Editors' Selection — Saga
Photo: Furuyu Onsen ONCRI / Onkuri
If you're looking for an onsen in Saga Prefecture that offers more than just a soak, your search ends here. Our editorial team, who research onsen and sauna facilities across Japan and visit them in person, has narrowed down the many facilities in the prefecture to just 6. From casual day-trip facilities to inns where you can stay overnight, every choice here is a winner. All you need to do now is decide which of the 6 to visit.
Saga Takeo City
A Silky Touch the Instant It Meets Your Skin, With Takeo's Forest Beyond the Window
A large bath where you can fully enjoy Takeo Onsen, known as the Beauty Bath. The alkaline simple hot spring wraps the whole body in its smooth, gentle texture. While gazing at the nature of Takeo spread out beyond the large windows, you can feel your physical and mental fatigue slowly melt away.
Editors' comment
The building stands on a hill up a slope from Takeo Onsen Station. Descend to the underground large bath, and Takeo's forest spreads out beyond the large windows. The alkaline simple spring known as bijin no yu (beauty bath) has a silky texture the moment it touches your skin, and it gradually releases the tension from your entire body. Visiting first thing in the morning, there was no one else in the bath, only birdsong and the sound of the spring water pouring from the source. The open-air area has a cold plunge bath filled with groundwater and reclining chairs lined up, along with a distinctly different sauna.
Availability and rates are shown on each booking site.
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Saga Saga City
45°C Straight From 1,126 Meters Underground, Flowing Into an Open-Air Bath Amid Bamboo
The facility provides its private source spring drawn from 1,126 m underground as a continuous free-flowing supply. The sodium bicarbonate spring is known as a 'beauty spring,' softening and smoothing the skin. The water feels silky, and after bathing the skin feels moist and supple. With a generous yield of 625 liters per minute, the baths are constantly replenished with fresh water. The spring also has good heat retention, gently warming and loosening tired bodies after sauna use. It is expected to be effective for muscle pain, rheumatoid arthritis, neuralgia, sensitivity to cold, and recovery from fatigue. You can enjoy the source water in various baths such as open-air baths overlooking a bamboo grove, indoor baths, and tub-type baths.
Editors' comment
The facility draws its own hot spring source from 1,126 meters underground and lets it flow continuously at its natural spring temperature of 45°C. With a flow rate of 625 liters per minute, the bath is constantly filled with fresh water. It feels hot at first, but the sodium bicarbonate spring has a soft touch that settles gently onto the skin. The open-air bath, connected to the indoor bath, opens onto a bamboo grove, and at night all that remains is the rustling of the leaves. In a stillness reminiscent of wandering into a ryokan garden, the core of your body slowly unwinds. There's a sauna as well, but this onsen is what you should soak in first.
If you found yourself wanting to go
JAPAN'S FINEST ONSEN & SAUNA
Japan's Finest Onsen & Sauna
64 SELECTIONS
Every list of Japan's baths looks the same, and none of them tells you which one to build a trip around. Inside are the places the editor bathed in himself, and others chosen through our own reporting — kept not for their star ratings, but because he would go back.
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Saga Imari City
Takeo's Spring Water Brought to an Imari Night, in an Open-Air Bath
A natural hot spring drawn from the source of Takeo Onsen, which has a 1,300-year history and is known as a beauty bath. This alkaline simple spring feels amazingly soft on the skin, letting you truly experience how smooth your skin becomes after bathing. In the open-air bath with a sense of openness, you can feel the pleasant breeze, and at night you can spend a high-quality, soothing moment in a fantastical, illuminated space.
Editors' comment
In a business hotel in front of Imari Station, there's a bathing area supplied with spring water brought in from Takeo Onsen. Known as bijin no yu (beauty bath) with a 1,300-year history, the spring quality is an alkaline simple spring. It's said to have a soft touch, leaving the skin feeling smooth after bathing. There are both an indoor bath and an open-air bath, and at night the open-air bath is lit up. Since the spring water is transported rather than sourced on-site, it has a different character from a rich onsen that overflows straight from the source. Even so, you can experience that same softness on an Imari night without having to travel all the way to Takeo. There's also a sauna and cold plunge bath.
Availability and rates are shown on each booking site.
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Saga Saga City
43 Tons of Self-Sourced Spring Water a Day, Enjoyed Long and Lukewarm
A large bath using the resort's abundant private natural hot spring source. With a skin-friendly spring quality known as a beauty bath, it is also known as a gentle low-temperature bath that places less strain on the body. In addition to a rustic open-air bath overlooking Mount Tenzan, the facility offers a variety of bathing areas such as a reclining bath and a box steam bath, allowing you to slowly unwind body and mind while feeling the breath of nature all around you.
A private hot spring bath in the detached annex JIBOH. In a quiet location that seems to blend into the mountainside, you can enjoy the signature low-temperature water whenever and for however long you like. Open the windows and you can take in the pleasant mountain air while enjoying a blissful soak in complete privacy.
Editors' comment
The name Furuyu Onsen comes from nuru-yu, meaning lukewarm water. ONCRI draws 43 tons of its own spring water per day, and rather than forcing this low-temperature water to be hotter, it's treated as an onsen meant for long soaks. The gentle spring quality is also known as bijin-yu (beauty bath), and the way the body receives it is completely different from a hot spring you soak in briefly. The facility is designed with long bathing in mind, offering an open-air bath overlooking Mount Tenzan, a lying-down bath, and a box steam bath, each offering a different way to bathe. The detached JIBOH building has its own in-room bath, where you can soak facing the mountainside with the window open, without watching the clock. The large communal bath also has a sauna and cold plunge bath.
Availability and rates are shown on each booking site.
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Saga Takeo City
Sinking Into Soft Takeo Onsen While Looking Up at the Forest of Mount Mifune
An alkaline simple hot spring sourced from the historic Takeo Onsen. The water has a soft texture and blends smoothly with the skin. After totonouing in the sauna and cold plunge bath, soaking slowly in this hot spring deepens recovery from fatigue and relaxation of both body and mind. The alkaline water smooths the skin and is expected to help with neuralgia, muscle pain, and joint pain. In the open-air bath, you can enjoy the hot spring to your heart's content while gazing at the seasonal scenery of Mifuneyama.
Editors' comment
Step into the open-air bath, and the upper half of your view fills with the forest of Mount Mifune. The alkaline simple spring of Takeo Onsen has a smooth, syrupy texture that blends naturally with the skin. Just putting your feet in brings warmth all the way to your core, and there's a sense that the fatigue from walking around melts away. Other guests may be in the building, but no voices are heard, only the sounds of the forest. Some rooms come with their own open-air bath, where Takeo Onsen flows continuously into a stone-built tub. A sauna is also on-site, and the cold plunge bath uses water cooled from this same spring source. This is a facility where the local onsen is used down to every corner of the bathing area.
Availability and rates are shown on each booking site.
This page contains affiliate links. Booking through them costs you nothing extra.
If you found yourself wanting to go
JAPAN'S FINEST ONSEN & SAUNA
Japan's Finest Onsen & Sauna
64 SELECTIONS
Every list of Japan's baths looks the same, and none of them tells you which one to build a trip around. Inside are the places the editor bathed in himself, and others chosen through our own reporting — kept not for their star ratings, but because he would go back.
Open the magazine, freeThis place's pages are free to read
Saga Tara Town
A Grand Bath Where the Ariake Sea Unfolds Like a Mural the Moment You Open the Door
A weakly alkaline cold mineral spring that rises from the foot of Mount Tara. It is colorless, transparent, odorless, and tasteless, yet the water feels soft and gentle on the skin. The bathwater, filling tubs made of bluish Towada stone, creates a quiet beauty reminiscent of the sea. In the large panoramic bath, which faces the ebb and flow of Ariake Sea and Mount Fujien, you can soak at leisure while enjoying the scenery. The hot spring gently balances the circulation boosted by sauna and the cold plunge bath, and may help with neuralgia, frozen shoulder, chronic digestive pain, sensitivity to cold, and recovery from fatigue. After bathing, your body stays warm from the core and a deep sense of relaxation lingers.
Editors' comment
Open the door to the large communal bath, and the Ariake Sea appears directly ahead like a mural. The mildly alkaline cold spring water, welling up from the foot of Mount Tara, is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, but once it fills the bluish Towada-stone bath, the water's surface reflects the color of the sea. The water feels soft against the skin, and a lasting warmth remains in the body even after getting out. Tara Town has such a large tidal range that it's known as the town where you can see the moon's gravitational pull. Even while soaking, the tide shifts and the angle of light changes, so the same view never returns. Mount Fugen stands directly ahead. There's a sauna as well. Reservations are required, and only five people can enter per time slot.
Availability and rates are shown on each booking site.
This page contains affiliate links. Booking through them costs you nothing extra.
If you found yourself wanting to go
JAPAN'S FINEST ONSEN & SAUNA
Japan's Finest Onsen & Sauna
64 SELECTIONS
Every list of Japan's baths looks the same, and none of them tells you which one to build a trip around. Inside are the places the editor bathed in himself, and others chosen through our own reporting — kept not for their star ratings, but because he would go back.
Open the magazine, freeThis place's pages are free to read
Chosen by our editors from facilities that have granted us publication permission. We do not rank them.
JAPAN'S FINEST ONSEN & SAUNA
Japan's Finest Onsen & Sauna
64 SELECTIONS
Most of what we surveyed never made it onto this site. This is a further cut from what did — places the editor bathed in himself, and places chosen through our own reporting.
