Best Onsen in Japan

Onsen use natural spring water and are found in hot-spring towns, ryokan and big day-use complexes. Rotenburo are outdoor pools, the reason to go in winter, when you sit in 42°C water with snow falling. Sento are city bathhouses, many with tiled Mount Fuji murals, and cost 550 yen in Tokyo. Kashikiri baths are private family baths you book for 45 to 60 minutes, free at many ryokan or 2,000 to 5,000 yen elsewhere. Ashiyu are free public foot baths in the streets of most onsen towns. Konyoku mixed baths survive in rural areas, and some now allow bath wraps.

Water types matter to Japanese bathers and are posted at the entrance: acidic sulphur water (milky, strong smell, tarnishes silver jewellery), alkaline “beauty” water that feels smooth on the skin, iron-rich brown water, and clear simple springs. Remove silver rings and necklaces before you get into sulphur baths.

Hakone is the default first onsen because it fits any itinerary: 85 minutes from Shinjuku on the Odakyu Romancecar, with hundreds of ryokan from Hakone-Yumoto at the bottom to Gora and Sengokuhara higher up, and a sightseeing loop past Lake Ashi and the steaming Owakudani crater. Day baths in Hakone-Yumoto cost about 1,000 to 2,500 yen and many open into the evening. On clear days several ryokan baths face Mount Fuji. It gets busy, and prices on Saturday nights are often double those on weeknights.

Kusatsu Onsen in Gunma is the one many Japanese call the best. The centre of the town is the Yubatake, a steaming field of wooden channels where some of the most abundant natural hot water in Japan runs off at around 50°C to cool, lit up at night. The water is strongly acidic and stings any cuts, so ten minutes at a time is plenty. The big Sainokawara open-air bath sits in a park a 10-minute walk away, and the Netsunoyu hall stages the yumomi show, women stirring the water with long wooden boards and singing to cool it. Get there by JR to Naganohara-Kusatsuguchi and a 25-minute bus, or by direct highway bus from Tokyo in about four hours. Do not confuse it with the city of Kusatsu in Shiga, near Kyoto.

Kinosaki Onsen in Hyogo is the best onsen town for first-timers who want the full ritual. You check into a ryokan, put on a yukata and wooden geta, and walk along a willow-lined canal between seven public bathhouses. Guests of most ryokan get free entry to all seven; day visitors buy a one-day pass (around 1,500 yen) or pay per bath. Most of the bathhouses accept tattoos. It is about 2.5 hours from Kyoto on the Kinosaki limited express, and from November to March, ryokan dinners centre on snow crab, which pushes prices up.

Beppu in Oita has more hot-spring sources and more water than anywhere else in Japan, spread over eight districts. Start with the Jigoku Meguri, the “hells” of Kannawa and Shibaseki: boiling pools coloured cobalt blue, blood red and milky white, for looking not bathing. A combined ticket for all seven costs a little over 2,000 yen. Then bathe: Takegawara Onsen, a wooden bathhouse from 1879, has a sand bath where staff bury you in warm sand; the Myoban district has thatched mud and mineral-crystal huts; and the cheap neighbourhood baths cost a few hundred yen. Beppu is 2 hours from Hakata by the Sonic limited express, cheap by onsen-town standards, and the most tattoo-friendly town in Japan.

Ginzan Onsen in Yamagata is the postcard: three- and four-storey wooden Taisho-era ryokan facing each other across a narrow river, gas lamps lit at dusk, deep snow in winter. It has only around a dozen inns and they book out months ahead for January and February. Overcrowding has led the town to limit day visitors: cars park at the visitor centre outside town and you take a paid shuttle, and in recent winters evening entry for non-guests has needed an advance ticket. Check the current rules before you go. Access is by Yamagata shinkansen to Oishida and a 40-minute bus.

The full onsen experience is a night in a ryokan: arrive by 16:00, bathe before dinner, eat a kaiseki meal of eight to twelve small courses in your yukata, bathe again late at night or at dawn, then breakfast at a set time. Prices are per person with two meals: about 15,000 to 25,000 yen at a simple family inn, 25,000 to 50,000 yen at a well-known onsen ryokan, and far more for rooms with a private open-air bath. Solo travellers pay a supplement or are turned away on busy nights. Book “two meals” rather than room-only, because many onsen towns have almost nowhere to eat after 19:00. Our costs guide has more on budgets.

Red curtains (onna-yu) are for women, blue (otoko-yu) for men; at many ryokan the two swap at night, so check the sign each time. Undress completely in the changing room and leave everything in a basket or locker. Take only the small towel into the bathing area. Sit on a stool at the shower taps and wash thoroughly, hair included, then rinse the stool. Get in slowly; the water is usually 40 to 43°C. Keep the towel out of the water (folded on your head is the classic move), tie up long hair, do not swim or put your head under, and keep your voice down. Phones and cameras are banned in the bathing area. Dry off with the small towel before going back into the changing room so you do not drip on the floor.

Tattoos are the biggest worry for visitors. Because of the old link with organised crime, around half of onsen and many hotel baths still refuse anyone with visible tattoos, though the number falls every year and enforcement towards foreign visitors is often softer. Your options, in order of reliability:

• Private baths: book a kashikiri bath or a room with its own bath. This works anywhere.
• Tattoo-friendly towns: Beppu, Kinosaki, Dogo in Matsuyama and Nozawa are relaxed, and neighbourhood sento in Tokyo and Osaka generally accept tattoos.
• Cover-up patches: skin-tone stickers sold in drugstores for 500 to 1,000 yen are accepted at some baths for one or two small tattoos.
• Ask first: “tattoo OK?” is understood everywhere, and nobody takes offence at the question.

You do not need to stay overnight. Most onsen towns have public baths (soto-yu) for a few hundred yen, and many ryokan sell daytime entry (higaeri nyuyoku) for 800 to 2,000 yen, usually from about 11:00 to 15:00. In cities, a sento costs 550 yen in Tokyo and a little less in most other prefectures; big “super sento” complexes with saunas and several pools cost 1,000 to 3,000 yen. Spa LaQua at Tokyo Dome City is a convenient city option. Bring your own small towel or rent one for 200 to 300 yen, and buy soap if the bath has none, as some cheap sento do not.