your eyes to reveal the work.

• Staying at Benesse House 16 h booking

  Guests enter the museum outside public hours, until nine at night, and move freely through the area closed to vehicles. It is the only way to see the main works with nobody else around.

• The empty island before the first ferry 2 h

  Between seven and ten in the morning there is nobody about: you can walk the Benesse coast or Honmura without meeting a soul. It is the main argument for not doing Naoshima as a day trip.

• Turrell's 'Open Sky' night programme 0.75 h booking

  A special 45-minute session at dusk inside Chichu's Open Sky: the square of sky cut into the ceiling changes colour while the artificial light is modulated. It is paid separately from admission and booked separately, on specific days.

• Kinza, Rei Naito's 'Being Given' 0.25 h booking

  One person enters every fifteen minutes, in absolute silence, with a separate ticket from the pass and a compulsory reservation. It closes for parts of the year, so confirm before counting on it.

Kyoto — 12 activities

• Kurama Onsen, the sulphur bath in the mountains 3 h

  Important and recent: this bath was closed from 2021 by the pandemic and typhoon damage, and reopened on 1 November 2024 after a 30 million yen refurbishment funded in part by 10 million yen of crowdfunding. Sulphurous water. Two day rates: full plan 2,500 yen on weekdays and 2,700 yen at weekends and on public holidays, 1,300 yen for children from age 3 to primary school; rotenburo only 1,400 and 1,600 yen, 700 yen for children. Open 11:00 to 20:00, with the dining room 12:00 to 15:00 and 17:00 to 20:00. There is an indoor bath with three pools (thermal, jacuzzi and cold water) and an outdoor bath facing the mountain, plus a meditation room and a tea area in the forest. It is a 13-minute walk from Kurama station on the Eizan line, or bus 52 from Kokusaikaikan to the end of the line. The station pick-up service was under study and was not running: confirm it.

• Mitarashi Matsuri, wading into the sacred water 1 h only 10 days around the Day of the Ox (July)

  Moveable dates around the day of the ox in July: in 2026 it ran from 18 to 30 July, with the main rite on the 26th, 9:00 to 20:00 and last entry at 19:30. You pay 500 yen for the candle offering, take off your shoes, wade knee-deep across the Mitarashi pond to leave the lit candle before the altar, and finish by drinking the spring water. The water wells up from the bottom and is freezing even in the middle of August. Public transport is recommended: the car park charges 1,000 yen for the first hour and 500 for each half hour after that, with no cap. Bring a towel and shoes that come off easily.

• A neighbourhood sento route in Kyoto 1.5 h

  The bath price is regulated by the prefecture and rose on 1 April 2025 to 550 yen for adults, 200 for children aged 6 to 11 and 100 for under-6s; there is nothing to negotiate, it is the same everywhere. A relevant point for anyone with tattoos: Kyoto is among the most permissive Japanese cities in its public baths, with 69 of 93 listed establishments confirmed as tattoo-friendly, among them Funaoka Onsen and Umeyu. Even so, some places only admit you if the tattoo is covered with a patch or a rashguard, so each one has to be checked. The public bathhouse law does not allow refusal on the grounds of a tattoo alone, but in practice each house decides.

• Carving a wooden Jizo with a Buddhist sculptor in Yase 6 h booking

  A Buddhist image carving workshop with the sculptor Noda Kodo in Yase, north of Sakyo-ku, near Ruriko-in and Renge-ji. It lasts 360 minutes, is private for between 1 and 5 people, includes an English-speaking guide and costs from about 314 dollars per person. You start from a roughed-out block and work the head, shoulders and face of a palm-sized Warabe Jizo with chisels, and take it away with you. No previous experience is needed. The principle of ittosanrai, one cut and three prayers, is also taught. A Kyoto bento can be added by booking it beforehand. It is a booking request subject to host confirmation and cancellation is free up to 11 days before. It is a full day: nothing else fits that day.

• Day bathing at Arashiyama Onsen Fufu no Yu 1.5 h

  A day-use-only hot spring bath one minute from Hankyu Arashiyama station, useful for closing an Arashiyama day without changing area. Simple alkaline water. It opens at 12:00 and closes at 21:30 with last admission at 21:00, with no fixed closing day although it has occasional seasonal closures. Adults 1,000 yen on weekdays and 1,200 at weekends and on public holidays; children 600 and infants 300. Towel hire 200 yen; shampoo and body wash included. It has a rotenburo, a silk bath, a sauna and a steam sauna for women only, plus a tatami room with some 1,200 volumes of manga. It has no accommodation and no private bath. The tattoo policy is not published: worth confirming.

• Hot spring baths in the Ohara valley 2 h booking

  Ohara has its own thermal water and three small guesthouses that open the bath to people not staying the night: Ohara no Sato, Ohara Sanso (which is the source spring) and the Seryo. These are minshuku and ryokan with few rooms, not resorts: day-bath capacity is small, there are time slots and in maple season it is worth calling first; several require a booking for the day bath. It combines well with an afternoon at Sanzen-in and Hosen-in, ten minutes' walk away. The advantage over Kurama is that Ohara is closer to the centre by bus and the bath can be strung together with dinner. Exact prices and hours vary from house to house: confirm them directly, because they change with the season.

Tokyo — 12 activities

• Neighbourhood sento 1.5 h

  The local public bathhouse, with a regulated maximum fare that rose to 600 yen in August 2026, Mount Fuji murals and neighbours who know each other by name. Kosugiyu in Koenji and Daikoku-yu in Kita-Senju are among the few that accept tattoos and explain the rules in English.

• Black onsen at Maenohara Saya-no-Yudokoro 3 h

  Genuine hot spring water inside the city, black from the fossil plant matter beneath Tokyo, in a wooden building with a garden and outdoor baths in Itabashi. It is designed for half a day and bars entry with visible tattoos.

• Eighteen-dish breakfast at Tsukiji Honganji 2 h

  The Buddhist temple of Indo-Japanese architecture opens its morning service to the public, and its cafe serves a breakfast of 18 tiny bowls inspired by the 18 vows of Amida. Long queue at weekends.

• Keio Takaosan Gokurakuyu onsen at the foot of Takao 2 h

  Natural hot spring water one minute from Takaosanguchi station, meant for coming down off the mountain and getting straight into the rotenburo. It closes the perfect circle of a day on Takao.

• Senkyaku Banrai: an Edo street and hot spring above the bay 3.5 h

  Complex opened in 2024 next to Toyosu, with 60 food outlets in an Edo-village set and an onsen fed by water brought from Hakone-Yugawara, with baths on the tenth floor. There is a free foot bath on the eighth. It is the real replacement for the Oedo Onsen in Odaiba, which closed in 2021.

• Koganeyu: the renovated sento with a sauna, beer taps and a DJ booth 2 h

  A neighbourhood bathhouse in Kinshicho renovated in 2020 without ceasing to be a sento: regulated entry price, a new wall mural, a stone sauna for a supplement, and a bar with four taps of its own beer as you come out of the water. Open 4pm-12:30am and again 6-9am for people bathing before work, with the men's and women's sides swapping on Wednesdays. Two notes: tattoos are welcome, and the sauna supplement is about ¥550-600 for men and ¥350-400 for women because the women's space is smaller. The same team opened a second branch in Higashi-Shinjuku in July 2026.

Iya Valley — 6 activities

• Canyon-floor rotenburo reached by private funicular 2 h

  The hotel's own funicular drops 170 metres down the slope to open-air baths at the river's edge, with alkaline water surfacing at 39 degrees. Day use is possible, but it closes Wednesdays.

• Chiiori, Alex Kerr's house 14 h booking

  A house from around 1720, the second oldest in Iya, bought by Alex Kerr in 1973 and the subject of his book 'Lost Japan'. It has no interior ceilings because in the Edo period tobacco was hung from the beams to cure; you can visit it or sleep there, around the irori and without a television.

• Sleeping in a kominka in Ochiai 14 h booking

  Eight thatched houses in the terraced hamlet, restored under Alex Kerr's direction and rented for exclusive use, with irori and tatami and no neighbours in sight. They began as an answer to the valley's abandonment: renting out the empty houses instead of demolishing them.

• A day working the slopes 3.5 h booking

  A local association programme to work alongside farmers on vertiginous slopes, understand the cones of dried grass that serve both as fertiliser and as a reserve of wild seeds, and eat with the family. It is the most direct way to talk to people who live in the valley.

• Starry skies of Oku-Iya 1 h

  With no cities for tens of kilometres and the valley between 700 and 1,400 metres, light pollution is almost nil. The viewpoints at Ochiai and the open ground at Nagoro work well, but driving these roads at night calls for great care.

• The 'sky bath' at Shin-Iya Onsen 1.5 h

  Here the funicular goes up instead of down, to a rotenburo of blue Awa stone high on the hillside looking out over the valley. Guests have dinner around irori hearths, with charcoal-grilled ayu and Iya soba.

Beppu — 6 activities

• Kannawa Mushiyu, the herbal steam bath 0.75 h must-see

  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.

• Hyotan Onsen 2.5 h

  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.

• Mud bath at Hoyo Land 1.5 h

  In Myoban, milky white water and a mud bath that is mixed-gender and outdoors, divided by a bamboo fence, with separate access for women. The mud is used as a scrub. Watch out for the submerged steps, which are impossible to see.

• Toji, the long-stay thermal cure 72 h booking

  Beppu still has toji lodgings: therapeutic stays of several days with your own cooking and several baths a day, mainly in Kannawa and Myoban. This is the city's real proposal for rest, as opposed to a one-night ryokan.

• Private sauna by reservation 2 h booking

  Beppu's contemporary sauna scene has its benchmark in an alley downtown, with cooling and air bathing combined with thermal water. A good counterpoint to a day of hells.

• Yoga and Onsen Retreat in Kannawa 1 h booking

  In Japan's largest hot spring district, several operators run multi-day retreats combining yoga classes, brief meditation, and guided hot spring bathing — this is not a single daily drop-in class but a scheduled program with set dates.

Kōya-san — 4 activities

• Goma fire ritual at dawn 1 h

  After the seven o'clock service the monks burn wooden tablets amid mantras before Fudo Myo-o; anyone staying in a shukubo can attend without booking.

• Shojin ryori and goma-dofu 1.5 h booking

  Vegetarian temple cooking served on lacquer trays, with the sesame tofu that is the speciality of the mountain; no meat, fish, garlic or onion.

• Ajikan meditation 1 h booking

  Esoteric shingon meditation on the syllable 'A', guided at dusk in several temples, lasting around forty minutes.

• Copying the Heart Sutra 1 h

  You copy the sutra with a brush in your own temple room and can then leave it as an offering at Okunoin.

Karuizawa — 4 activities

• Flying squirrel night walk 2 h booking

  Guided outing at dusk to watch the momonga, the Japanese flying squirrel, leave its nest; booking is required and it works even with small children.

• Kendrick Kellogg's Stone Church 1 h

  Half-buried organic-architecture chapel built from alternating arches of stone and glass, dedicated to the Christian thinker Uchimura Kanzo; it closes when there is a wedding.

• Tombo-no-Yu hot spring bath 1.5 h

  Day-use hot spring bath deep in the forest, drawing on the same source as the luxury resort next door but open to anyone.

• Luxury ryokan in the Hoshino valley 14 h booking

  Pavilions spread over the water in a private valley, with their own hot springs and rest programs; it is among the most expensive lodgings in Japan.

Matsue-Izumo — 5 activities

• A night at a Tamatsukuri Onsen ryokan 14 h must-see booking

  The oldest documented hot spring in Japan, cited in the Izumo no Kuni Fudoki, with alkaline water known as bihada no yu, the beautiful-skin water. Kaiseki dinner with Nakaumi shellfish and a private open-air bath.

• Day bathing at Tamatsukuri Onsen 1.5 h

  Several Tamatsukuri ryokan open their baths to non-guests for a few hours around midday. An alternative for anyone sleeping in Matsue city.

• Tamatsukuri-yu Jinja and the wishing stone 0.75 h

  Shrine to the god of magatama beads, with the Negai-ishi or wishing stone and its blessing-pouch ritual. It sits at the far end of the hot-spring promenade.

• Tamayu riverside walk and free foot baths 1.5 h

  A walk along the bank of the Tamayu among willows and lanterns, with three free ashiyu and Himegami square. You can bottle hot-spring water to take away.

• Ashiyu at Matsue Shinjiko Onsen station 0.5 h

  A free foot bath with hot-spring water at the Bataden terminus, on the lake shore. It is the best place to wait for the train and rest your feet after the castle.

What only happens on specific dates

• Nyuto under the snow Kakunodate and Lake Tazawa 15 Dec - 31 Mar
• Dawn SUP and Canadian canoeing Lake Shikotsu and Chitose 1 May - 31 Oct
• An introduction to yamabushi training Dewa Sanzan 1 May - 31 Oct
• Tōrin-in, the days of the sala flower Kyoto about two weeks in mid-June
• Mitarashi Matsuri, wading into the sacred water Kyoto 10 days around the Day of the Ox (July)
• Bathing under a hot-spring waterfall Yokote bathing from early July to mid-September

Other ways to travel Japan